Queer Producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato Grew Streamer WOW Presents Plus by Gut Checks Not Algorithms

Over its 16-season run, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has become a cultural phenomenon and a ratings winner for MTV. Executive producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato and their production company World of Wonder have won 10 combined Primetime Emmys for “Drag Race” and its offshoot “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked!,” and they’re up again for Emmys on Monday.

But don’t let their mainstream success fool you. The producers insist they’re still governed by the same queer, by-the-boostraps instincts that led them to RuPaul Charles’ drag queen competition in the first place.

That’s one of the benefits of still being a “fiercely independent” production company, Barbato told TheWrap. The LGBTQ-focused production company founded in 1991 has made a name for itself in the documentary and unscripted space, spotlighting talent and stories that are often by and for LGBTQ+ audiences. Yes, that predominantly includes “Drag Race,” but they also partner with distributors like HBO (Carrie Fisher biopic “Wishful Drinking”), OWN (the thrice Emmy-nominated “Becoming Chaz”) and others.

Its streaming arm, WOW Presents Plus, launched six years ago and currently houses over 200 original programs.

“We’re one of the few companies our size that still exist in Hollywood that’s independent,” Barbato said. “And part of the joy of that is that we answer to ourselves.”

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 16 premiered its first half on Jan. 5, with the second half to air on MTV Friday. The show, which pits the nation’s top drag queens against one another in a series of challenges and lip-synchs, scored its highest TV share for any season premiere in franchise history, up 4% from last season, according to Nielsen data. “Drag Race” and “Untucked!” are nominated at Monday’s Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Reality Competition Program and Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program categories.

Still, the producers said that numbers are not guiding their creative decisions.

“We’re not that algorithmically led,” Bailey said. “Obviously research and data are important, but to some extent, that is always looking in the rearview mirror — what stuff has done rather than what will work. I don’t personally believe that audiences are so easily programmed as to just be reduced to a demographic and an algorithm. So we just follow our noses or follow our instincts.”

That’s especially seen on WOW Presents Plus, where the producers create a “fundamentally different space” on the streamer with an expansive set of “thrifty,” limited-budget talk shows and reality series — many adjacent to “Drag Race,” but others increasingly unrelated. The production house’s YouTube channel, which runs some of the streamer’s originals, reaches 1.9 million subscribers with over 5,000 videos. Its WOW Presents Plus offerings are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 per year.

The platform is known for its consistently viral hits like “UNHhhh” with Katya Zamolodchikova and Trixie Mattel, “Fashion Photo RuView,” “Werq the World” and “Painted With Raven” — a mix of talk show formatted series with fan-favorite “Drag Race” alum, original competition series and behind-the-scenes, day-in-the-life docu-series of drag queens on the go.

WOW Presents Plus is also the main streaming home for all international iterations of “Drag Race,” from Canada to Brazil to Holland to the Philippines.

WOW Presents Plus’ expanding roster of series appears to be paying off. The streamer delivered a 40% leap in subscribers from 2022 to 2023 across 190 territories around the world. (The company did not disclose subscriber figures.) Looking ahead, WOW continues to build on its “Drag Race” brands while introducing its audience to new programs like stand-up comedy series “House of Laughs” or “Grag Hearts Drag,” its first non-English language series.

“Ultimately, there will be scripted,” Barbato said. “But we just need a little bit more cash for that.”

Read on for the WOW cofounders’ full Office With a View interview with TheWrap.

Forty percent growth in 2022 — how do you do something like that?
Randy Barbato: How did we do that? It’s like we do everything else.

Fenton Bailey: Put our trousers on one leg at a time.

RB: You know, we’ve increased our original content by 16%, so part of it is just growing the content on the platform. We obviously also have been growing “Drag Race” around the globe…And then bit by bit, we’ve just been stocking the shelves with original stuff that’s drag-adjacent.

We’ve always felt that people have underestimated the audience for this show, not just in America, but around the world. It’s much broader than the perception that, yeah, it’s queer. But everyone’s queer, because to be queer is to be an outsider, and that’s who identifies with this show. That’s who this show is about, and we’ve always felt that that was an underestimated formula for mainstream success.

