• Sean Evans criticized advertisers for undervaluing YouTube's 'Hot Ones' compared to shows on TV.
• YouTube is challenging traditional TV, yet some advertisers still ignore it.
• He said 'Hot Ones' success highlights YouTube's influence, despite initial fears of cancellation.

Sean Evans, the host of chicken wing-eating talk show "Hot Ones," said he's "sick of" having to make the case for his popular YouTube series to advertisers who still think of the platform as lesser than TV.

"The hurdle that I think we all want brands to get over is this idea that there's some difference between eyeballs that exist on YouTube versus eyeballs that exist on linear TV," Evans said, speaking on a creator panel presented by YouTube at SXSW.

"It's absolutely worthy of comparison and competition with all of those other shows, and in a lot of ways in those categories, it dunks on those shows," he said. "That's sometimes a hard thing for brands to wrap their heads around, but it's just an observable fact that is plainly obvious, and I'm kind of, like, sick of having to explain that over and over again."

YouTube has become the top TV viewing destination for two years running, according to Nielsen, on the strength of independent creators, increasingly threatening legacy Hollywood players and causing some to play catch up and look for their own creator-fronted shows.

However, some blue-chip advertisers still consider the platform less valuable than traditional TV, owing to its many user-generated videos.

Evans is one of the earliest and most successful YouTubers. Started 10 years ago, "Hot Ones" grew out of Complex Media, which became part of BuzzFeed in 2021. Over the years, it's hosted guests like Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, and Gordon Ramsey. He and an investor group bought First We Feast, the studio behind "Hot Ones," last year from BuzzFeed in an $82.5 million deal.

During the session, Evans expressed his worry about the show being canceled in its early days.

"It wasn't a big hit at first, and I used to joke with Chris [Schonberger, 'Hot Ones' cocreator] all the time about how we're eating this really spicy food and no one cares at all," he said. "If this were on a network or something like that, we probably would have been canceled before we never got a chance to figure out exactly what the show was and what it meant."

He also talked about his passion for reading viewers' comments, which he uses to stay connected to the audience.

"I always go through the comments," he said. "There's Nielsen ratings or whatever, but you don't have that two-way street. That is kind of a drug to me. It's actually a dopamine hit that I really look forward to every week. "

Evans also explained how he prepares for interviews. Depending on the guest, he listens to their music, watches their movies, or reads their books.

"You just dive into the material as much as you can," he said. "After you have kind of an idea of who this person is, see if you can extract an interview of that, and then do a little armchair psychology sit-down with the person."

He also revealed there's no special sauce to dealing with the aftereffects of consuming all the hot wings.

"I just ride it out, you know. I think about, you know, as painful and miserable as it could be sometimes, as uncomfortable as it is, it's a whole lot better than my life before it," he said.

• Disney execs teased upcoming theme park features at SXSW.
• They touted Disney's storytelling and tech collaboration with Robert Downey Jr. and others.
• Disney's parks face competition from Universal's Epic Universe opening in May.

Two years after Disney announced a $60 billion, 10-year expansion of its theme parks and cruise businesses, the entertainment giant is sharing more details about new features coming to its parks.

Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, and Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, appeared onstage in a packed ballroom at Austin's South by Southwest culture festival on Saturday.

They were joined by a parade of other Disney stars, most notably Robert Downey Jr., who is trading in his Iron Man suit for Doctor Doom's uniform in "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars." "Avengers: Doomsday" will hit theaters in May 2026 and "Avengers: Secret Wars" will premiere in May 2027.

Also appearing were "The Mandalorian" creator Jon Favreau and a gaggle of pint-sized droids; Pete Docter, chief creative officer of Pixar; and Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios.

Here are the biggest reveals from Disney's SXSW panel.

Star Wars

Disney shared that Walt Disney World's Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run attraction, where people get to see what it's like to ride in the iconic spaceship, would be getting an upgrade, with "a brand new story" about the film's characters. Execs described how they used artwork from the Star Wars universe to create a "fully immersive experience" where guests "are fully in control of their own destiny."

Execs also hinted that Disney would extend Star Wars and other franchises online with its investment in Epic Games, the creator of "Fortnite." Meanwhile, Star Wars-inspired droids will visit Disney's theme parks in Tokyo, Paris, and Orlando later in the year.

Pixar

Docter shared two projects Pixar has in the works for Disney World: a land inspired by "Monsters, Inc." called Monstropolis and what was touted as Disney's first suspended roller coaster ride, which reimagines one of the movie's scenes.

Another feature based on "Cars" will create an off-road attraction in a spin on the movie, taking riders geyser-dodging over rocky terrain.

Marvel

At Disneyland, the Fantastic Four characters will visit the park this summer. "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" will debut in theaters on July 25 as part of phase six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU. Disney is also doubling the size of its Avengers campus in California with two new attractions — Avengers: Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab.

Avengers: Infinity Defense will let guests battle alongside Black Panther and Ant-Man to fight Thanos.

Downey discussed Stark Flight Lab, an attraction that takes fans into the character's workshop. The actor said he gave Disney's Imagineering team input about the ride, which will now include DUM-E, a nod to Tony Stark's robot assistant in the franchise.

Disney's enduring franchises

Bergman and D'Amaro, along with Dana Walden, Bergman's cochair, have both been floated as potential successors for Disney CEO Bob Iger. Their public appearances are regularly scrutinized for what they imply about who might be ahead in the succession race.

Both men took turns finishing each other's sentences to emphasize that Disney's big, enduring franchises are the product of collaboration across teams and work enabled by technology but rooted in storytelling.

According to Nielsen, Disney's streaming business trails digital giants YouTube and Netflix in terms of viewing time. But none matches Disney's franchise-building ability, which has spawned a diversified global entertainment empire.

"We truly have something for everyone, with so many ways to experience it," D'Amaro said, calling this an "unprecedented era" of creating attractions, shows, and games. "This also has strong connections with our audience, which is so unique to Disney. We're constantly developing new tools that allow us to tell our stories in even more compelling ways."

Disney's behind-the-scenes look comes as one of its largest competitors, Universal, is also expanding domestically. This May, Universal Orlando Resorts' new theme park, Epic Universe, will welcome guests to explore five separate "worlds" — including Super Nintendo World.

Disney executives have navigated questions about how the arrival of Epic Universe could impact the company, including during a 2024 earnings call when CFO Hugh Johnston said it could be "beneficial."

"The early bookings that we have next summer are actually positive," Johnston said.

• Top New York Times editor Joe Kahn says the paper has grown in red states despite partisan division.
• Still, Pew Research shows more than twice as many Democrats (53%) as Republicans rely on the Times.
• Kahn laid out how the Times is trying to build reader trust and why it still has room to grow.

Top New York Times editor Joe Kahn says his paper has seen big growth outside the coasts and has room for more, despite the stark political divide in the US.

Americans vary widely in the news sources they rely on, depending on their politics. A 2024 Pew Research Center report found that even mass news outlets like ABC, CNN, and NPR that consider themselves nonpartisan are much more likely to be favored by Democrats over Republicans for political news. More than twice as many Democrats (53%) as Republicans rely on the Times, per Pew. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's election showed the declining influence of the mainstream media.

That would seem to present a challenge for those legacy outlets to grow their audiences when such a large swath of the country doesn't trust them. According to Gallup, Republicans are about twice as likely (59%) as the general public to distrust the mass media.

Despite that, Kahn said while the Times doesn't collect information on subscribers' political affiliations, it's had significant growth in red states.

"We tend not to target ideologically, but that said, our evidence shows we have significant penetration and readership in counties and parts of America that strongly favored Trump for president," Kahn said. "There are many things we do in our reporting that are of use to people who live all around the country."

A Times rep shared separately that its top 10 states for subscriber growth rates in the past five years were all outside the Northeast and West Coast and that the South was leading the way in audience growth. The Midwest and South — which largely voted for Trump in 2024 — make up 42% of its readership so far this year, the rep said.

The Times has an advantage because it has so many entry points beyond political news. Its remit spans news and lifestyle topics as well as its popular games and cooking apps. The Times has been a rare success story among major news outlets, with subscriber growth making up for essentially flat ad revenue.

"I'm not making a claim that lots of people who are hard-core MAGA right are among the main demo of New York Times readers," Kahn said. "The more people consider themselves partisans, the less likely they are to want to engage with a news brand that isn't aligned with their partisan interest. But I do think those people get a lot more attention than they actually represent."

How the Times is trying to counter declining trust

Kahn also laid out how the Times is trying to grow trust.

Here are a few ways:

• Providing more information about reporters and their expertise
• Encouraging its journalists to address readers directly via short-form video, which also can serve to reach people who aren't reading long-form text
• Looking at expanding its commenting features

While the Times is embracing new ways of doing things to open up its process to readers, Kahn remains firm that reporters shouldn't share their personal political opinions online, though some in the newsroom think it's time to abandon the tradition of appearing objective.

"I'm not interested in what fellow members of my newsroom think personally of the politics of the day," he said. "That's not part of their job and the value we're providing to people journalistically. Their job is to report on and understand and provide insight into the news of the day."

• The mass media faces a trust crisis at the same time it's being targeted by Trump and his allies.
• The NY Times, WSJ, and others tell BI how they're working to connect with audiences across a polarized US.
• Reversing the trend of declining trust will take time and each approach has limitations.

President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly targeted the mainstream press — but their legal and rhetorical attacks are just part of a larger crisis facing the media.

Recent Gallup data shows that trust in mass media is at its lowest level in five decades, with 36% of Americans saying they don't trust it at all.

The erosion of trust is especially concerning for broad-based news outlets that often try to hold power to account while appealing to increasingly polarized audiences across the US.

Top news executives tell Business Insider they're taking concrete steps to connect with audiences by increasing transparency and deepening engagement.

New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn told BI his outlet has moved to provide more information about reporters and their expertise, and has encouraged its journalists to address readers directly on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Kahn said he sees a "growth opportunity" in building relationships between reporters and the audience, particularly through video.

Specifically, he said he's seeking "That more direct relationship that's been more a feature of Instagram and TikTok, where people want to have a direct relationship with creators."

He added that illuminating the human process of reporting could enhance its journalistic value.

"It's not a model of storytelling that's limited to influencers and marketers," he said.

Kahn said the Times is also "actively" considering evolving its comment section, which allows people to weigh in on stories or ask questions.

The Wall Street Journal is likewise trying to nurture its relationship with readers, taking a page from its tech columnist Joanna Stern, who has a popular newsletter and video series. The outlet has started to put more journalists in front of the camera, doing Q&As and explainer videos.

"We have a number of individual writers and reporters who have a direct relationship with our readers, and I like that and want to encourage more of that," said Charles Forelle, deputy editor in chief of the Journal.

News organizations are examining their editorial mix

Outlets looking to connect with a broad audience are also focused on striking the right mix of stories.

Under Emma Tucker, who became the editor in chief in 2023, the Journal has increased its use of data to better understand what stories people are reading.

