Yeah Mad or YeahMadTV is an Australian media company founded by Ben McCarthy in March 2023. The company earned popularity for sharing humorous entertaining videos across YouTube and major social platforms.
They came up with engaging series such as Dad Jokes, Drinking Charades, Pictionary, and much more. Since its inception, the channel has grown to over 2 million subscribers with its video content viewed over 400 million times on YouTube.
Active cast members
Since the founding of Yeah Mad, only two of the original seven-member cast stuck with the company as of now. They are Sath and Matty Penglase.
Sath
Sath whose full name is Sath Nadesan is a Sydney-based comedian. He pursued a career in standup comedy. As he wasn’t quite popular, he used to work side jobs to make additional income to sustain himself financially.
In 2022, he traveled all the way to Sri Lanka to spend a few months with monks. It was a much-needed change for him as he considers it a “life-changing experience”.
Since coming back to Australia, he found Yeah Mad and quickly became a well-loved face on the channel. Hence, he joined Yeah Mad as a content creator in later 2023.
Matty Penglase
Matty Penglase often referred to as Matt is yet another person from the original cast. He appeared in various series including Dad Jokes on the Yeah Mad channel.
Considering his popularity, he lives a private life. He has a decent following on Instagram where he accumulated almost 50k followers.
The company initially had part-time cast members who were paid per shoot. Upon earning popularity, they signed agreements with the fixed lineup.
Since the break up of the original Yeah Mad cast in April 2024, the founder Ben brought in new talent to the channel. The latest additions include Kirsty Carr, Timmy Dennis, Pat Doherty, Rory Lowe, Peyton Cole, and Katherine Andrews.
With the new lineup, the cast count has increased to 8 members. A majority of the cast members are standup comedians by profession except a few. Timmy is a plumber and director whereas Peyton is an actor, singer, and dancer.
Former members
The original Yeah Mad cast members are most loved among the fans. However, most of them left the group have parted ways. From the original cast, Abby Boom, Samantha Walsh, Akila, Alan Fang, and Andrew Hamilton have left.
While many speculated that they have left due to lower pay. In fact, a person on Reddit shared that the cast was paid only 128 USD per shoot day, and a shoot day included filming of 5-6 episodes that would be aired over the next 4-6 weeks.
Also, the person added that the cast members initially signed a 1-year contract and left the group upon its expiration. The CEO and founder Ben McCarthy stayed calm for almost 2 months before uploading a video explaining the actual story.
In a video on the Yeah Mad channel, he shared many points. The cast was paid $125 – $250 per segment before the YouTube channel got monetized. The cast signed a six-month contract with the flexibility to leave with a 30-day notice in October 2023.
After monetization, the cast was paid $3,285 in June 2023 for a single shoot day. After signing in October, their paycheck increased by 5x to $15,112 in November per shoot. In January 2024, the cast had a single shoot day where they were paid $20,605.
As their contract neared expiration, the cast was offered $194,000 for 6 months for 2-3 shoot days per month. Upon not agreeing to this offer, they were offered $400k – $600k with the same conditions.
This offer was quite generous considering that the company hasn’t broken even yet since its inception. Five out of seven members decided to leave and are assumed to form a separate internet group in the near future.