FB: World of Wonder goes a lot by gut in that we do the things that excite us and interest us and bring us joy.

RB: We at WOW Presents Plus are not slaves to the algorithm!

FB: And the other thing I’ll just add — they’ll say, you know, “Well, did you have any idea that ‘Drag Race’ would succeed this way?’ Drag isn’t a niche thing. Drag is an art form like poetry or painting or sculpture. Why would it necessarily be seen as this thing over here that only could works for these few people? We’re seeing that. This is a show that’s 15 years young because I feel like people are coming around to it and realizing that you don’t have to be gay to watch “Drag Race.”

When we are talking about the demographics of WOW Presents Plus, what does that breakdown look like? Obviously gay men … 
FB: Not obviously gay men. Predominantly women.

RB: And multigenerational. It’s like “The Gilmore Girls.” Moms and their daughters watch “Drag Race” and are part of the WOW Presents Plus family. It’s weird. Like, we first became aware of that at the first DragCon. We did the stats, and there were more women there than men.

How have you managed that diversity and growth within your audience? 
RB: Part of it is that we are fiercely independent … You know, we need to be super thrifty when we’re producing content for WOW Presents Plus. And when we produce that content, we let it breathe. A lot of other outlets, there’s so much pressure on the numbers when you put something out that you put it out and then it’s bye-bye after the third episode. Sometimes things don’t even get to live on a platform because they’ll write it off. We’re not really interested in that. We let things live and we do them over and over again and we let them grow. That’s partly out of necessity, but it also feels like the way it should be.

That’s how “Drag Race” became so successful. We were fortunate enough to be able to produce it super cheaply and to have partners at Paramount who were generous enough to help it grow. And so that’s the way we’ve been growing WOW Presents Plus. It’s attracted growth in the audience because whether it’s “Unhhhhh” or whether or it’s “Fashion Photo RuView,” these shows that are built on a budget have grown every year.

FB: Or “Chill With Phil,” our new show. He knits! He’s a crochet artist from down under.

RB: We’re dipping our toes in slow TV.

I was going to say, talk about a low cost program!
FB: It’s really lovely, actually.

For non-“Drag Race” programming, what are the touchstones of WOW that you’re looking for those series to hit? 
RB: We are growing out from “Drag Race” or drag-adjacent — “House of Laughs” is a great example. Our doc shelf will get much more robust. We have four big docs in production right now that may exist on another platform but will always ultimately end up living at WOW Presents Plus. And a lot of that stuff, whether it’s “Party Monster” or “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” or “Miss Navajo,” they’re not really drag-adjacent.

What does the barometer of renewal vs. cancellation look like on your end? You’re giving series room to breathe, but when it comes down to it, there’s still a business model. 
FB: I understand the question, but it’s funny because it’s not quite how we operate. We’re committed to things and believe in them. Things do take time to find an audience, in so many respects. To me the idea of whether something finds an audience or doesn’t find an audience is not the basis or the criteria that should be used for whether you renew something or not. It’s not what we do.

RB: A lot of times, the barometer is whether the kids at World of Wonder get excited when they’re watching it.

FB: It’s the Marie Kondo principal: Does it bring us joy? It it brings us joy, we’ll find a way to do it. And we can’t always do everything that we want to do because resources are finite, but that’s about the only factor.

I totally recognize how the industry works in terms of renewals, and it’s like, you live or die by the ratings. And in a way, there’s just a hint of desperation in that. “Oh my god, the ratings are down!” It just is sort of a chest-tightening panic, which always accompanies us when we launch a new series, because we do a lot of new series with Bravo or Sundance or HBO. And what is lovely about WOW Presents Plus is that we don’t have to be like, “Oh my God! Did people watch it over night?” We’re in a fundamentally different space where we can quietly go about pleasing ourselves. Audiences are grateful for that, as opposed to being programmed to and algorithmically and demographically battery farmed. That’s not who people are.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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