"The biggest thing we pay attention to is engagement, which is a proxy for satisfaction: Did you read the thing and spend time with it?" Forelle said.

Other papers are trying to broaden their audience through changes to the editorial product. The Los Angeles Times' owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, has called for a more balanced approach to covering Trump and hired conservatives to reshape the opinion section. Jeff Bezos has also said he wants to hire more conservative opinion writers at The Washington Post and focus more on free markets and personal liberties. Both of those moves have been met with considerable backlash in those newsrooms and with some paying readers, however.

Then there's leaning into local news, the one area of the media ecosystem that's a bright spot on the trust meter.

Since 2023, NBC News has been collaborating more closely with its over 200 affiliates and over 40 local stations. The result has been the network and affiliates teaming up on big breaking news stories like the Los Angeles fires and recent plane crashes, local TV reporters going on national shows like "Meet the Press" and "Dateline," and local and national desks cross-promoting each other.

In one example, NBC News enlisted dozens of its local stations to report about the nationwide availability of Narcan, a narcotics overdose treatment.

It's not hard to see a day when NBC News could cede coverage of a big local story entirely to a local station.

"Local TV is there, it's alive and well," said Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial at NBC News, who has been charged with carrying out the integration. "People depend on it for safety. People have relationships with their sportscaster, their weather person. Local is more trusted than any other form of media. We're cognizant and respectful of it. And it's something we're actively building on."

Separately, some news organizations are investing in marketing campaigns that highlight their value and how they do the work of journalism. The BBC recently released a short film showing how it fights disinformation. Hearst Newspapers just announced a new campaign, starting with the San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle, that promotes its local papers' role in keeping people informed.

Mass media is under assault

Mainstream outlets are trying to make inroads in trust at a time when they are under threat from a hostile White House and brutal business climate.

Trump and his administration are reviving complaints against TV networks, challenging public news funding, and blocking some outlets from covering events. Surveys show some of the outlets in the crosshairs, like the AP and CBS News, are viewed by the public as nonpartisan.

The end of the monoculture and the shift to digital has also weakened the business models of many news outlets, making it harder for them to fight back.

It's a time of particular flux in TV news as cord-cutting hits networks' bottom line, with leadership changing, anchors exiting, and mergers looming. As some conglomerates mull mergers to survive, the White House could make it more difficult to get those deals through.

On the digital side, advertisers are spending most of their budgets with Google and Meta, and some are avoiding news altogether out of fear of political backlash.

By now, most news outlets have developed multiple revenue streams from subscriptions, events, e-commerce, and the like to offset their dependence on advertising and support their newsgathering operations.

But people won't pay for news they don't trust it in the first place.

Moving the needle on trust is hard

There's research to back up the strategies newsrooms like the Times and Journal are employing.

The problem is that moving the needle on trust is a slow process and each strategy doesn't work equally with all groups of people.

Some transparency moves only work with people who already are inclined to trust you and can backfire with those who don't, for example, said Nic Newman, a researcher at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Abandon your editorial heritage or change your newsroom makeup too drastically, and in trying to appeal to new people, you risk alienating your base. (The Washington Post lost 75,000 subscriptions after it changed its opinion strategy, on top of an earlier loss of 300,000 after it killed a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris, NPR reported.)

"You have to decide who you want to be trusted by," Newman said.

Bandwidth is another limiting factor. Reporters can only make so many vertical videos on top of everything else they're doing. The Times publishes 200 articles a day, but only a small fraction of them turn into a reporter video.

Legacy newsrooms are also tradition-bound. The Times isn't going to change its social-media policy that bars reporters from sharing their personal political opinions, even though some in the newsroom think it's time to abandon the tradition of appearing objective.

Some analysts and newsroom insiders think mainstream outlets should play to their strengths, even if it means limiting their ambitions.

"Institutional journalism at the moment is definitely being diminished and its trust is being affected," Newman said. "Can that be reversed? It requires a mix of all these things. Not all these things are possible. It requires engaging in community building, which is one thing that influencers are really good at and traditional media is not."

Many news execs believe there's still the opportunity to grow and reach new audiences. Pew Research Center data published in October showed, for example, that younger Republicans were more likely than their older counterparts to turn to CNN, the Times, and other mainstream outlets for election news.

Kahn said there are many curious readers that the Times hasn't reached yet. A Times rep said its top 10 states for subscriber growth rates in the last five years were all outside the Northeast and West Coast and that the South is leading the way in audience growth. The Midwest and South — which largely voted for Trump in 2024 — make up 42% of its readership so far this year, the rep said.

Still, Pew found more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans rely on the Times for political news.

"I'm not making a claim that lots of people who are hard-core MAGA right are among the main demo of New York Times readers," Kahn said. "The more people consider themselves partisans, the less likely they are to want to engage with a news brand that isn't aligned with their partisan interest. But I do think those people get a lot more attention than they actually represent."

• Amazon's video ads VP laid out his plan to grow TV ad share, including a new ad buying and planning tool.
• He said Amazon is prioritizing ad performance over "public bragging rights."
• Amazon faces stronger competition for streaming ads as rivals grow live sports and TV viewership.

Amazon led the way in bringing live sports to streaming and disrupted the market last year when it rolled out ads by default to its Prime Video viewership. But it's facing stronger competition in 2025 from Netflix, Google-owned YouTube, and more.

One advantage Amazon still has is its massive scale and trove of data.

Krishan Bhatia, the NBCUniversal vet who was tapped as VP of ad sales for Prime Video last year, said reach was "fundamental" — especially when using "data and targeting to optimize against audience segments."

Amazon touts a reach of 115 million monthly ad-supported viewers on Prime Video, which grows to 175 million when the rest of its TV offering is included.

Another core part of Bhatia's pitch is making it easier to buy advertising across that audience. To help grow its share of advertisers' budgets, Amazon is rolling out a new tool called Complete TV. This tool lets advertisers view data from their streaming TV ad buys across Amazon and its competitors in one place. Complete TV can then give them AI-generated recommendations for how to spend more of their budgets (with Amazon, presumably).

Bhatia spoke ahead of planned pitches scheduled with ad holding companies the week of March 3.

Amazon's pitch may not satisfy some TV advertisers, who have told BI they don't want to be limited to using Amazon's ad-buying tech, which they say prevents them from holistically measuring their spending across media companies, although Complete TV pitches itself as solving for that request. They asked for anonymity when discussing business deals; their identities are known to BI.

Advertisers still question who's watching

Bhatia talked up Amazon's live sports prowess, bolstered by the addition of the NBA this year, plus its customer data and ability to tie ads to outcomes.

But beyond sports, Prime Video has more to prove to advertisers who want to be associated with shows people are passionate about. Amazon's share of TV viewing, at 3.7% in January, trails YouTube, Netflix, and Disney. It has broadly popular shows but hasn't had a mega hit with the cultural impact of Netflix's "Squid Game" or "Stranger Things."

Bhatia pointed to the action TV series "Reacher" and sci-fi drama "Fallout" as examples of Amazon's popular entertainment.

"I think everyone wants to have hits," he said. "There's no question about that. I think we've had our share of hits and our studio teams and content programming teams continue to be focused on finding great IP that scales in the US and scales globally as well."

Bhatia said Amazon is working to develop more audience insights for advertisers but that it wouldn't match Netflix in publicizing comprehensive viewership stats for shows and movies.

"When we serve the customer, we talk about the data that matters," he said. "And they understand the performance, they understand the reach, they understand the audience insights that we're delivering to them. That's more important than the public bragging rights that may come along with them."

However, some advertisers tell BI they still want more data from streamers generally — particularly around which shows their ads appear on — similar to what they get on linear TV.

Amazon also touts as a selling point that it relies less on interruptive formats by using shopping carousels and AI tools to soup up its ad targeting abilities.

"We've been committed from the outset to keep the interruptive ad load to a minimum," Bhatia said. "That means that you're going to have a lower interruptive ad load on average. It's a balancing act, but our strategy is to have a diverse set of ad experiences that do not just rely on growing 15 and 30-second commercials."

Amazon faces tougher competition in 2025

Amazon pulled in $3.8 billion in streaming video revenue last year, to Netflix's $1.5 billion, EMARKETER estimated.

But it faces increased competition.

Netflix is making ads a bigger part of its growth plan and has shown it can convene large live audiences with two Christmas Day NFL games and the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson boxing match late last year. YouTube has user data that rivals Amazon and has been the top TV viewing destination for two years running. Disney now has more TV viewing share than Amazon across Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu combined.

Ad insiders say thanks in part to Amazon flooding the market and driving down rivals' prices, buyers have more places to go and expect still more bargains — which they expect to use to extract further price cuts.

• Jeff Bezos unveiled sweeping changes to The Washington Post's opinion pages.
• Coverage will now center around two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.
• The search for a new opinions editor has begun after David Shipley stepped away, Bezos said.

Jeff Bezos unveiled sweeping changes to The Washington Post's opinion page in a note to staff that he also shared on X.

"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets," Bezos wrote. "We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

Bezos, who owns the Post, said there's no longer a need for "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views" because of the internet.

"I am of America and for America, and proud to be so," he wrote. "And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else."

As part of the overhaul, Bezos said that opinions editor David Shipley is stepping away from the paper, and that the search is on for a replacement.

Will Lewis, publisher and CEO of the Post, echoed Bezos' view in his own staff memo.

"This is not about siding with any political party," Lewis wrote in a memo shared with Business Insider. "This is about being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper."

While newspaper owners generally set the direction of opinion pages, the shift prompted some fierce criticism.

Martin Baron, who was executive editor of the Post from 2013 to 2021, emailed BI that he was "sad and disgusted" by Bezos' action, calling it counter to his history of standing up for editorial independence at the Post while Baron was there.

"Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section," Baron wrote. "It was only weeks ago that The Post described itself as providing coverage for 'all of America.' Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does."

Chief economics reporter Jeff Stein wrote on X that the move was a "massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post's opinion section."

"Makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there," he wrote.

A current Post staffer on the news side told BI that there was "a lot of tension in the newsroom that we're next."

"Top editors are reminding us that so far there hasn't been any interference in the newsroom," this person said. They asked for anonymity in discussing internal matters; their identity is known to BI.

The staffer also said Bezos's heavy-handed messaging felt like a first, likening it to "a proclamation coming down from high."

This new shake-up comes after a series of controversies at the Post.

In October, the Post made waves when it opted not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election — a decision that the Post reported came from Bezos himself.

Following a year of internal turmoil, hundreds of Post staffers sent Bezos a letter in January asking him to intervene after integrity and transparency issues — far beyond the endorsement controversy, the letter said — had precipitated staff departures.

The Los Angeles Times has also been roiled by controversy after its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, became more involved in the paper's opinion section. Before the presidential election, he stopped the paper from endorsing then-VP Kamala Harris. He also said the paper had moved too far to the left and called for a more balanced approach to covering President Donald Trump.

In his second term, Trump has put greater pressure on the mainstream US news media. His administration has opened investigations into news organizations and thwarted some outlets' access to covering events.

