TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and YouTube is starting to realize that being uberbullish about AI can come with drawbacks. It just backed the NO FAKES Act, which aims to eradicate harmful AI-made deepfakes.

Today’s News

KILL TIME OR KILL TONY?

Ted Sarandos called YouTube a place to “kill time.” But Netflix keeps eyeing creators for content deals.

The what’s what: Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos doesn’t seem fond of the fact that Nielsen has named YouTube the top streaming service in America by watch time for two years straight. He’s been taking snipes at the Google-owned platform for months, and most recently stated at a Paley Center event that Netflix was better because it’s a place where people go to spend time, while YouTube is a place where people go to kill time.

Okay, buddy. Downplaying YouTube’s success might be more effective if Netflix wasn’t constantly sourcing new content from its creators—the latest of which is comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, the creator and host of live-filmed conservative humor podcast Kill Tony.

The deal: Netflix signed Hinchcliffe for three Kill Tony installments + one 60-minute special. Its decision to sign him was contentious, coming shortly after Hinchcliffe bombed with both sides of the political aisle for calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally. Despite that, the streaming platform did recognize his talent showcased at Netflix’s The Roast of Tom Brady. And of course they can see his numbers on YouTube, where he regularly pulls in 2+ million views per video.

One thing’s for sure: Hinchcliffe got cold hard cash from Netflix for episodes of one of YouTube’s most-watched podcasts (and is likely making some ad revenue from his announcement video, which is a loop of text and the Netflix logo that is inexplicably two hours and six minutes long).

That business model is something else Sarandos wants creators to know. At the same Paley Center event, the Netflix CEO highlighted a key difference between his platform and YouTube: Netflix pays creators upfront for their content, whereas YouTube only shares with the creators the ad revenue their videos generate.

Hinchcliffe isn’t the only creator Netflix has pacted with recently. This week also brought the debut of Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, a documentary about Piper Rockelle, her mother Tiffany Smith, and the group of tweens/teens who made up the “squad” of kid stars on Rockelle’s YouTube channel.

In Bad Influence, these former costars—many of whom sued Smith, accusing her of abuse, exploitation, and lack of pay—talk about their experiences being young YouTube stars.

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Take it from TFTC: 

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The result: $30,000 in new sponsorship deals in 1 month.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Gambling YouTuber Jason Boelhke (aka Mr. Hand Pay) just raised $1.3 million from his followers through crowdfunding investment platform GigaStar. (Tubefilter)

• David Dobrik’s return to YouTube came with a fitness transformation. Now he’s capitalizing on that with his own food brand: 60-calorie potato chips. (TMZ)
  

• Netflix may be finding its next stars on YouTube, but Webtoon is also a prime trawl. Creators there are getting more deals—and making hundreds of thousands from their hit stories. (The Ankler)
  ​

• The Creators Guild of America has debuted a default rider for creators doing brand deals. Can these protections help standardize creator treatment and payment across our industry? (The Information)

AND AT THIS YEAR’S NEWFRONTS…

30 companies, 4 days, one big event

The NewFronts: The biggest event in digital advertising has been running for nearly two decades, and though it’s seen some changes—shrinking from two weeks to just four days, losing major presentations like YouTube’s Brandcast, and going mostly online thanks to COVID—the annual IAB NewFronts is still what it’s always been: a look at the future of advertising, giving brands and agencies the chance to buy in on the next big thing.

More than 30 companies are slated to show off at this year’s event, including YouTube (holding a non-Brandcast presentation), Google, TikTok, Meta, Snap, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and T-Mobile.

Save the date: The NewFronts kick off May 5 with principal partner Google’s presentation at 11:30 a.m. EST. Over the next four days, attendees (both in person and virtual) will hear pitches from social media platforms, streaming services, FAST channels, and ad networks. The greatest concentration of spiels will occur during the IAB Mainstage event, which will run for most of the day on May 7.

With the creator industry expected to rake in over $10 billion in influencer marketing spend this year, the NewFronts are still digital companies’ biggest chance to show why they—and the creators who post content on their platforms—deserve a slice of that pie.

WATCH THIS 📺

People are having emotions about this trailer

The beloved bot: This Apple TV+ series is a long time coming. Based on author Martha Wells’ bestselling sci-fi book series The Murderbot Diaries, it follows the titular bot, a human/AI composite who works corporate security protecting less-than-intelligent and frequently abusive human clients. But Murderbot has a secret: It hacked itself, and it’s not under the company’s control anymore. It doesn’t want to use its newfound freedom to go on a revenge rampage, though. It just wants to watch TV.

The Murderbot Diaries’ first installment debuted from indie publisher Tor in 2017, and since has gone on to become one of its biggest successes, selling over a million copies and garnering a dedicated fanbase. News of a potential adaptation has floated around for years, and now that the show’s first trailer has officially debuted, that fanbase is gathering en masse to praise its casting, writing, and overall vibe.

Apple TV+ might not generate the traffic Netflix or Disney+ does, but some of its shows, like Severance, have been standout bangers that turned into cultural moments. Murderbot might be the next.

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Today's newsletter is from: James Hale, Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.