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STREAMROLLED

Streaming services in Southeast Asia are struggling to attract subscribers. The culprit: TikTok.

TikTok might not have its own subscription streaming service, but that hasn’t stopped the platform from poaching SVOD viewers across Southeast Asia. According to a report from Media Partners Asia (MPA), TikTok’s viewership share in the region has jumped by 20% over the past two years. In fact, the app was “responsible for over 70% of growth in streaming minutes over the past two years” (per MPA).

That rapid growth has contributed to a truly massive number of views: at VidCon Anaheim in 2022, TikTok Head of Creator Marketing Solutions Claire Sun announced that the video app had surpassed one trillion total views in Southeast Asia. That sum is bound to be significantly higher following TikTok’s upcoming spending spree in the region; per CEO Shou Zi Chew, the platform plans to invest “billions of dollars” in Indonesia and its surrounding countries “over the next few years.”

TikTok’s success in South Asia isn’t working out so well for other streaming giants.

Per MPA, TikTok made up for 42% of all streaming video watch time in Southeast Asia between January and July of this year—while SVOD services across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand added a net gain of only 7,000 subscribers during the same period. In Indonesia, total subscriptions actually fell by 1.2 million.

With only so much watch time to go around, Netflix and Amazon will need to up their game if they hope to grow their audiences in Southeast Asia—but for now, the two giants seem more interested in quality than quantity. According to MPA Executive Director Vivek Couto, “the region’s leading premium VOD platforms are in the midst of a shift towards quality customer growth, retention, and monetization.”

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC) has characterized a lawsuit filed against it by MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) as “riddled with false statements and inaccuracies.” (Tubefilter)
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• Eleven-year-old YouTube star Ryan Kaji will star in a ninja-themed content initiative born out of a partnership between the Kaji family’s Sunlight Entertainment and pocket.watch. (Tubefilter)
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• A new class-action lawsuit accuses TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, of collecting biometric user data without “meaningful, express consent.” (Engadget)
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• According to CEO David Baszucki, Roblox has already accumulated more than 1 million downloads on Meta’s Quest VR headsets since launching on the devices last week. (The Verge)

DATA • STREAMERS ON THE RISE 📈

This gaming streamer took a leap of faith—all the way to Los Angeles

When Sydeon graduated nursing school, she was faced with a tough choice. She could get a fulfilling job in nursing, or she could take a leap into streaming. In the end, Sydeon took more than a leap—she took a flight to L.A. (where she knew a few big-time streamers) and began creating content full-time. It was the right choice: with a solid Twitch following at her back and an established creator community in California, the gaming streamer was able to seize more collaboration opportunities than ever before.

Her relocation alone caused “a bit of hype,” Sydeon says. As soon as she moved in with her friends—two well-known creators—the streamer picked up “a thousand extra followers.” That growth has increased steadily in the three years since she committed to creating content full-time.

Sydeon now streams to an audience of nearly 400,000 people, and frequently uses her platform to address important subjects related to race, gender, and current events. In addition to that in-stream advocacy and acting “as a part of representation for Black women in gaming,” Sydeon has remained committed to sustainability throughout the process of developing her first merch line: her recently released products are made from deadstock fabrics, dyed with vegetable dye, and produced entirely in L.A.

As for the creator’s next steps?

Sydeon is currently recovering from a broken ankle—but when she is able to take steps again, the streamer says she’s hoping to “lean into fashion content" by sharing more of her personal style with viewers.

MEET THE NEW GUY

Should burned-out creators replace themselves with AI-driven avatars?

Jordi Van Den Bussche (aka Kwebbelkop) makes a compelling case for the unorthodox solution. The gamer has become one of the YouTuber community’s foremost proponents of VTuber replacements, who he sees as a fix for the burnout that besieges many creators—including himself.

Kwebbelkop has long been vocal about his desire for a digital successor. As he pointed out in an August 2022 interview with Tubefilter, AI-driven avatars come with multiple upsides: they don’t get tired or burned out, they never need to retire, and they offer creators “a second chance” to correct mistakes from their own early careers.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of digital avatars, Van Den Bussche’s company launched a VTuber of its own, Bloo, in 2021. That experiment has already yielded encouraging results: although the avatar hasn’t yet caught up to Kwebbelkop’s 15 million subscribers, Van Den Bussch’s company (aka JVDBStudios) says Bloo currently reels in 10 million views per month.

Now, Van Den Bussche is taking the next step toward his own replacement.

Earlier this month, the gamer premiered an AI-driven version of himself named “The Digital Kwebbelkop.” That character—who looks, sounds, and even plays Minecraft like the human Kwebbelkop—was developed at JVDBStudios, where Van Den Bussche’s team has been streamlining video production with AI and training VTubers to mimic specific creators. Days after his debut, The Digital Kwebbelkop is already beginning to step in for his human creator: According to Van Den Bussche, four Digital Kwebbelkop videos will go live each week.

WATCH THIS 📺

Season 2 of Loki is just 65 days away (if the space-time continuum doesn’t dissolve before then)

If you were one of the millions of Marvel fans glued to a screen during Season 1 of Loki, we have good news: the second season will be here in only two months time. For the raven-haired antihero himself, of course, time probably won’t progress quite so predictably. But despite Loki’s knack for attracting trouble, it looks like our favorite TVA employees will still get some quality pie-eating time in Season 2.

Check out the full teaser here to get hyped for the season’s October 6 premiere.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.