Creators
State of Play
Revised Sep 18, 2026The moment. Three buyers spent the week acquiring podcast catalogs and the rights around them. Amazon closed its Wondery acquisition, with founder Hernan Lopez out and COO Jen Sargent running the business, bought podcast ad and hosting company Art19, and agreed to pay more than $100 million to Exactly Right Media for distribution and ad sales on a slate led by My Favorite Murder. SiriusXM won Giggly Squad after three suitors pushed offers to $150 million, and took exclusive global ad sales for Crooked Media’s podcasts, video, social and live events. Audacy became exclusive sales and distribution partner for Smosh from October 1, bringing more than 75 million followers and 20 billion YouTube views. Forbes put Charlamagne Tha God tenth among podcasters at about $27 million.
The tension. Nine-figure prices are being paid for creator inventory in the same week the IAB convened its first Creatorfronts specifically because nobody can measure it — president James Douglas unveiled a Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative built around a survey mapping where creator deals break down. The valuation problem is being admitted from the other end too: Evan Shapiro’s Affinity 100 ranks creators by an Affinity Quotient rather than follower count, because follower count stopped meaning anything. Buyers are pricing these catalogs off distribution and habit, not off proof, and the platforms underneath them keep moving — Spotify passed Apple as the most-used US podcast app at 24% to 21%, and in Canada YouTube passed Spotify at 35%.
Who’s moving. Amazon, buying Wondery, Art19 and Exactly Right in the same week. SiriusXM, taking Giggly Squad and Crooked Media. Audacy, taking Smosh. Wondery and Amazon Music, taking a one-week exclusive window on Morbid. Steven Bartlett and Authentic Brands, launching OBSN with up to $400 million against more than 50 IP holdings. Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, launching Machine Gods twice weekly with NPR on distribution and ad sales. Meta, merging its Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub into one hub and opening Instagram live video ads on September 29. Avail, launching creatorAPI so brands can generate ad variations inside limits a creator sets. Old Navy, whose first single-creator campaign with MrBeast lifted kids’ assortment traffic more than 22%.
What the desk is watching. Whether the Trusted Creator Brand Deal Initiative produces a number a buyer can hold a seller to, and what a $150 million podcast is worth once the app share underneath it moves again.
Audacy signs Smosh, adding YouTube comedy brand to podcast network
Audacy struck a multiyear deal for exclusive sales and distribution rights to Smosh’s podcast lineup, starting October 1. Smosh brings more than 75 million followers and 20 billion YouTube views to Audacy’s push into creator-led video and audio.
Audacy signs exclusive sales, distribution deal with creator brand Smosh
Audacy became exclusive sales and distribution partner for Smosh’s podcast slate, starting October 1, 2026, covering Smosh Mouth, Smosh Reads Reddit Stories, Assumptions and URL.
ABC, Jimmy Kimmel begin talks on late-night contract renewal
ABC has opened renewal talks with Jimmy Kimmel, whose show runs through the 2026-27 season under a one-year deal signed after last fall’s suspension. Disney reportedly wants budget cuts on a show said to cost up to $100 million.
Stars Collective, LH International form AI content JV with $300M fund target
Peter Luo’s Stars Collective and Dubai-based LH International are launching an AI joint venture to develop, produce and distribute film, TV and digital projects.
YouTube’s own study says YouTube is the new mainstream
YouTube and research firm NRG’s new Culture and Trends Report finds 67% of 14-to-44-year-olds watch more channels no one they know watches, versus five years ago, while theatrical release awareness fell nearly 10% since 2017.
Old Navy’s MrBeast bet pays off with 22% traffic jump
Old Navy’s first single-creator back-to-school campaign, a multiyear tie-up with MrBeast, drove an over 22% jump in traffic to its kids’ assortment online.
FCC pressure pushed Talarico’s interviews to YouTube — and boosted his views
Tubular Labs data shows Talarico’s Colbert and Kimmel interviews, bounced from broadcast under FCC pressure, drove 75 million of 354 million YouTube views about him this year, with most from media pages.
