Posts for 'Creator Economy'

Two horror movies created by young YouTubers are dominating the box office. Both were made for small sums by Hollywood standards and are attracting overwhelmingly young audiences. Is this the start of a trend for YouTubers going Hollywood, or more of a one-off?

Next, TV OS’s continue to gain in their role of driving viewers to content, according to TiVo’s new Video Trends report. Other new research shows FASTs are still growing revenue, even as ad-supported premium SVOD gains a larger share. 

Last, the NFL’s media rights deals are coming under scrutiny from Congress. Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked to testify about the various streaming deals the NFL has struck, but declined to appear.
    
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Antenna reported that ESPN and Fox One gained one million subscribers in their first 10 days, with ESPN gaining the majority. Colin and I discuss whether that’s a lot, or not. We continue to be challenged to understand just how big the target market is for these two sports streaming services. Antenna also said 60% of Fox One’s subscribers came in via Amazon, underscoring its importance to the ecosystem. 

Meanwhile YouTube held its annual “Made on YouTube” event, where it disclosed it has paid out a whopping $100 billion to creators in the past four years. We wonder how that compares to what TV networks and studios have paid out to their creators over the same period? YouTube also shared a number of product updates. 

Last, we delve into ongoing innovations at Amazon and - given its aggressiveness and heft - speculate on whether Super Bowl LXXV in 2041 will actually be known as “Amazon Super Bowl LXXV” (not that far-fetched).

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First up this week, YouTube continued its strong ad revenue growth in Q2 2025, with revenue rising 13% to $9.8 billion, ahead of its forecast. There’s plenty of growth still ahead as Shorts gain traction, advertisers tap conversion opportunities and AI permeates both content and monetization. 

Meanwhile Samsung signed a number of creators to put original content on its Samsung TV Plus FAST service. But as we discuss, there seems to be a looming decision for creators whether they should simply focus on their YouTube channels as YouTube becomes increasingly dominant on TV screens. 

Last but not least, we dig into the challenges that both HGTV and Peacock are experiencing. 

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In concert with its Made on YouTube event, YouTube unveiled a slew of innovations aimed at enhancing creators’, viewers’ and advertisers’ experiences. Potentially the most high impact is a revamp of its CTV app which will offer “immersive previews” of creator content, modeled on best practices of SVOD apps like Netflix. Creators will also be able to customize how they categorize and organize their episodes in the app. With CTV accounting for at least 40% of YouTube’s views, optimizing the CTV app is critical.

YouTube also updated a number of relatively new AI-powered tools, including “Dream Screen,” which generates backgrounds in YouTube Shorts and a 6-second clip generator, both using Veo, which is DeepMind’s video AI technology, plus a refreshed Inspiration Tab to help brainstorm new video ideas.

Also new is the launch of Communities which allows engagment within the creator’s channel, pulling into YouTube discussions already happening in other social platforms. The feature builds on commenting, which has long been available in YouTube.

YouTube also confirmed broad availability of Pause ads, long in use by others like Hulu, which are likely to get a strong reception.

Many of the features are described in this post.   

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