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.
Meta agrees to pay up to $17B to settle teen addiction suits with states
Meta agreed to pay roughly $12 billion to settle state suits over designing Instagram and Facebook to addict teens — rising to $17.1 billion if Snap, TikTok and YouTube join on similar terms. The states had sought about $200 billion.
Particle’s Radar turns 130,000 podcasts into an API for AI agents
Particle, the AI newsreader startup, launched Radar, a podcast intelligence platform that transcribes more than 130,000 shows with speaker labels, entity tracking and ad detection. Hedge funds are already its biggest API customers.
Crooked Media revives Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight podcast as ‘Still Counting’
Crooked Media acquired “FiveThirtyEight Politics,” the podcast hosted by Nate Silver, Clare Malone and Galen Druke, and relaunches it September 9 as “Still Counting” — a revival of the brand ABC News shut down in March 2025.
YouTube raises ad revenue-sharing bar as brand deals surge
Brands are pouring record money into YouTube creator partnerships. But YouTube is raising the bar creators must clear to share in ad revenue, per Ad Age.
TikTok pays $400M to settle DOJ child-privacy lawsuit
TikTok will pay $400 million to settle a Justice Department suit alleging it collected data on users under 13 without parental consent — a core COPPA violation.
OnlyFans says 5,076 creators have topped $1 million in lifetime earnings
OnlyFans reported 5,076 creators have earned over $1 million to date, part of $30 billion paid out to creators since 2016. The company paid creators $6.3 billion in the year ended November 2025, and creator accounts grew to 5 million.
Gamma acqui-hires Lica to build an AI presentation research lab
Gamma, the AI presentation startup valued at $2.1B, acquired Accel-backed Lica to launch a research division on video and design. Lica’s co-founders will lead the effort, exploring new multimodal formats beyond slides.
Tubular data maps which creators NFL searchers actually watch
Chartbeat’s Tubular Labs ranked social video creators by affinity among NFL searchers. YouTuber Matthew Geist topped the list at 198x more likely to be watched, but Richard Sherman’s podcast had 5x Fantasy Phenom’s audience despite lower affinity.
Hollywood group led by Kathleen Kennedy floats AI framework for creative work
A group of top executives and creatives, led by Kathleen Kennedy and AFI dean Susan Ruskin, met privately to work out how Hollywood should use generative AI. Richard Rushfield presented their “Human Generative Workflows” framework this week.
Media giants strike direct deals with creators instead of chasing their audiences
Disney and Fox are signing deals with creator Dhar Mann to produce content, following his NFL “Chief Kindness Officer” role. Tubular data shows Mann’s July YouTube watch-time outranked many networks, despite minimal audience overlap with Disney’s kids channels.
X swaps engagement-bait payouts for a quality-based creator fund
X’s Original Content Rewards Program launches Sept. 8, replacing its 2023 revenue-share model that paid creators for impressions regardless of content quality. Media buyers and agents tell Digiday X still isn’t top of mind for creators despite the change.
Unicorn expands creator-to-IP studio slate with four new originals
Creator management firm Unicorn is developing four new series with talent from its roster, including shows from the creators behind viral accounts madmax_fluffyroad and oldjewishmen. It’s the latest push to turn individual creators into owned, produced IP.
YouTube switches public view counts to first-frame plays, not 30 seconds
YouTube now counts a public view from a video’s first frame instead of after 30 seconds, matching TikTok, Instagram and X. Payout thresholds still rely on engaged views and watch hours, unchanged by the switch.
YouTube expands Stations feature beyond music to creator content
YouTube is rolling out its always-on Stations format, first tested with music at Coachella, to creator content, media channels, and podcasts, positioning it as a native FAST rival to Netflix and Tubi.
Undisclosed AI sponsorships spark fan backlash for top YouTube creators
Filmmakers Matti Haapoja and Sam Kolder posted unlabeled videos promoting AI platform Higgsfield’s Seedance 2.5, prompting fan accusations of undisclosed paid partnerships. Higgsfield later confirmed creators were compensated via cash and platform credits.
NYT tests AI search summaries, sparking newsroom union pushback
The Times quietly rolled out AI-generated summaries and links in search for a small subset of readers, its first unmediated generative AI text product. The editorial union says it violates the paper’s own AI standards, which require human oversight.
Callaway yanks Good Good Golf driver ad after backlash over shove scene
Callaway deleted a Good Good Golf driver promo after backlash, in which YouTuber Garrett Clark shoves a woman to the ground and threatens her over touching his club. The brand has partnered with Good Good since 2023.
Disney taps YouTube creator Dhar Mann for 20-episode family series
Disney has struck an original content deal with Dhar Mann Studios, commissioning a family-focused 20-episode series. The move brings a top YouTube creator’s studio into Disney’s traditional development pipeline.
OpenAI exec frames growth as a self-funding flywheel, teases ChatGPT for teens
Chris Lehane describes OpenAI’s model-user-revenue loop as self-reinforcing, funding compute for future models. He also previewed ChatGPT for teens, positioned as a safer, more guided product for younger users.
YouTube redefines “view” as one frame, splitting it from “engagement”
YouTube overhauled its metrics, counting a single frame seen as a “view,” matching TikTok and Instagram, while the old longer-watch standard becomes “engagement.”
Vertical media sector projected to hit $150 billion in 2026 revenue
A new Owl & Co. report projects global vertical media revenue will reach $150 billion in 2026, a 42% jump from 2025, with $131 billion coming from advertising on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Formula E’s creator series drives 42% of its annual video views
Formula E CMO Ellie Norman says its Evo Sessions creator series, made with Arcade Media and The Sidemen, generated 42% of the sport’s annual video views this season.
Disney taps Dhar Mann for 20 episodes of vertical-style content
Disney signed digital creator Dhar Mann, who has 170 million followers, to produce 20 original episodes. The deal follows Disney’s Verts short-form launch and a recent TikTok tie-up, part of a push to expand Disney+ into a broader content ecosystem.
Wella’s AI-personalised audio campaign drives 70% engagement lift
Azerion and Digitas used AudioStack’s AI platform to turn one Nioxin script into 100 personalised audio ads across UK locations and audience segments. A brand lift study found 70% of exposed listeners took or intended to take action.
Ann Taylor relaunches with first major campaign since 2017
KnitWell-owned Ann Taylor debuts “This Is Ann,” its biggest integrated campaign in nearly a decade, plus a NYFW pop-up and 2026 ambassador program. It follows a February Substack launch aimed at building direct fan community.