Here's the note that Bezos shared with staff in full:

I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.

I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't "hell yes," then it had to be "no." After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won't be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.

I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void.

Jeff

• Amazon is set to unveil an AI-enhanced Alexa upgrade that could boost publisher exposure.
• Amazon is negotiating licensing deals with publishers for the new feature, people familiar told BI.
• Some publishers are banking on exposure via Alexa as traffic from other tech platforms has declined.

Amazon is expected to unveil an AI-enhanced upgrade to its Alexa voice tech at an event in New York on Wednesday, and some publishers hope it will lead to broader exposure for their outlets.

As part of the work behind the scenes, Amazon is hammering out licensing deals with publishers to showcase their news and information in the feature, two people familiar with the talks told Business Insider. They asked for anonymity to discuss private deals; their identities are known to BI. Axios previously reported that Amazon had been reaching out to publishers.

Amazon has also held talks with companies such as Uber, Instacart, and Ticketmaster for the feature, BI previously reported.

Under the proposed terms of these new media deals, users of Amazon devices could hear content from a publisher read aloud when they ask Alexa for information on an Echo smart speaker, or see publisher citations with links on the Echo Show, the version with a screen.

Some publishers told BI they hoped the upgrade would be a big improvement over their earlier experience with Amazon's voice assistant. Alexa, which launched in 2014, hasn't lived up to expectations in recent years, as BI has previously reported. Publishers and other companies were encouraged to create Alexa skills, or shortcuts that let users perform tasks like shopping or getting news, but engagement with them was generally poor.

Publishers see an opportunity here, even if smart speakers have underwhelmed as a category. Facebook and Google search have deprioritized news, and publishers are looking for traffic anywhere they can get it. According to Amazon, Alexa is installed on more than 100 million devices, a sizable audience for publishers to get in front of.

One publishing exec told BI that Amazon was paying "good" but not significant money to feature publisher content, but stressed that the biggest benefit was the ability to up their exposure in Amazon's sprawling ecosystem.

AI deals have been a way for publishers to offset declines in audience and advertising while letting AI companies use their content to answer queries and train their tech. OpenAI, for example, has signed deals with companies like News Corp. and Business Insider parent Axel Springer.

• Amazon is testing a program that pays publishers to drive traffic to its platform.
• It could be a welcome new source of revenue for a challenged digital media sector.
• The program's incentives could test publishers' editorial integrity, though.

Amazon is testing a new way to pay publishers for driving traffic to its platform, and it could be a bright spot for the challenged digital media industry.

Under the pilot, called NCA, or native commerce advertising, the publisher earns money when it drives readers to Amazon through product recommendations, regardless of whether they end up buying the product or not, three people familiar with the program told Business Insider. These people requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the program; their identities are known to BI.

CNN, Vox Media, and tech publisher Future are among the publishers participating in the NCA pilot. Amazon plans to roll it out more fully this year.

Amazon is pitching the NCA program to publishers as a way for them to make additional money on top of its Amazon Associates program, which launched back in 1996. That program lets publishers earn a commission by driving sales from recommended products or services. It pays varying commissions by category, from 3% for toys and furniture to 10% for luxury beauty and up to 20% for Amazon video games.

Publishers can enroll in both programs and make money two ways if the reader completes a purchase.

For Amazon, the NCA pilot is a way to expand its advertising inventory without further cluttering the top of its search results, where sponsored ads have become a common source of user complaints.

Amazon declined to comment.

The jury's out on how well the program will deliver

Affiliate revenue has become a sizable business for many publishers at a time when competition for advertising and subscription dollars is tough, and Amazon is often their top revenue source. The New York Times, in the fourth quarter, reported $95 million in "other revenue," which includes its Wirecutter product recommendation business as well as licensing revenue.

One participating publisher said they were seeing a decent uptick in revenue from the NCA program. But they said the program, at least in its test phase, is complicated to implement. They added that the cost per click varied widely, with rates ranging from 20 to 60 cents, and it was hard to know how lucrative the program would be in the long term.

That variability could present some added risk to publishers.

With NCA, there's an incentive to recommend vendors offering a high cost per click, whether or not their product is the best. Amazon teams have even recommended publishers do so, two people familiar with the program said.

Publishers have dealt with a similar dilemma in the affiliate business more generally. Those with commerce businesses usually share a disclosure saying they may earn money from products they recommend, but that their product recommendations are based on independent research and analysis. Reputable publishers work hard to safeguard their product review editorial teams from the revenue side.

Still, the variability between different products in the same category in NCA is beyond the norm, and could tempt some less scrupulous publishers to take advantage.

Some publishers' affiliate businesses have been under attack

While the money from NCA might not be huge, any new source of revenue is welcome to digital publishers. Many publishers have faced business challenges as Facebook has deprioritized news and tech giants have gobbled up the bulk of the digital advertising pie.

Some publishers' affiliate businesses have also come under attack. Google has cracked down on sites that try to rank high in Google searches by publishing material provided by third parties, such as product reviews and coupons. For example, some of CNN's product recommendations, under CNN Underscored, used to be provided by a company called Forbes Marketplace, which is partly owned by Forbes.

Several publishers saw traffic to their product recommendations pages decline as a result of the crackdown, Adweek reported in November. Some publishers, including Gannett's USA Today, have protested the crackdown, saying it hurts publishers and consumers alike.

• TV companies are helping feed YouTube's growth in long-form viewing.
• Some are distributing full-length episodes and even making originals for the frenemy platform.
• Companies like the UK's Channel 4 and Fremantle are finding new audiences and revenue there.

Many TV companies have stopped trying to fight YouTube and are embracing its rise instead.

TV has become the top place people watch YouTube in the US, beating out mobile and desktop. And increasingly, Hollywood is providing shows for viewers to watch there.

"Long-form content is now crushing on YouTube," media industry analyst Evan Shapiro told Business Insider. "Mainstream media companies are leaning into it by programming YouTube with their existing libraries of long-form TV."

This content ranges from full-length episodes and movies to original shows made for the platform.

Companies in the reality TV and game show space have been particularly active.

British broadcaster ITV recently struck a deal with YouTube to post hundreds of hours of popular shows like "Love Island" and "I'm a Celebrity" on the platform.

The production company Fremantle, known for long-running and popular formats like "The Price is Right" and "Too Hot to Handle," has been expanding its YouTube presence over the past several years and now has 1,500 channels on YouTube and 32 billion views across YouTube and Facebook combined. Unscripted production giant Banijay has 75,000 hours of full-length shows such as "Big Brother" and "Master Chef" on YouTube. And in the past year, the UK's Channel 4 has increased its sharing of full-length episodes of lifestyle shows and documentaries on YouTube.

The moves by media companies have gone beyond lifestyle content.

Warner Bros. Discovery this month began putting "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" episodes on YouTube the day after they air on HBO and Max. Previously, viewers had to wait four days to catch new episodes on YouTube. WBD has also been making older, full-length movies available on YouTube for a few years and recently moved them to its own channel from YouTube's hub of free movies and TV shows to improve their visibility.

In another sign of YouTube's undeniable reach, some companies are even starting to make original shows for the platform.

Paramount Global's Nickelodeon just made its first animated series for YouTube, "Kid Cowboy," and said there would be more to come.

Fremantle has decided to start making originals for YouTube as well. It has two original shows in production, including a comedy video podcast, "High in the Sky," where the hosts riff on conspiracy theories, and several more in the pipeline.

"About 18 months ago, we decided we needed to future-proof ourselves," said Brian Lovett, head of content strategy for Fremantle's original productions. "Cable, broadcast, streaming, are a huge part of our business, and we do that really well. But what else can we do?"

YouTube has become harder to ignore

As YouTube has cemented itself as a destination on TV screens, it's changed the conversation around the platform in Hollywood. YouTube isn't just seen as a place for short, user-generated clips anymore.

The streaming data analysis company Digital i found that videos lasting 30 minutes or more accounted for 73% of total viewing on the platform in the US in October 2024, up 8% from a year earlier.

YouTube isn't the only game in town when it comes to free streaming TV. Publishers are also distributing full-length movies and TV on other free video platforms like The Roku Channel and Fox's Tubi. Some have even experimented with TikTok, which now allows videos up to 60 minutes long. But industry insiders generally say YouTube is the biggest opportunity because companies can easily upload videos there, control their publishing strategy, and reach a vast audience.

YouTube's appeal varies somewhat from publisher to publisher.

Kids media companies like Nickelodeon recognize YouTube is increasingly the platform of choice for their core audiences.

In the case of "Last Week Tonight," a person familiar with the decision said the call to move up the YouTube drops was made to satisfy Oliver. They added that delaying the YouTube release hadn't helped the show's viewership on WBD's own channels anyway. This person asked for anonymity because they weren't publicly authorized to discuss the strategy; their identity is known to BI.

For companies like Fremantle and WBD, with huge catalogs of older shows and movies, YouTube can unearth pockets of viewers for even the most niche shows.

"These are 10-year-old shows that were hugely popular," Lovett said. "Being able to air them on a [free, on-demand streaming] channel gave them a whole new revenue stream. This is pretty much passive income."

YouTube can also help a show find an audience it missed on TV.

Channel 4 put "Huge Homes with Hugh Dennis," where the comedian takes viewers inside big houses, on YouTube after it flopped elsewhere. The audience went bonkers for it on YouTube, and then viewership on streaming ticked up.

YouTube can offer new ad revenue and viewers but can be tricky to navigate

Republishing full-length content successfully on YouTube isn't always quick or easy.

Shows are often tangled up in a knot of local and overseas rights, preventing producers from dropping them straight on YouTube. It also can take a while to figure out how to package up old shows so they land with viewers.

Channel 4 tested for months to hone its strategy. The company bleeped swear words to avoid YouTube's age restrictions and worked to nail titles, thumbnails, and keywords so the platform's algorithm would surface the videos. And it had to curate its vast amount of material for a YouTube audience. It figured out that "blue light" emergency services docs about police and ambulance rescues played well with viewers, for example.

In publishing to YouTube, media companies also have to reckon with the potential loss of licensing or audience revenue. That's why viewers tend to see older shows on YouTube that are of less value to other platforms.

"I would be surprised if any legacy media business was not nervous about this or had any existential crisis," said Matt Risley, managing director of 4Studio at Channel 4. "We discussed it at length."

Despite that, many media companies, including Channel 4, feel they're getting meaningful ad revenue from YouTube and reaching new audiences.

Risley said that, as a premium publisher, the broadcaster is allowed to sell its own ads on YouTube. He said Channel 4 makes up to five times the ad rate that it would get if YouTube sold the ads programmatically, and that publishing across YouTube and other social channels combined is now an eight-figure business for the company.

"This is a way to create a much longer tail for our content," said Matt Creasey, EVP of sales, acquisitions, and coproductions for Banijay Rights. "And advertisers are moving to YouTube as well."

