Exclusive: The Daily Wire to debut new docuseries on X
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Candace Owens at Manitowoc County Courthouse in Manitowoc, Wis., on April 19, during the filming for the "Convicting a Murderer" docuseries. Photo: Gregory Woodman for DailyWire+.
The Daily Wire, a conservative media and entertainment company, will debut its first full-length docuseries Sept. 8 on X, three months after the controversial posting of its documentary "What is a Woman?" to the platform.
Why it matters: The Daily Wire's high-profile dispute with X, then called Twitter, over content moderation issues in June briefly called into question whether Musk would be able to continue to attract conservative media partners.
Details: The new true-crime docuseries, called "Convicting a Murderer," is narrated by the Daily Wire's popular podcaster and video personality Candace Owens.
- The first episode of the 10-part series will premiere on X on Sept. 8 at 9pm ET and will be free to watch for all users, a spokesperson told Axios. The video will remain on the platform free on demand indefinitely.
- The second episode will be available for free on DailyWire+, the Daily Wire's subscription video platform. All other episodes (3–10) will only be available behind a paywall to DailyWire+ subscribers.
The Daily Wire plans to spend six figures on X to promote the debut video, which will have a live event page dedicated to it on X. The spend will go toward buying out the event page and potentially more ads to promote it.
- With the live event page, the Daily Wire will be able to select a certain number of handles whose tweets about the video will be featured.
- The X premiere is being treated like a major tune-in event for the series.
- For 10 hours beginning at 4pm CT on Sept. 8, an ad will appear in the feeds of all U.S. X users, inviting them to visit the dedicated event page and set a reminder for the event premiere at 9pm ET.
Between the lines: The Daily Wire is putting more of its content on X amid frustrations with YouTube over content moderation. A spokesperson also noted that the company believes X is a better platform for driving a national conversation.
- In April, Daily Wire show host Matt Walsh was demonetized on YouTube for violating its policies with comments about transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
- In May, the Daily Wire put its entire slate of podcasts, which are almost all recorded as videos, on Twitter.
- While the first episode of the new Candace Owens series will be available on YouTube the following day after it appears on X, the X premiere is meant to be the focal point of the launch.
- Still, the Daily Wire has reserved an expensive YouTube home page takeover ad buy to promote the first episode of the series on Sept. 9, the day after the first episode streams on X.
Catch up quick: "Convicting a Murderer" is less controversial than the documentary the Daily Wire debuted on the platform in June.
- Employees at Twitter initially rejected the Daily Wire's push to place its controversial documentary called "What Is a Woman?" on its platform because it violated it's content moderation policies.
- Musk later tweeted that the decision internally was a mistake and that the controversial film — which explores topics related to transgenderism, puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery — could remain.
- He also endorsed the film, posting, "Every parent should watch this." The movie went on to amass 188 million "views" — or impressions — before the Daily Wire took it off the platform and put it behind its paywall on DailyWire+.
The big picture: The docuseries premiere represents new efforts by X to work with media partners to stream long-form video.
- In June, Apple TV+ put the entire first episode of its science-fiction drama Silo on Twitter for free.
- Twitter Blue subscribers, now called X Premium subscribers, were allowed to upload long-form videos in May.
- Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson began airing videos for his new show on Twitter in June.
