True crime YouTube channel made popular by the Depp v. Heard trial is acquired by Jellysmack

Jellysmack, a startup that helps video creators manage and grow their online catalogs, has announced its acquisition of Law&Crime Network, the true crime and legal drama media company made popular by the Depp v. Heard defamation trial in 2022.

Media coverage of the acquisition — which is said to value the network in the nine-figure range — has focused on the deal's significance to the legacy of the network's founder, legal analyst Dan Abrams, and to Jellysmack's expanding true crime portfolio.

But the deal is also a significant development in the growing market that broadcasts legal drama for profit.

SEE ALSO: The bitter, banal, and bizarre YouTube circus of Depp v. Heard

Though Law&Crime opened its YouTube channel in 2015, approximately 4 million of its 5.3 million subscribers joined after the channel began its live coverage of the Depp v. Heard defamation trial in April 2022 (per SocialBlade). The trial, which was livestreamed on Law&Crime's YouTube channel, was a boon for the network and earned it more than 2 million subscribers over April and May of 2022 alone.

View and subscriber counts for Law and Crime, per SocialBlade. Both number spiked in April and May of 2022 as the channel broadcast the Depp v. Heard trial. Credit: SocialBlade

Law&Crime's livestreams of the trial, which also included analysis by hosts and reporters, regularly drew more than 300,000 concurrent viewers. An accompanying live chat enabled those tuning in to discuss the trial and take sides, most often against Heard, as they watched it unfold in real-time.

These viewers also helped turn sound bites from the trial into wildly popular memes on other platforms. For example, Depp's mocking of the defense's use of the term "megapint" (a term that Depp himself coined while on the stand in his earlier libel lawsuit against The Sun) was mimicked in the chat before being widely shared across other social media platforms and milked for profit by enterprising sticker sellers on platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Etsy.

SEE ALSO: The 23 best true crime documentaries on Max

Law&Crime made money from the Depp v Heard trial in several significant ways. Through livestreaming, the channel leveraged a YouTube tool that enabled viewers to pay to have their comments highlighted in the live chat. Once the court had wrapped for the day, Law&Crime divided the hours-long streams into dozens of smaller clips that were viewed millions of times by viewers unable to catch the proceedings as it unfolded. These on-demand videos brought in ad revenue around the clock and are still among the channel's most viewed videos.

A press release from Jellysmack noted that it would focus on expanding the company's production arm, which produces "premium true crime content and programming with partners including Hulu, Netflix, HBO, A+E Networks, Discovery ID, Fox, and many more." The studio’s latest HBO docu-series, Unveiled: Surviving La Luz Del Mundo, was recently nominated for an Emmy.