Other companies take a different tack

Disney has made some of its shows available on YouTube, like "Bluey," which was the top pre-schooler channel on the platform in 2024, per Digital i.

But don't expect media giants like Disney or NBCUniversal, which have spent billions to build their own streaming services, to shovel huge swaths of their full-length catalogs on YouTube anytime soon.

And Netflix and Amazon, with deep pockets and big audiences, have taken a different approach to YouTube than some traditional TV rivals. These companies are now licensing or making shows with popular YouTubers for their own platforms.

That said, some media execs say they only see the interplay between YouTube and paid streaming services increasing as the industry matures.

"The audience and power of YouTube is undeniable," Lovett said.

After all, distributing content to different audiences has been a mainstay of media for years. Some Hollywood companies have recently got back into the licensing game in a big way as they hunt for cash, after hoarding their content to power their own streamers. Valuable shows like HBO's "Sex and the City" and Disney's "Grey's Anatomy" are back on Netflix, for example.

Could they one day make their way to YouTube?

• Netflix has increasingly looked to license YouTube content, and it seems to be paying off.
• "Ms. Rachel" recently debuted on Netflix's list of top 10 shows globally.
• Creator content licensing among streamers has often focused on kids' shows but could expand.

So, what's the difference between a YouTube children's show and a Netflix one?

That question has become increasingly difficult to answer in recent months and may be a sign of things to come in other genres.

Netflix's latest creator pact — a four-episode run with YouTube educator Ms. Rachel — looks like an early success, debuting in fifth place on its list of top 10 shows globally with 4 million views. The episodes feature compilations of Ms. Rachel's vast YouTube library.

For years, streamers were hesitant to acquire creator-led shows, said Eyal Baumel, a partner at digital network Yoola, which works with kidfluencers like Like Nastya and Salish Matter.

But Baumel said streamers began to realize that licensing YouTube content could be an inexpensive way to snag shows that came with a built-in audience. Baumel called the success of Netflix's 2020 licensing deal with Cocomelon "a major turning point" that opened the door for future deals. (In addition to Cocomelon, Netflix syndicates content from other hit Moonbug properties like Blippi and Little Baby Bum.)

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently contrasted YouTube fare with the "premium content" that's Netflix's specialty. But in some categories — whimsical kids' content, for example — those lines look a lot less clear.

Netflix declined to comment.

Netflix isn't the only streamer interested in licensing creator content. Baumel said Roku was an early and prolific licensor of creator-led kids' shows.

"Nastya is massive on Roku," he said.

Other streamers that have moved into this space include Hulu, Peacock, and Amazon Kids+.

"The formats of TV are beginning to meld," said Evan Shapiro, a media industry analyst. "More creator stuff is on big platforms because it's working, it's cheap, and you can move the audience around. Users are watching creator-led stuff on TV now."

Streamers are ramping up, but there still could be room to grow

Pocket.watch works with YouTube whizzes like Ryan's World and Love, Diana, and as part of its business, licenses their catalogs to streamers in the form of half-hour episodes.

It started working with Hulu in 2018 and now distributes on 43 streamers in 81 countries.

Pocket.watch SVP and GM of channels, David Williams, said that licensing deals vary in structure — from fixed fee to revenue sharing and other performance-related elements.

Williams said the company vets and optimizes YouTube content for streamers, where parents sometimes feel safer letting their kids watch because the content is curated.

A sign that interest is ratcheting up? Hulu, Peacock, and Amazon Kids+ just expanded their Pocket.watch slates.

"With Hulu, we've done a series of renewals where essentially our number of titles doubled every time," Williams said.

Williams said he felt there was still room to grow, however.

"We've been pushing the boulder up the hill, and there's been a lot of progress, but it doesn't feel quite like a revolution at this point," Williams said.

YouTube licensing could continue to move beyond kids

Though kids' content is the clearest category, it's not the only social-media fare streamers are interested in licensing. In September, Netflix picked up "The Amazing Digital Circus," a dark animated comedy born on YouTube.

Neil Waller, co-CEO of creator talent firm Whalar Group, said studios and streamers are looking at content in many categories, including comedy, horror, food, and travel. He added that they'd generally been interested in shorter-format, episodic shows.

Netflix is also taking a hard look at video podcasts.

In a big change in the past year, Waller said, the media companies' C-suiters are often coming to the meetings — a sign they're taking the space more seriously.

Down the road, it's not hard to imagine a studio or streamer building products or even experiences around creators.

"It's an obvious next place to go," Waller said. "These companies have the experience in making worlds around IP. They also have the distribution relationships. It's a lot of experience that can be brought to the table."

MrBeast does not want you to mistake him for traditional media.

"I do not want to be Hollywood," YouTube's top star wrote in an employee guidebook for his team, adding, "Get rid of Netflix and Hulu and watch tons of YouTube."

The 26-year-old influencer, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, attracted an audience of hundreds of millions of viewers by optimizing for YouTube's algorithm. From posting stunt videos, such as burying himself alive to localizing his content with roughly a dozen channels dubbed in different languages, his ability to draw eyeballs has laid the groundwork for a global media empire. Even after scaling up and signing a deal with Amazon, he's held on to creative control through a hyperfocused founder-mode ethos.

"Obsession: I think that's how you can summarize him," says Brendan Gahan, the founder of the marketing agency Creator Authority. "It's like he can talk about YouTube and very little else. His knowledge base is not typical of most people's; it's very narrow and very deep."

Donaldson's distaste for the conventions of big media companies has gotten him in trouble — accusations of poor conditions on MrBeast production sets and internal staffer misconduct have created serious headaches, which the company recently sought to address through an internal review. The YouTuber scaled up so quickly by "not playing by the rules," as one former staffer told Business Insider. But as traditional media companies lose eyeballs to user-generated-content platforms like YouTube and TikTok, the MrBeast model, untamed as it is, can offer some useful lessons for Hollywood: bring creators into traditional media productions, give them a real stake in the work, allow them to be themselves, and produce content at a pace and style that feeds the appetites of digital audiences.

To get insight into the MrBeast empire, we talked with media executives both in Hollywood and at companies focused on creators, as well as people who have worked directly with Donaldson. We also combed through Donaldson's public statements and internal company documents, including a leaked MrBeast employee guidebook and 163 slides from a set of brand decks included in court filings. From our analysis, we landed on three key insights for traditional media companies trying to adapt to the rapidly changing media landscape. MrBeast's style may not fit the tastes of Hollywood's elite, but they'd better start taking some notes on his successful strategies — or risk getting left behind.

MrBeast is perhaps the most visible face of the creator economy, a fast-growing subset of influencers, vloggers, and media moguls who are taking on — and in some cases blowing past — the traditional entertainment power players. With a total addressable market of $250 billion as of 2023, the creator economy is thought to account for about 10% of the global media and entertainment industry, which includes print media, Hollywood, gaming, music, and more. Meanwhile, moviegoing has been steadily declining for decades in the US: The attendance tracker nScreenMedia found that the average American bought about two movie tickets in 2023, down from five in 2003.

Doug Shapiro, a media industry veteran who's now a senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group, estimates that while the creator media economy is a relatively small portion of the total media and entertainment market, it has accounted for almost half the market's growth. "It's going to be impossible for the traditional media players to maintain their same market share or mindshare in this emerging content economy."

But how? Big media companies' forays into building their own creator networks or making creator-led shows have largely been misses. (See: Disney's ill-fated acquisition of the YouTube network Maker Studios or the poor ratings of the NBC talk show hosted by the online sensation Lilly Singh.) And media companies have been distracted by the collapse of their traditional TV networks and the urgent need for streaming profitability. But in a global fight for eyeballs — especially those of the next generation — both MrBeast and the creator economy more broadly can offer some lessons for traditional Hollywood.

Rethink how you reward talent

For most of their history, Hollywood companies have assumed all the risk — and all the reward — of making entertainment. Talent, for the most part, was paid in a work-for-hire arrangement. Actors showed up, hit their marks, and let the system work its magic. This made sense in a time of sky-high costs just for the equipment required to get anything on film. That's all changed. Nowadays, anyone with an iPhone and a half-decent microphone can become a bona fide star.

Creators like MrBeast have taken on more of the responsibility for creating and distributing their content directly to fans. Instead of being one part of a larger production controlled by a studio, they're the lead actor, producer, director, and studio chief. This comes with more risks if a video flops, but it also gives the new crop of media moguls a greater sense of ownership over their work. In an internal MrBeast production guidebook, which we verified with two former staffers, Donaldson emphasized the importance of this ownership. "This channel is my baby, and I've given up my life for it," he wrote. He advised staffers to "take ownership and don't give your project a chance to fail," adding: "Dumping your bottleneck on someone and then just walking away until it's done is lazy, and it gives room for error."

"YouTubers are so attached to their channels," a second former MrBeast staffer said. "They've built them through blood, sweat, and tears for decades." The staffer, along with other ex-employees in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business relationships. Their identities are known to BI.

With a flood of new tech lowering the cost of content creation, studios should consider sharing more of the rewards with talent and offering them more developmental support. Some Hollywood A-listers have already begun to take new compensation models seriously: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's production company, Artists Equity, is trying to remake the compensation system by giving performers less money upfront in exchange for a potential larger share of a project's post-release profits, among other models. This also creates a symbiotic relationship that can prevent frustrated stars from striking out on their own and heeding the siren call of YouTube.

Sharing some control with stars goes beyond finances. Creators who control their shows can get granular data, such as how many people subscribed to their channel and viewed and liked their videos, allowing them to better understand what their audience is gravitating toward. Legacy media and big tech entertainment companies, on the other hand, keep a tight grip on that information. While some studios may eschew giving up that level of data, younger creators might appreciate more generous information sharing.

"The cool thing about YouTube is they give us super detailed graphs for every video that show the exact second we lose a viewer on every single video," Donaldson wrote in his production guide. "Whether it is production, creative, or editing, you must always know what minute mark the content you are working on is. If you don't, then you're not doing it right."

Take a creator-like approach to content

Hollywood is used to making a movie or a season of a show and then making the audience wait a year or two for the next installation or sequel. Take "House of the Dragon," HBO's "Game of Thrones" spinoff, which was released about three years after the original series ended. That's not ideal for young people who have been conditioned by social media to have an ongoing connection with the creators they follow. Many of these new media figures post weekly or even daily. MrBeast, given his high production costs, posts once or twice a month on his main channel but more regularly uploads other formats, such as YouTube shorts. Corporate media must adapt to young watchers' voracious appetites or risk losing them as their audience.

The easiest place for old-school studios to try out this consistency is with reality TV and game shows — two formats tailor-made for short clips and a high volume of content. Britain's ITV recently struck a deal with YouTube to distribute hundreds of hours' worth of shows, including "Love Island" and "Vera." The deal also called for ITV to create clips, compilations, and fan content around the shows. Lionsgate and Sony are licensing shows and movies to Gaggl TV, a startup that distributes them to creators to watch with their followers on platforms like Amazon's Twitch. Adam Harris, a Gaggl TV cofounder, said this approach had been especially popular with game shows like "The Price Is Right" that have easy-to-follow formats and are interactive.

