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.
Netflix strikes global deal for true-crime podcast ‘Outlore’
Netflix has signed an exclusive global deal to host “Outlore with Eleanor Neale,” a UK true-crime podcast that has drawn more than 500 million YouTube views and 2.8 million subscribers.
Google launches Pics, an AI design tool baked into Workspace
Google is rolling out Pics, an AI image-creation and editing tool built on its Nano Banana model, to Workspace and Google AI Pro or Ultra subscribers starting with Docs and Slides.
Digiday maps payout rules across every major creator platform
Digiday compiled the follower thresholds, activity minimums, invitation status and payout terms for Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, X, Facebook and Snap.
19-year-old talent manager details path into creator economy careers
In a TVREV interview, 19-year-old Braden Blacker, founder of The Content Code, explains how he grew creator Asher Lara from 1.2 million to over 16 million followers by mining audience data to steer content toward proven niches like couples storylines.
NBA builds Gen Z pipeline through 2K, creators and social formats
The NBA is treating NBA 2K, athlete-run shows like Joakim Noah’s Nomad, and social-native formats as a coordinated content ecosystem rather than side projects.
T-Series retakes YouTube’s global viewership crown, powered by Shorts
T-Series topped Tubefilter’s weekly Global Top 50 with 778.8 million views, pushing its lifetime total to 353.2 billion.
Dr. Squatch bets $1 million on IShowSpeed-fueled scavenger hunt over ads
Dr. Squatch and streamer IShowSpeed launched “Speedrun: Million Dollar Mission,” a nine-week, $1 million contest with hidden briefcases, weekly missions and a $250,000 finale, built by Applied MSCHF and spanning more than 4,000 Walmart stores.
Instagram to throttle reach of undisclosed AI influencer profiles
Instagram is renaming its “AI creator” label to “AI-generated profile” and will reduce reach for creators who fail to disclose AI-generated people on their profiles.
Micro dramas near $14 billion as TikTok moves to eat the category it feeds
Consumers may spend up to $14 billion this year on one-minute vertical dramas, CandyJar’s Ali Albazaz tells Business Insider. TikTok already supplies most of these apps’ audiences, and now runs its own free and paid micro drama apps.
The Telegraph turns podcasts into a franchise play across video and events
The Telegraph is expanding its podcast strategy beyond audio into video, live events and paid memberships, following its acquisition by Axel Springer.
Viral ‘Oreogate’ mom saga was a paid Suno ad all along
Ashleighjamz’s viral Instagram series about a lunchbox Oreo feud racked up over 10 million views before its #sunopartner tag surfaced.
SuperBloom’s Tom Dunlap on why physical media is creativity’s next flex
In an Explain It to a Teenager interview, SuperBloom House’s Tom Dunlap discusses the creative collective’s print magazine, physical media, and mentorship.
Creator marketing’s programmatic turn splits agencies and platforms
LTK launched an AI tool this week to structure campaigns and recommend creators, joining holdcos and platforms automating discovery, pricing and measurement across influencer marketing. Agency executives are split on whether standardizing creators as inventory helps or backfires.
Barret Zoph exits OpenAI after five months, lands VP role at Google
Zoph co-founded Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati, was fired from the startup, and returned to OpenAI to lead enterprise sales.
Meta’s $17B teen safety deal has a hidden trigger for TikTok and YouTube
Meta agreed to pay roughly seventeen billion dollars to 47 states over addictive design for minors, but $5.3 billion of that is contingent on TikTok and YouTube adopting similar age and time restrictions and paying comparable sums.
YouTube adds Amazon affiliate shopping to creator videos and Shorts
YouTube is integrating Amazon affiliate shopping links directly into creator videos and Shorts. The move lets creators tag Amazon products within their content, giving them a new built-in commerce path beyond existing YouTube Shopping tools.
YouTube’s MacTaggart pitch: don’t regulate us like the TV giants we’ve become
At the Edinburgh TV Festival’s MacTaggart Lecture, YouTube EMEA VP Pedro Pina opposed a proposed U.K. Media Bill that would force YouTube to boost recommendations for BBC and ITV content, arguing it would suppress independent creators.
Creator fee pricing is broken, and no one can agree on a fix
Half of marketers misprice creator fees and 40% feel they overpaid, per a Billion Dollar Boy survey of 1,000 leaders. Tools like Fohr’s Price Check and BDB’s Companion aim to add transparency, but no industry-wide benchmark exists.
COL Group, Virtue Asia launch first upfront built for microdramas
COL Group, Virtue Asia and V47 Entertainment will hold Inside Microdramas in Singapore on Oct. 27, billed as the first upfront for vertical entertainment. The event pairs brands with 10 unfinanced 2027 slate projects for direct co-development talks.
YouTube and Amazon let creators sell products directly in videos
YouTube and Amazon now let U.S. creators in both partner programs tag and sell a curated Amazon catalog inside videos, with standard affiliate commissions paid out through YouTube’s AdSense checks rather than Amazon directly.
Puck in advanced talks for RedBird investment at $250 million valuation
Puck confirmed advanced talks for a RedBird Capital investment that would make the firm its leading investor, valuing the media company at around $250 million — up sharply from the $70 million valuation it fetched in 2023.
Axios publisher: SEO is dead, GEO is the new game for citations
Axios publisher Nicholas Johnston says SEO is “not the answer anymore” as publishers must learn where they surface in LLM answers.
Jomboy Media’s path from Yankees podcast to 60-person creator company
Jomboy Media grew from a 2017 Yankees podcast into a 60-person sports media company: more than 20 channels, 14 full-time creators, an in-house ad operation and an original sports IP franchise, Warehouse Games.
YouTube offers creators up to $10M exclusivity deals to block Netflix raids
YouTube is offering roughly 15 top creators exclusivity packages from low seven figures to $10 million, built to keep their videos off Netflix as it courts creators like Rhett & Link and the Stokes Twins.