TOGETHER WITH

It’s Tuesday and CES 2025 is putting the year’s wackiest and most promising inventions on display. Among the trade show’s most interesting gizmos: solar beach umbrellas, purse robots, and an “Intelligent Streaming Assistant” for Twitch stars.

Today’s News

ANIMANIA

Creators have been banned for streaming anime. iShowSpeed wants to flip the script.

The ranking: iShowSpeed is ready to bring one of the world’s most popular animes to Twitch. In a recent stream, the creator revealed that he’s been granted permission from “the producer of One Piece” to rebroadcast episodes of the 25-year-old anime.

While he didn’t reveal the identity of that exec, iShowSpeed—whose real name is Darren Watkins, Jr.—claimed that she put his channel on a whitelist so that he can stream One Piece episodes without retribution. If that proves to be true, Watkins will have plenty of content to choose from; in total, the show has run for more than 1,100 episodes.

The context: The authorized streaming of a major anime on Twitch would be a big deal—but not everyone is convinced that One Piece studio Toei would actually relinquish the broadcast rights to its most prized piece of intellectual property. Aside from Watkin’s penchant for making outlandish statements, numerous streamers received temporary Twitch bans in early 2022 for streaming unlicensed rebroadcasts of popular shows—including anime series like Death Note.

In this case, however, Toei has a lot to gain by inserting its IP in streams hosted by a global Twitch icon. Some rudimentary polls have shown that a significant number of anime viewers watch via pirated sources, leading to a multibillion-dollar loss for studios. By whitelisting Speed’s channel, Toei could potentially turn some of that unlicensed viewership into positive PR ahead of One Piece’s April 2025 return.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Introducing Opus Clip’s Editor 2.0: A faster, easier way to create viral Shorts, Reels, and TikToks

Last year, creator economy experts and engineers joined forces to transform the world of online video. Their industry-disrupting invention: OpusClip. 

Since debuting as the world's #1 AI video clipping platform, OpusClip has helped 8M+ creators and brands create viral Shorts, TikToks, and Reels with a single click.

Now, OpusClip’s Editor 2.0 has arrived—with faster rendering, manual capabilities, and more captioning options than ever before:

1. Create viral clips in seconds ⏰
From uploading original videos to exporting clips directly to Adobe Premiere Pro, Editor 2.0 provides a smoother, quicker editing experience. 

2. Generate B-rolls optimized for high engagement ✅
Generate and customize contextually relevant B-rolls in seconds by simply highlighting the text you want to add Broll to and just like magic, the AI will have stock footage or a generated moving image added to the video in seconds!

3. Add and remove personalized captions with ease ✍️
Editor 2.0 makes captioning your videos easier, faster, and more customizable. With the tap of a button, you can cut filler words, remove pauses, add new text and emojis, and even update the caption style from OpusClip’s collection of 12+ trending templates.

Creators are already seeing incredible results, from 70% higher revenue (Ebonie Dion) to 65% more subscribers (Ricardo Hernandez). Hit the link below to see how it works for yourself:

Start creating with OpusClip →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Short-form content is sweeping the charts. Last week, 40 of the top 50 most-viewed channels on YouTube were primarily active on Shorts. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• YouTube TV has a new rival. Disney has announced a merger that will unite Hulu + Live TV and FuboTV to form “the second-biggest digital pay-TV provider.” (Engadget)
  
  

• A study from the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University claims that TikTok is less likely to show viewers “content critical of Chinese Communist Party talking points” than rival platforms. (Gizmodo)
  ​

• Meta has announced three new additions to its board of directors: UFC CEO Dana White, Exor head John Elkann, and former Microsoft exec Charlie Songhurst. (Deadline)

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top Branded Videos: Dude Perfect visits the Old West and Veritasium introduces a weird scientist

December was a big month for branded content, with holiday sales fervor driving nearly 3,000 sponsored videos some weeks. Now—as Christmas decorations come down and New Year’s resolutions are put to the test—we’re seeing things return to normal. Just over 1,500 videos were uploaded this week, with science creators taking their usual place at the top of Gospel Stats’ Weekly Brand Report.

🥇 #1. Dude Perfect x Bodyarmor: Western Airsoft Battle Royale (3.6M views)
For their latest branded video, longtime trickshot group Dude Perfect split into teams to take on a series of cowboy-esque challenges set in a fully-stocked Western town. Between horseback riding, good old-fashioned dustups, and assists from helpful townsfolk, the team introduced viewers to their sponsor: hydration brand Bodyarmor.

🥈 #2. Veritasium x Brilliant: How one man exposed your DNA (3.4M views)
Like many other Veritasium videos, this week’s #2 clip was a science history lesson sponsored by STEM education company Brilliant. It’s easy to see why the channel and brand are frequent partners: after all, who’s more likely to invest in online science courses than viewers fascinated by the story of “the weirdest person ever to win the Nobel Prize”?

🔎 #747. Brendan Miller x HISEA: This Drained Lake is Loaded with Fishing Lures! (84K views)
STEM edutainment might be one of YouTube’s top genres, but another content category has garnered a respectable viewership of its own: magnet fishing. Waterproof work gear brand HISEA capitalized on that niche fandom by sponsoring a recent video from Brendan Miller, a fishing aficionado with just under 220K subscribers.

Check out the full branded ranking here or head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

NICK’S KITCHEN

One of YouTube’s top food creators just cooked up a new channel

The channel: Nick DiGiovanni is going “back to basics.” After netting 22 million YouTube subscribers, 11.8 billion lifetime views, and collaborations with culinary stars like Gordon Ramsay, the food creator has officially launched a second channel.

Nick’s Kitchen popped up last Friday with a 10-minute YouTube video showing viewers how to make the perfect mac and cheese. The tutorial is slower-paced and softer-lit than DiGiovanni’s usual entertaining food challenges, with a Food Network-esque vibe that will be familiar to a broad audience. That wide appeal is the whole point; by offering viewers a “one-stop hub for high-quality, easy-to-follow recipes,” DiGiovanni says he aims to “prove that anyone can cook.”

Nick’s Kitchen is off to a promising start. In just three days, DiGiovanni’s mac and cheese video has netted over 400,000 views, and his new channel has grown to more than 2.2 million subscribers. Some of those subs are likely pre-existing fans (DiGiovanni says he expects to see some crossover with the audience for his main channel), but the creator also thinks that “both channels will have independent audiences and demographics.”

What’s next: Going forward, DiGiovanni says videos will go up on his new YouTube channel every week at noon EST—but that might not be their only destination. During a conversation with Tubefilter, the creator’s team mentioned that Nick’s Kitchen is planned to premiere on YouTube “and beyond.” Whether that means a partnership with a TV network, the launch of his own streaming service, or something entirely different remains to be seen—but for now, DiGiovanni says “the sky’s the limit.”

WATCH THIS 📺

Creators were everywhere at the 2025 Golden Globes

The big night: Creators left their mark on the 2025 Golden Globe Awards. From interviews with celebs to effortless Glambot poses, influencers like Chris Olsen, Drew Afualo, and Haley Kalil made their presence known on the red carpet—and amassed millions of views in the process.

The growing presence of creators at the Golden Globes hasn’t gone unnoticed by Hollywood’s top stars. Hours before the awards show kicked off, Seth Rogan and Catherine O’Hara made playful jabs at the number of influencers on the red carpet in a teaser for their new AppleTV+ show, The Studio. Check it out here.

Want to introduce your brand to Tubefilter’s audience? Sponsor the newsletter.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.​

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