Going beyond slicing and dicing existing shows, some in Hollywood are casting creators in original programming, blurring the distinction between social stars and traditional stars. Streamers such as Roku and Tubi are making films starring creators (Tubi's "Sidelined," for example, includes the TikToker Noah Beck) that can help them connect with young audiences.

"Over the last six months, the interest from platforms in top creators has undergone a total reversal," says David Freeman, head of digital media at CAA, the powerful talent agency. "From 2014 to 2020, it was nearly impossible to get their attention. Now they understand the undeniable need to cater to Gen Z — and that means creators have to be part of the next generation of IP."

As more digital streaming platforms start to look like YouTube, with thumbnails and recommendations for other videos, traditional media will also need to embrace some of the tricks that have helped creators maintain attention.

"Traditional media doesn't think about the fact that if your first 30 seconds suck, people will click away," the first former MrBeast staffer said. They added that directors would have to relinquish some creative flexibility in order to optimize their videos.

"This is the era of retention farming," the second ex-MrBeast employee said.

Stay true to the creator

While Hollywood has occasionally taken this advice and cast social media superstars like Lilly Singh and the D'Amelios in their own shows, it often makes the mistake of trying to fit these new-school personalities into an old-school format — a late-night talk show in Singh's case, or reality in the case of "Inside Eats with Rhett and Link."

Instead of trying to bring in new voices to enliven creaky concepts, Hollywood should expand its notion of what a show can look like. In 2014, Jonathan Skogmo's media company, Jukin Media, sold a version of its popular YouTube bloopers show, "FailArmy," to Fox. Skogmo says it worked because instead of trying to copy the network version of the format, Jukin hewed to the original more unpolished style. "We took what we did on YouTube and made a 20-minute show," he says.

In short, if you bring a creator like MrBeast to a traditional platform, let them be themselves (while making sure their set is up to code).

"If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it's just simply not going to happen," Donaldson wrote in his internal production guide. "I'm willing to count to one hundred thousand, bury myself alive, or walk a marathon in the world's largest pairs of shoes if I must. I just want to do what makes me happy and ultimately the viewers happy."

Traditional media companies must also let creators work authentically, even if it means spending more money than a budget-conscious production normally would. The former MrBeast staffers described that costs-are-no-object attitude as central to the MrBeast growth story.

Members of the MrBeast team "hold themselves accountable to making the best version of a thing," the first former staffer said. "They really care about doing shit right."

Hollywood doesn't need to adopt the creator approach wholesale — the new school can pick up a few things from the old school, too. Online media stars are increasingly professionalizing their output with help from Hollywood-trained talent and riffing on tried-and-true entertainment formats to make shows that could be at home on the big screen.

For a hit video inspired by the competition show "Big Brother," the YouTuber Airrack invited 25 strangers to compete in challenges in his house over two days; it got 22 million views. And industry watchers say Amazon's "Beast Games," the competition show hosted by Donaldson and his crew which capitalized on his fame to become the service's most-watched unscripted series ever, is just the beginning of a tighter merging of worlds. Netflix recently greenlighted a season of The Sidemen's YouTube reality series and launched a show by the kids educator Ms. Rachel — rare examples of YouTubers moving to a global TV platform.

"Creators want to embrace Hollywood to a degree and vice versa," CAA's Freeman said. "We're going to see more high-profile projects like 'Beast Games' coming from the streamers."

As much as MrBeast can teach Hollywood, it's clear his forays into traditional media are rubbing off on him. In a recent interview, Donaldson said he'd worked hard to improve his storytelling and didn't want to be thought of as "just a YouTuber that knows how to manipulate an algorithm."

And Hollywood, to its credit, is starting to meet fans on the platforms where they're spending time. Disney recently invested in Epic Games, hoping to promote its famous characters to gamers. Warner Bros. has started to use the popular gaming platform Roblox to promote film releases. These experiments have been limited by Hollywood's fear of losing control of how its IP is portrayed, but it would do well to embrace young people's desire to interact with the content, even if it means ignoring some unauthorized uses.

The lines between Hollywood and the creator economy are likely to blur over time. But as the creator economy grows, Hollywood must offer an attractive opportunity to creators or accept continued decline.

"The big question, though, is whether creators truly need the streamers when their audiences are overwhelmingly consuming content on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok," Freeman says. "Time will tell."

Lucia Moses is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering media and entertainment.

Geoff Weiss is a senior reporter on Business Insider's media team.

Dan Whateley is a senior reporter at Business Insider covering social media and the music business.

• Disney is shifting its DEI work to focus on business goals and company values.
• The changes will impact content disclaimers and how executive compensation is determined.
• CEO Bob Iger has emphasized Disney's mission to entertain rather than advance an agenda.

Disney has become the latest company to make changes to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, as President Donald Trump's election has triggered a cultural shift across corporate America.

The company told employees in a memo from chief human resources officer Sonia Coleman that it was shifting DEI efforts to prioritize its business goals and company values, as Axios earlier reported. Business Insider confirmed the memo's authenticity.

The changes will also impact content advisory disclaimers that Disney began affixing to films in 2020, BI confirmed.

The memo said DEI would play a less prominent role when it comes to evaluating executive compensation, and the company is getting rid of Reimagine Tomorrow — a digital hub launched in 2021 to amplify underrepresented voices.

At the same time, Disney is rebranding its "Business" Employee Resource Groups (BERGs) into "Belonging" Employee Resource Groups, according to the memo.

Disney has previously found itself in the political crosshairs. For instance, Disney's former CEO, Bob Chapek, faced criticism from both the right and left over his delayed response to the so-called Don't Say Gay law in Florida.

CEO Bob Iger has spoken out against Trump in years past, though he's been quieter during the president's second term.

Disney has somewhat reversed its early embrace of diverse themes after getting hammered by critics on the right. At The New York Times' 2023 DealBook summit, Iger said his company's movies could sometimes be too focused on messaging over entertainment.

"I've used 'Black Panther' as a great example of that just in terms of fostering acceptance, or the movie 'Coco,' which Pixar did about the Day of the Dead," Iger said at the summit. "I like being able to do that, entertain and if you can infuse it with positive messages, have a good impact on the world, fantastic. But that should not be the objective."

Some close to Disney have predicted that in Trump's new term, the company could get even more conservative in its story treatment, lest it touch off another culture war battle.

Still, given its storied place in American culture, Disney seems unlikely to escape controversy. "Captain America: Brave New World" star Anthony Mackie was recently criticized for saying his character shouldn't just represent America (though he wasn't the first Captain America to do so). He has since clarified that he's a "proud American" while upholding the character's universal appeal.

Disney's upcoming live-action "Snow White" has also drawn controversy for reimagining the "seven dwarfs" as "magical creatures."

Here's the memo from Coleman:

Executive Leaders,

For over 100 years, Disney has entertained and inspired generations of families from all walks of life around the world. We create entertainment that appeals to a global audience, and having a workforce that reflects the consumers we serve helps drive our business. With more than 230,000 dedicated employees and Cast Members in more than 40 countries across six continents, Disney has long believed that the rich variety of talents and experiences our employees bring to their work is good for our business and enhances the experience of our global consumers, audiences, and guests.

Creating a welcoming and respectful environment for our employees and guests is core to our company culture and our business. Our values — integrity, creativity, collaboration, community, inclusion — guide our actions and how we treat each other. Today I want to provide an update on how our values are embedded in our leader compensation programs, specifically our Other Performance Factors (OPFs), as well as share some of the work that has been underway to evolve our talent strategy consistent with these values.

Other Performance Factors (OPFs): Beginning this fiscal year, we are adding a new "Talent Strategy" factor to our executive compensation planning. This factor will assess how leaders uphold our company values, incorporate different perspectives to drive business success, cultivate an environment where all employees can thrive, and sustain a robust pipeline to ensure long-term organizational strength. This new factor represents an evolution of important concepts in the former Diversity & Inclusion OPF and will be used alongside our other two OPFs, "Storytelling & Creativity" and "Synergy."

As many of you know, we have spent the last year partnering with stakeholders across the company to discuss the evolution of our strategic framework for advancing our commitment to being welcoming, respectful, and inclusive in how we operate so we are the best place to work. The resulting framework — which we released in December — is designed to align our initiatives with our business goals and company values, centered around four key pillars:

People: We reach and attract the best, most talented people around the world and foster barrier-free talent processes for everyone.

Culture: We purposefully champion a culture where everyone belongs and can contribute to our business success.

Market Reach: We create unforgettable stories, experiences, and products that entertain and resonate globally.

Community: We learn from and support under-served communities by establishing and investing in impactful relationships with organizations and business stakeholders.

As we developed this new framework, we looked at ways to enhance our programs and practices to strengthen our workplace environment, in service of our business.

While some of you are already familiar with what's new, we wanted to highlight some of the key developments:

New Online Destination: In December, we added our new framework to our corporate Impact website and the Belong hub on MyDisneyToday, with a focus on our above pillars and continued progress. This new framework, rooted in our efforts to enhance our employee experience, marks the evolution of the significant work done with Reimagine Tomorrow and succeeds that branding.

Employee Groups: Last year, we began the process of unifying and streamlining our global enterprise-wide Belonging Employee Resource Groups (BERGs) structure, and rebranded the "B" in BERG from "Business" to "Belonging" to highlight that our employee groups' role is focused on strengthening our employee community and workplace experience.

While this will continue to evolve, what won't change is our commitment to fostering a company culture where everyone belongs and everyone can excel, enabling us to deliver the globally appealing entertainment that drives our business.

Warm regards,

Sonia

• Netflix is exploring potential deals with video podcasters as it looks to its next phase of growth.
• YouTube's success with video podcasts has shown they're not just for listening.
• Podcasts could offer Netflix cheap content and ad revenue growth.

Netflix has spent the past two decades upending the TV business. Could video podcasts be next?

The company has been exploring deals with podcasters, four industry insiders familiar with Netflix's strategy told Business Insider. The effort comes as YouTube's rise as a living-room fixture and podcasting powerhouse has stoked interest from Netflix in creator content.

Last year, Netflix looked into doing a deal with Alex Cooper of "Call Her Daddy" fame, two people familiar with the talks told BI. Cooper ended up striking a deal with SiriusXM, which was reportedly worth up to $125 million.

Netflix declined to comment.

A top talent agent said that in conversations in recent months, Netflix insiders had warmed to the idea of tapping podcasting talent to host a talk-based video show, after previously expressing skepticism that the format could work on the platform.

"More recently, they are exploring: Is this doable? Which one would make sense for us? They ask about specific names," the agent said. "It's a way to get an amazing volume of content at a fraction of what they pay for scripted and unscripted budgets." This person, along with some other industry insiders, spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Netflix's past forays into talk-style shows have generally revolved around comedians and have often been short-lived. The streamer has not abandoned that approach, though. Last month, Netflix announced that it signed John Mulaney to a 12-week-long show, "Everybody's Live With John Mulaney." This follows the six-week "John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA" and other projects Mulaney has had with the streamer.