Alex Heath leaves independent media to join VC firm as partner
Veteran tech reporter Alex Heath, who built an independent Substack after leaving traditional media, has joined Sound Ventures as a partner. He says he will keep running his media business alongside the new investing role.
Brands enlist creators to shape what AI chatbots say about them
Ad Age reports brands are working with creator marketing leaders at agencies to build strategies aimed at improving visibility in AI search results.
Burger King turns an organic GMM taste test into an official Google-backed campaign
Burger King spotted Rhett and Link’s unpaid Whopper taste-test segment on Good Mythical Morning and built a formal deal around it.
Advertising Week names Dhar Mann chief creator officer, targets $100m in deals
Advertising Week New York appointed Dhar Mann as its first chief creator officer to curate a four-day program built around a “$100 Million Creator Challenge.”
Creators move from talent to strategy in brand and agency deals
Ad Age’s Gillian Follett details how creators now take equity stakes, join agency creative teams, and sit on advisory boards shaping campaign strategy.
Molson Coors overhauls creator workflow, says engagement quadrupled
Molson Coors is replacing its TV-style approval process with faster, looser creator briefs, working with agency Movers+Shakers since March. The company says engagement with creator content has quadrupled but won’t share commercial results.
Former Hard Fork hosts in talks for seven-figure podcast deal
Casey Newton and Kevin Roose, who exited the New York Times’ Hard Fork, are negotiating a new podcast deal worth seven figures, according to Bloomberg’s Soundbite newsletter.
New creator agency Everywhere bets on cross-platform, not single-channel, deals
Everywhere, founded by Andy Goldsmith, Craig Eastwood and Mike Wooller, launched last week as a commercial partner representing creators across YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, newsletters and live events rather than one platform.
YouTube adds guesstimated TV co-viewing metric for creator brand pitches
YouTube launched Views (Co-Viewed), a creator-private metric estimating how many people watch together on one TV screen, so a family of three counts as three viewers.
Pocket FM’s AI content engine drives revenue run rate to $500 million
Pocket FM has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to $500 million over the past year, with AI now producing 93% of its overall audio catalog and 99% of new content.
Meta’s Muse AI agent hits No. 2 despite a slow download start
Muse topped 83,000 U.S. iOS downloads and climbed to No. 2 on the App Store, per Sensor Tower, but trails Meta’s own Threads and Meta AI launches and ChatGPT’s debut pace.
Fox Creator Studios backs TikToker Josh Richards’ sketch show for season two
Fox Creator Studios has co-produced season two of Read the Room, a sketch series creator Josh Richards financed himself in 2024.
Suno scraps old AI models, rebuilds on licensed music amid lawsuits
Suno launched Suno v6, a new AI music model family trained on licensed data from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe, replacing models trained on data now at issue in copyright suits from Sony, Universal and artists like Jason Isbell.
CatGPT creator Cat Goetze takes equity stake in Smooth Media
Creator Cat Goetze becomes the first outside shareholder in Smooth Media, a five-year-old talent management firm, joining as strategic adviser while keeping her existing revenue-share deal with the bootstrapped company unchanged.
What brands need to know about the creator economy’s ‘Napster moment’
EMARKETER frames the creator economy as facing a piracy-era-style disruption, where content, distribution and monetization norms are being rewritten faster than brands can adapt. The piece walks through what that shift means for marketer strategy.
John Lewis builds a YouTube chatshow to get noticed by AI search
John Lewis is launching a YouTube “vodcast” hosted by Angela Scanlon, with clips spread across social platforms, to boost its visibility in AI chatbots and AI-generated search results.
iHeartMedia gives Netflix exclusive video rights to 15 top podcasts
iHeartMedia struck an exclusive video podcast deal with Netflix covering more than 15 shows, including The Breakfast Club and My Favorite Murder, starting early 2026. iHeart keeps all audio rights and distribution; only Netflix will carry the video versions.
Digiday’s Q4 ins and outs for the creator economy
Digiday’s quarterly ins-and-outs list flags diversification over platform dependency, employee creators over firing them, and creator marketplaces folding into major platforms rather than standing apart.