The effort to sign podcasters, however, is an indication of Netflix's general warming to the idea of working with creators, industry insiders told BI. In recent months, Netflix has welcomed YouTube-born creators, including the entertainers the Sidemen and the kids educator Ms Rachel, to its platform.

Video podcasts could be a natural extension of that effort.

"I could see a world in which audio only and vodcasts are streamed on Netflix so that they can offer an all-in-one place to keep users on their platform for everything," said Jessica Cordova Kramer, a cofounder of Lemonada Media, which works with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Meghan Markle on their podcasts.

Video podcasts can appeal to Netflix and other streamers because they are cheaper than traditional TV shows, their regular release schedules can build a habit, and they can boost ad revenue by adding additional inventory.

"We have spoken with multiple streamers looking to partner with us for licensed content," Cordova Kramer said.

Podcasts are increasingly being watched

Netflix is no doubt seeing how YouTube has become the top platform for podcasts. It beat out Spotify and Apple as of the fourth quarter of 2024, Edison Research found. Creators such as Tana Mongeau and Logan Paul, in turn, are chasing the podcast boom by creating their own shows, which has helped expand their business through touring, merch, and more.

Many podcasts, especially those of the talk variety, also now have video components. Edison found that 89% of weekly Gen Z podcast listeners watched (or listened to) podcasts with video as of the end of 2024. YouTube said people watched 400 million hours of podcasts on televisions in 2024 via its platform.

This trend has drawn the format closer to the daytime and late-night talk shows that have been on TV for decades, said Ray Chao, Vox Media's senior vice president and general manager for audio and digital video.

Chao said that TV companies other than Netflix had already sought out talk shows that began in the digital realm. He pointed to Pat McAfee at ESPN and "Hot Ones" at Hulu. Chao declined to comment on Vox Media's active business opportunities in the space.

Industry insiders said more streamers entering the fray could be a boon for the podcast industry.

"Podcasting has sort of been through a lot the last 18 months," the Pave Studios founder Max Cutler said, citing Apple's iOS 17 update, which changed podcast downloads and impacted ads. "Having someone like Netflix come in will really help grow the overall pie of listenership and viewership."

What does Netflix want?

Industry insiders said they see Netflix deals going a few ways. Netflix could license existing podcasts and forego exclusivity, as it did with "The Amazing Digital Circus," a popular YouTube show that came to Netflix in October.

Netflix may also want to have something unique, three people familiar with its efforts said. In the case of Cooper, Netflix expressed interest in creating original shows around the star, one of the people familiar with the talks said. A model could be something like Max's "SmartLess: On The Road," a show based on Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes' popular podcast.

Netflix could even want shows all to itself — or at least exclusively for a certain time period before they're available on YouTube. It could also offer subscribers an ad-free version as an advantage over the YouTube version, or seek out ancillary content from hosts beyond the core podcast property.

None of the insiders who spoke with BI thought Netflix was on the verge of challenging YouTube anytime soon. But some saw a day when Netflix might offer a creator-led section or free version of its service, which could eat into YouTube's dominance.

One challenge in the short term: Netflix will likely want to enter the podcast business with the biggest creators, and there aren't many available.

Notables like Cooper, the "SmartLess" guys, and Dax Shepard have already been snapped up in eye-popping deals. One candidate is Kylie Kelce, Jason Kelce's wife, who at one point passed Joe Rogan as the most popular on Apple and Spotify. Or Netflix might look to those who could build on its comedy vertical, like Tony Hinchcliffe, who hosted Netflix's "Netflix Is a Joke" comedy festival.

Still, industry insiders generally said they felt it was only a matter of time before more of these deals got done.

"If the first round of huge podcast expansion and acquisitions came from the Spotifys, the Siriuses, the Amazons of the world, the next round is probably going to come from the streamers," Cutler said.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, is a Netflix board member.

• Disney is adding to a growing number of sports streaming options for viewers this year.
• It's combining Fubo with Hulu + Live TV and making ESPN available in multiple ways.
• Disney CEO Bob Iger said the goal is to make ESPN as "accessible as possible."

Disney CEO Bob Iger has a guiding principle for ESPN: Make it "as accessible as possible and in as many ways as possible."

That's what Iger said on an earnings call Wednesday when an analyst asked him about "consumer confusion" that could arise from Disney's complicated sports strategy.

To recap: Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced last year they would team up to launch Venu, a sports streaming service, only to scrap it in January. (They'd settled an antitrust lawsuit with the streaming TV service Fubo, but legal challenges were looming from other TV providers who said they were being prevented from launching a similar service.)

Then, in another head-turning move, Disney said it would basically buy Fubo itself and merge it with Disney's Hulu + Live TV service. As part of that deal, Fubo can launch a "skinny" bundle of Disney properties that show sports, such as ESPN and ABC.

Making matters even more complicated for sports fans, Comcast and DirecTV are launching their own skinny sports bundles — both of which will include ESPN.

Disney also still plans to launch its own ESPN-only "flagship" service this fall.

It's difficult to keep all of Disney's sports moves straight, which has led some analysts to raise the concern that all these options could confuse viewers.

On Wednesday, Iger walked through the company's various moves to try to explain why the company was planning so many options for ESPN.

"After the decision was made and we decided to implement the launch of Venu, the emergence of these skinnier bundles surfaced," he said. "And Venu basically looked redundant to us."

Iger went on to say he felt this was a "great opportunity" because now ESPN could be available in multiple skinny bundles, in keeping with Disney's goal of giving people a menu of ways to experience ESPN. He said Hulu + Live TV was never a core thing for Disney, so merging it with Fubo made it a more attractive business.

As for the ESPN flagship, that's for the hardcore sports fan. Iger said the coming streamer, which Disney plans to launch in the fall, would be enhanced with betting, fantasy games, and a high degree of customization and personalization.

"We have the advantage of not only sports, but we're on 365 days a year, 24 hours a day," he said. "It's about sports every single day of the year. That's a pretty compelling consumer proposition."

• Fox's free streaming service, Tubi, will broadcast its first Super Bowl this weekend.
• The service has gained market share but still faces stiff competition for free and low-cost viewing.
• Tubi's marketing chief dove into how the service is planning to capitalize on the Big Game.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles aren't the only ones getting ready for the Super Bowl.

Tubi, the Fox-owned free streaming service, is preparing to air the Big Game for the first time. But its sights are set on what happens after the final whistle.

Tubi marketing chief Nicole Parlapiano told Business Insider that the service wants to show viewers and advertisers that it has reached its "credibility era" as a destination for high-quality entertainment.

"I think there can be a stigma on the free services," Parlapiano said. "People think, if it's free, it must not be premium or might not have the things they want. So getting them on the product to see that isn't true is extremely powerful."

She added that Tubi wanted to demonstrate to advertisers that free TV is something people view intentionally and not just in the background.

Tubi will simulcast the Chiefs-Eagles clash produced by Fox Sports in 4K on any phone, computer, or connected TV — with no credit-card information or account set-up required.

Parlapiano said the streamer would also air its own shoulder programming for people who aren't sports fanatics but want to participate in the Super Bowl as a cultural event. These will be promoted via a tile in the app. The highlight of this effort will be a fashion-focused pre-game show hosted by influencer and model Olivia Culpo. Her husband, Christian McCaffrey, played for the San Francisco 49ers in last year's Super Bowl.

"If you are one of the girlies who doesn't care about anything besides who's there and what they're wearing, then it'll be very clear that's the place for you," Parlapiano said.

From 'stunty' growth to maturity

Tubi launched in 2014 and was acquired by Fox in 2020 for $440 million.

It was the fastest-growing streaming service in 2023 and is especially popular among Gen Z. The service said in 2024 that it had reached 97 million monthly active users. Tubi made up 1.7% of TV viewing in December, according to Nielsen. That put it ahead of some major paid services like Peacock, Paramount+, and Max.

"People know that we've gotten bigger, but they don't know why," Parlapiano said. "I want to leave that not as a question after this night."

Many may already associate Tubi with the Super Bowl, thanks to a breakthrough commercial. When Fox last carried the Big Game two years ago, the streamer created panic with what Parlapiano called a "stunty" ad that made many people think that someone had sat on the remote.

"We took a lot of risks back then, and it kind of set the pace for how we approached the business in the past two and a half years," Parlapiano said.

Tubi's marketing team took a more conventional approach to this year's Super Bowl. Its campaign features 15- and 60-second ads promoting Tubi as a streamer for specific viewing interests and will also promote new licensed offerings like "Dune" and original programs like "Sidelined: The QB and Me," "The Thicket," and "The Z Suite" — a new Gen-Z workplace show.

Tubi has tried to set itself apart from other services by serving up a vast library of subgenres and cult favorites. To keep costs down, it licenses most of its content except for a small portion of originals.

How Tubi views sports and live events

Fox has streamed sports on Tubi before when it wanted to get extra reach for games or didn't have room in its own schedule for them. It has streamed some Mexico Liga MX games, for example.

Patrick Crakes, a media and sports consultant, said streaming the Super Bowl on Tubi has benefits for the league and Fox's advertisers, too.

"They'll reach some people who didn't have the pay TV bundle," he said. "Everything Fox can drive to Tubi is incremental to them."

Tubi is a sub-scale streamer that's still not profitable. While airing live sports can make sense when there's an intersection with culture, it's not pushing into acquiring its own live (costly) sports. Fox is generally looking elsewhere for streaming options for its sports content. It's planning to launch a new paid streaming service and has a forthcoming skinny bundle with Disney's Fubo.

"Having live sports all the time is a completely different muscle," Parlapiano said.

She called the Super Bowl simulcast more of a stunt than a strategy change. She added that if it helps retain new viewers, Tubi could host more live events down the line.

"If there's opportunities where we can bring a frictionless entertainment experience to viewers, we'll always vet them," Parlapiano said.

• New York magazine is leaning into pop-up newsletters as part of an effort to diversify its business.
• It's planning to launch 15 this year, up from nine last year.
• The company says pop-up newsletters promote reader retention and interaction.

At New York magazine, commas can cause big drama.

That's one tidbit readers have learned from Queries, a pop-up newsletter written by the publication's copy chief, Carl Rosen. Twice a year, Rosen holds forth on topics like when to use commas and throws occasional shade at other publications' copy desks. Started on a hunch, Queries has become one of New York mag's most popular newsletters. It's even spawned a line of merch like ball caps and T-shirts bearing the word "iconic" (IFKYK).

Rosen told Business Insider he had been surprised by the size of the audience of "nerd-out grammar freaks."

"Everyone's looking for certainty," he said. "People want to know all these basic style points."

"One reason our readers enjoy the column is, when they read it, they know how much I care about this, and we all do about everything we do," he added.

Queries is part of a growing push by New York into newsletters that publish for a defined period, usually a few weeks. New York had nine subscriber-only pop-up newsletters in 2024; this year, it's aiming for about 15. They also fit into a broader newsletter effort by New York's parent company, Vox Media. Newsletters that cater to readers' passions are one way Vox is trying to build direct audiences and diversify revenue in the face of advertising and subscriber headwinds.

Three new pop-ups this winter cater to people who want to go deep on the new seasons of "Severance" or "White Lotus" (starting February 17). Some earlier ones were focused on book readers and holiday shopping. This year, New York is also launching New York Night School, a series of six newsletter-based courses for subscribers by its writers and editors.

Finding passion points

New York has 115,000 unique subscribers for its eight current subscriber-only newsletters, out of 1 million subscribers to all its roughly 40 newsletters.

The publication says readers of its subscriber-only newsletters are almost 40% more likely to stick around than other subscribers. That comes at a time when many publishers are focusing on building and retaining their subscriber bases in the face of traffic challenges. New York declined to share its total subscription number.

"Keeping a subscriber is a lot less expensive than acquiring a new one," said Priyanka Arya, SVP and head of consumer revenue at Vox Media. "And it's healthier long-term revenue that you've locked in that you want to continue to renew and grow. So that's a big focus for us."

New York says its pop-up newsletters consistently get a unique open rate of 70% (meaning multiple opens by a unique subscriber are counted as one), compared to about 50% for its newsletters overall. It could help that the pop-ups are finite, which adds a scarcity element.

Dan Oshinsky, a media consultant who runs Inbox Collective, said that among media newsletters, open rates of 40% to 60% are common, depending on the publication and the audience. He added that open rates for short-run newsletters like pop-ups can be as high as 80%.

One of the challenges for New York's pop-ups is finding new interests to tackle. Some of the pop-ups have come out of seeing what topics people read and comment on most, like TV recaps, or are specifically focused on passions or interest groups the magazine wants to target. Others, like Queries, were based on intuition.

New York mag wants these newsletters to make readers feel like they're talking to a bunch of people in the newsroom. One popular one featured the magazine's art critic, Jerry Saltz, talking about his favorite books and podcasts. For its TV-watching newsletters, New York mag has enlisted people from across the newsroom. For example, a staffer from its real estate vertical Curbed wrote about art and design in the "Severance" office.

"We just slice it and dice it in different ways and try and pinpoint a couple small things from each episode," Kaitlin Jessing-Butz, newsletters director of New York magazine, said of the TV-focused newsletters.

This distributed approach to producing the newsletters helps Jessing-Butz, who has a small staff, spread the workload across the newsroom. It's also a way to expose readers to different parts of the publication. People who read multiple sections tend to renew at a higher rate than people who read just one, New York said.

Interaction is another feature of the newsletters. Queries has offered readers a grammar quiz, while the book club newsletter has invited them to vote on what to read next. For the "Succession" TV pop-up, New York had a live chat with readers to discuss the show's finale.

A shift to evergreen newsletters

Night School is the newest addition to New York's pop-up newsletters. A handful of other publishers, like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, have previously tried course-style newsletters. The Journal, for example, is offering six this year — around various financial and fitness challenges — as part of its efforts to promote engagement with readers.

The first in New York mag's Night School is called "How to Write." It's overseen by executive editor Genevieve Smith with participation from writers and editors like Lane Brown and Emily Gould. It includes a syllabus and invites readers to submit questions and feedback.

The next one, called "How to Be a New Yorker," will offer hacks to survive the city and have a print component as well.

"The idea with the course is to me is we're going to teach our subscribers the things we know best, and that is definitely one of them," Jessing-Butz said.

These courses represent a shift in New York mag's newsletter strategy. More so than some of its pop-ups, these courses are designed to stick around so that they can be marketed to new subscribers. Subscribers can sign up for past schools and move through them in whatever order they want.

"Having an evergreen format makes a lot of sense for us, where, no matter when you subscribe, you can sign up for one of these night courses," Arya said.

• It's not just "Beast Games." Streamers are ramping up the search for influencer-led content.
• Agents, producers, and creator-side execs report an uptick in interest, mostly in unscripted shows.
• Warner Bros. Discovery's Max unveiled on Thursday a reality series starring Jake and Logan Paul.

YouTube superstar Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson made a splash in December with his Amazon Prime Video series, "Beast Games," but he's not the only creator being courted by Hollywood. Industry insiders tell Business Insider that streaming services and studios have been on the hunt for influencer-fronted content in recent months.

Donaldson's reality competition show was a big bet for Amazon. Donaldson has said the show cost more than $100 million to make. While the show drew controversy over its filming conditions in the lead-up to its release, that didn't seem to dent its reach. "Beast Games" got 50 million viewers in its first 25 days, becoming Amazon's second-biggest series debut of 2024 after "Fallout," the company said.

The show's success with viewers comes as agents, producers, and creator-side executives tell BI they've seen a general uptick in studios and streamers wanting to work with creators. Buyers' mandates change frequently, but in recent months, they've expressed interest in creator-led travel and sports projects and ways to use YouTube talent in live entertainment. Industry insiders said most of the calls are for unscripted projects.

"You're going to see more opportunity for creators to get bigger platforms and work with bigger media companies," said Jon Skogmo, the CEO of Lost iN, a creator-driven media company. "I know they're being pitched for shows by independent producers."

The market has been building over the past few years, said Ed Simpson, the chief strategy officer at Wheelhouse Entertainment. His company produced the "Hype House" series at Netflix and projects starring David Dobrik and Mark Rober for Discovery+.

The talent manager Lisa Filipelli said she'd seen increased interest in creator-driven projects following the success of Hulu's 2024 series "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," which she executive produced.

Despite the upswing, Simpson added that creator-driven content makes up a small fraction of nonscripted show commissions.

Adam Wescott — who most recently produced the Fox-owned Tubi romcom "Sidelined: The QB and Me," starring TikToker Noah Beck — said the space still feels somewhat "piecemeal" with one-off tests rather than comprehensive deals between streamers and creators.

But he feels the tides are turning.

"I see this convergence of what's happening in our world and what's happening in the old world, and at some point, there has to be a real leveling," he said.

An increasingly crowded sandbox

"Beast Games" joined a growing number of creator-fueled entertainment projects on streaming services.

Netflix, for one, has been mining YouTube for talent.

"I do find that the short-form services also are a great breeding ground for new storytellers," co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.

Netflix recently aired a Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight that saw 65 million households tune in, and it wants to do more creator-led live entertainment. And Warner Bros. Discovery's Max is building on that momentum, unveiling on Thursday a reality show starring Jake and his brother, Logan Paul, titled "Paul American." It arrives on the streamer in March.

Netflix also greenlighted a new season of The Sidemen's reality series and announced it's bringing on a four-episode season of the kids' educator Ms. Rachel. It also sees YouTube as a source of animation, picking up hits "CocoMelon" and dark comedy "The Amazing Digital Circus."

A top unscripted agent said Netflix had discussed putting podcast interviews on the platform. These could serve as a new spin on the talk show format. This agent, along with some other industry insiders, spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

The unscripted agent said Amazon had been slow to move forward on buying decisions but wants to do more with creators, preferably something with a large built-in audience. This person said the streamer was encouraged by the audience "Beast Games" attracted with relatively little promotion.

"When they take a swing, they want to take a really big swing," the agent said.

At Disney, there's interest in casting creators in shows built around its IP, an unscripted buyer told BI.

"They realized their audience has a large crossover with the audience that's watching YouTube and ingesting all this TikTok and Instagram content," this person said.

More and more, the lines between creator and traditional content are blurring, Ross Benes, a senior analyst at EMARKETER, said. Creator production quality has improved, and cost-conscious streamers have increasingly leaned into more low-budget reality content.

Creators are even making their own films. For example, the cult horror hit "Talk to Me" was directed by Australian YouTube twin duo RackaRacka and released in the US by A24.

Can studios avoid mistakes of the past?

Big media has had some misses when it comes to creators. See: Disney's ill-fated acquisition of YouTube network Maker Studios and NBC's short-lived Lilly Singh talk show.

Hollywood insiders said that recently, such companies have started seeking out creators for their ideas rather than simply looking for a piece of their audiences.

Netflix is looking at YouTubers as producers as well as on-screen talent, the unscripted agent said.

Streamers generally feel that creator-led projects work best if the creators play themselves. One result of that thinking has been interest in game shows and reality shows like Amazon's competition show "Buy It Now," which cast creators as hosts and judges.

Filipelli said that a "co-viewing experience" on social media that can tap into offscreen drama can also provide fuel.

"People want to know how things got made," she said. "They want to know who's hooking up with who. If you don't have artists who are going to give that to you, it becomes less interesting."

Still, there are limits to the relationship on both sides.

Creators often want data and interactivity that streamers can't or won't always give them. They can sometimes chafe at being behind a paywall or the time a traditional production takes.

A producer who's working with creators said streamers are also only cracking open the door to certain influencers.

"Almost to a T, all the platforms are being run by people with a legacy mindset, and they're only open to creators with 20 million or more followers," this person said. "It's a little grudging. It's, who has billboard value?"

Wescott said he felt less-entrenched players might have more appetite for risk.

"If anyone's going to do it, it's going to be the Tubis or the Rokus or even Pluto TV — the people that are fighting for eyeballs, and they see where it's all headed as far as younger audience and where their attention is," he said.

• Scripted TV production is off 25% from its peak, per industry data firm Ampere Analysis.
• Ampere expects spending on entertainment content from the major players to be flat in 2025.
• Streamers are shifting some spending to sports content.

Hollywood's production slowdown may be the new normal.

Many entertainment insiders started 2024 hopeful that production levels would recover following the twin labor strikes of 2023 and the broad industry correction in 2022.

Now, the first full year since the strikes has ended. So, where is the industry? New data from the UK-based industry tracker Ampere Analysis shows first-run scripted TV series orders in 2024 were down about 25% from 2022, when 3,108 shows were ordered industrywide at the height of Peak TV. Ampere said the decline was roughly consistent across geographic regions and company types.

What's more, Ampere expects the entertainment content outlay by the industry's top spenders to be essentially flat moving forward. Ampere estimated that total entertainment content spending, excluding sports, by the six big media companies — Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery — would be flat at $98 billion in 2025, with growth largely coming from Netflix and Amazon. Netflix, for one, revealed that it would increase its content bill to $18 billion in 2025, up from $17 billion last year.

"The industry realized they could survive on 75% of peak," said Guy Bisson, Ampere's executive director. "In 2024, everyone has leveled out to the strike-year level."

Production tracking firm ProdPro similarly found that TV production declined about 20% in 2024 versus the non-strike year 2022. ProdPro said film production was down 4% over the same period. The company tracks global production by major US-based companies.

ProdPro CEO Alexander LoVerde said 2024 showed a solid improvement from 2023 but was still down from Peak TV's high. He added that 2024 signaled a new baseline as networks and streamers adapt to tighter budgets.

The six major streamers are also spending more on sports, which can attract big audiences and ad dollars. Ampere estimated that spending on live sports by those streamers would reach $28 billion in 2025, a jump of 28% from 2022.

WBD called Ampere's data inaccurate without sharing specifics. "Content spend at Warner Bros. Discovery continues to be robust across film, television, news, sports, and streaming, with the company spending more this year than last and that trend projected to continue in the coming years," a spokesperson emailed.

Ampere also expects Netflix, Amazon, and Disney to rely more on licensed content over time compared with originals. Around half of Netflix's viewing comes from licensed content, the company said in its first "Engagement Report," which was released in January 2024. Disney also saw a big uptick in licensed content spending in 2024, after it fully acquired Hulu in late 2023.

Crime and drama are the most popular genres

In TV, Ampere found that crime was the most popular genre, accounting for 25% of scripted commissions by the six major streamers last year. It was followed by drama (19%) and romance (17%). Comedy and action orders increased the most — each was up about 60% year over year — while children's series fell the most at about 45%.

The shift toward overseas commissioning continued in 2024. Ampere said that for the second year in a row, the six major streamers ordered more first-run series in Western Europe than in North America. Asia showed its growing importance, overtaking North America in orders in 2024.

LA has also been losing some ground as the epicenter of TV and film production. FilmLA, which issues permits for Los Angeles, reported that shoot days declined 5.6% year over year in 2024, reaching the lowest level it had recorded outside 2020 when the pandemic halted production.

Hopes for a huge rebound have fizzled

ProdPro said that signs of sluggishness in 2024 started to appear mid-year. It was an especially tough year for reality TV and celebrity-fronted production companies that raised money at big valuations.

In the industry, a widespread belief was that productions were being stalled in anticipation of a possible third strike — this time by crews — which was ultimately avoided. Many in Hollywood clung to the mantra "survive till '25," hoping production would bounce back this year.

Ampere doesn't think this will be the case, characterizing the current production level as the new normal.

LoVerde of ProdPro sounded a more optimistic note.

"With healthier financial foundations, we expect streaming platforms to reinvest in content, laying the groundwork for steady growth in 2025 and beyond," LoVerde said.

• NBC News became the latest news outlet to make cuts, laying off about 40 staffers.
• The roles are scattered, and people are being encouraged to apply for some new roles, mostly in digital.
• TV news viewership has declined as audiences seek out news on social media and streaming platforms.

NBC News became the latest news organization to make staff cuts this month. The network cut about 40 roles, or 2% to 3% of the company, as it shifts its focus to growth areas.

The roles were scattered across the organization, though some employees shared the perception that teams focused on covering culture and diverse populations were particularly impacted. Another insider said no diversity news teams were eliminated and that there are still eight digital news staffers covering diverse communities.

Apart from the layoffs, about 12 new positions will be created, mostly in digital news. NBC News is encouraging those laid off to apply. The network is also hiring for over 50 other positions.

TV news is in flux. Linear TV news viewership has declined as people get more of their news on social media and streaming video. CNN just laid off 200, or about 6% of its workforce, as it shifts resources from linear TV to digital. The Washington Post, HuffPost, and Vox Media also conducted layoffs in 2025.

NBC News is set to face a big change when Comcast's NBCUniversal spins off several of its slower-growing cable brethren, including CNBC, into a new company later this year. The plan has left some at NBC News wondering how the spin will affect newsgathering efforts since it relies on CNBC's reporting. Comcast is positioning the move as a way to grow by acquiring other channels.

Do you work in media and have a tip or information to share? Contact Lucia Moses via email or (917) 209-8549 on text/Signal/WhatsApp using a non-work device.

• CNN said it would cut about 200 roles focused on its TV operations.
• The news organization also plans to hire about the same number in digital-focused positions.
• CEO Mark Thompson said last year that he wanted to "future-proof" CNN.

CNN, the cable-news giant owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, said it would cut about 200 TV-focused roles as part of a digital pivot.

The company also said it would hire about the same number of staffers in digital-focused roles and aim to fill 100 of them in the coming months.

The cuts would affect about 6% of CNN's workforce, though the new roles mean total head count is unlikely to be significantly affected.

WBD is providing $70 million in funding as part of a drive to reach $1 billion in digital revenue by 2030.

Mark Thompson, the CEO of CNN, told staff in a memo on Thursday that he aimed to "shift CNN's gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN's future as one of the world's greatest news organizations."

CNN also said it planned to introduce a streaming-news product accessible on devices in the US and elsewhere.

In October, CNN brought in a paywall, charging some of its most loyal readers $4 a month for access to digital content.

Thompson, a former CEO of The New York Times Company and director-general of the BBC, took over at CNN in 2023. He cut about 100 jobs in July as part of what he called a drive to "future-proof" the company against cable news' decline.

Read the memo Thompson sent to CNN staff.

Dear All,

Two weeks ago, at our first town hall of 2025, I told you that I knew there was plenty of anxiety at CNN about future organizational change and that, as soon as we were able to go into detail about the changes, we'd do it right away. That moment has arrived and today you'll be hearing not just from me but from several of my senior colleagues about the next phase of change at CNN.

The changes we're announcing today are part of an ongoing response by this great news organization to profound and irreversible shifts in the way audiences in America and around the world consume news. From linear to digital, fixed to mobile, traditional long-form broadcast to any number of different formats and use-cases. It isn't and can't be a single set of changes but a process of investment, experimentation and adaptation that will last years. Our objective is a simple one: to shift CNN's gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN's future as one of the world's greatest news organizations. America and the world need high quality, fair-minded, trustworthy sources of news more than ever. This difficult and sometimes painful process of change is the only way to make sure we can still provide it.

Today's news is first and foremost about investing in that future. Yes, there are job-losses — around 6% of the current CNN workforce will be impacted — but we don't expect total headcount to fall much this year, if at all. That's because of the $70 million we're investing in our digital plans and the many new jobs it will pay for. Some of that money's going in product and tech, but a lot is also going into new high-quality journalism and storytelling. It's what we stand for. It's also the heart of every successful digital news strategy. At the same time, I know that whatever the total number of job losses, the impact on the individuals involved can be immense. The process of change is essential if we're to thrive in the future, but I both acknowledge and regret its very real human consequences.

My colleagues will go into more detail about the changes, but here is a summary of key headlines:

STREAMING

CNN Max has been a tremendous resource for us. We have been able to get our journalism and storytelling content in front of Max's 110 million global subscribers and test and learn to see what programming a mass streaming audience engages with, spends time with, and returns time and time again to the service to consume. We'll continue to have a strong presence on Max, but we also believe it is not a complete answer to the future of the great linear CNN experience.

Today, I can announce that we plan to develop a new way for digital subscribers at home and abroad to stream news programming from us on any device they choose. It's early days but we've already established that there's immense demand for it not just in America but across much of the world. We'll have more to say about this new digital product in the coming months, including content plans and how we will work with our existing and future distribution partners to bring this to market.

DIGITAL

The new Digital Products & Services organization has accomplished a great deal in the short nine months since Alex MacCallum joined CNN to lead it, including establishing our first direct-to-consumer subscription product, launching vertical video carousels on all of our digital platforms, refreshing the whole CNN.com site, launching the Digital Magic Wall and the live commentary module, creating new innovation teams and building new data analytics and digital business support capabilities, and much else besides.

Now, in addition to the work of developing that new streaming product, Alex will announce a set of further initiatives, including a further major pivot to digital video, the development and launch of CNN's first lifestyle-oriented digital product, working with News to innovate in our multimedia storytelling capabilities, and creating new premium digital ad experiences to drive sustainable and scalable advertising revenue.

She will also detail a restructure of her leadership team, to include the creation of new Content and Transformation, Audience and Features teams to round out her direct reports. With this, we are also posting many new roles at all levels of the organization as part of Warner Bros. Discovery's investment in this strategic work and CNN's path forward. Recruiting the right people will take some time, but we hope to open up and fill at least 100 new posts in the coming months to help execute the new plans.

A FRESH NEW TV SCHEDULE

Innovation also touches our traditional TV experience. For many years ahead and, notwithstanding our streaming plans, the most economically significant expressions of the CNN TV experience will be our two great television services: CNN, the historic US cable channel that enters its 45th year in 2025, and CNN International. Today, we are announcing refreshed schedules for the weekday domestic lineup that bring energy and competitive edge to our delivery. A revised international schedule will follow in a few days' time.

These changes are intended to strengthen our domestic schedule throughout the day and deliver international programming to a wider audience around the world. We're able to achieve that with this new schedule, which will be shared and distributed broadly later today, while also placing our production costs on sustainable footing to match the changing economics of linear television platforms. Like the rest of our industry, we have to respond to these economics if we're to maintain high quality services for our loyal existing audiences.

We're also streamlining and adjusting some important aspects of how we produce our TV programming going forward. The changes we made in morning programming a year ago both improved performance and reduced costs. Building on that successful experiment and with similar objectives in mind, we now plan to change the way we deliver programming elsewhere in the schedule. Starting today, Eric Sherling and John Davies will walk colleagues through these changes.

FURTHER MODERNIZING OUR NEWSROOM

In 2024, our newsroom took on the complex and challenging task of merging into a single integrated organization, breaking down silos between separate digital, TV and international newsrooms. After just a few months of the new structure, we've seen measurable progress and clear signs that our new Follow the Sun structure is working. We've seen it help us capture global breaking news as it happens and deliver the resulting content simultaneously across multiple formats and platforms. The newsroom has also risen to the challenge of providing outstanding distinctive subscriber-only content to support our new digital subscription business as well as playing a key role alongside Digital Product & Services in developing our plans for verticals and features.

Today, we're making further announcements in the Global News organization. We're creating a new Video News Editorial organization as the next stage in our effort to coordinate and strengthen our video capabilities across all platforms, including linear TV. We're transforming our DC bureau to align it with our new multiplatform model, which we introduced elsewhere last summer. We're integrating CNN en Español more closely into CNN's main Global News operation. We're opening an important new senior role in the news organization and welcoming some outstanding new leaders — including Phil Rucker from the Washington Post as SVP Editorial Strategy and News and a new London Bureau chief you'll hear about shortly.

JOB IMPACTS

As I noted at the top, some of today's announcements mean significant new job opportunities at CNN, but others will lead to the loss of some valued colleagues. That too is an unwelcome but inevitable part of the change process. We will aim to contact every colleague who will be impacted by these changes as soon as we possibly can — and will of course help and support them in any way we can thereafter. In the year and a quarter since I arrived at CNN, we've had an incredible period of news and have already made significant progress on our transition to the future. I am grateful to every one of these colleagues for everything they've done for this company in my time and the years before.

MOVING FORWARD

2025 has only just begun and yet we've already seen more than enough news at home and abroad to be reminded just how important it is that this great news organization succeeds. Given our brand and reputation, given the incredible talent at our disposal, given that spirit of innovation and commitment that has always been a hallmark of CNN, I truly believe that we can do just that.

Thank you for everything you do for CNN and for the audiences across America and around the world that depend on us.

Mark