TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and a potential WhatsApp killer could be lurking on TikTok. A messaging app called Daze has already attracted 3 million likes and 100,000 followers on the platform—and it hasn’t even launched yet.

MUSIC MAYHEM

Music promoters are paying to put songs on TikTok. Do creators have to disclose those deals?

The fine print: For now, at least, the answer seems to be ‘no.’ Despite requiring creators to disclose any kind of financial relationship with brands that could influence them to post more positively, the Federal Trade Commission has taken a lenient stance when it comes to song promotion—and that could be a big problem for indie artists trying to make it on TikTok.

An FTC representative told Billboard that “when there are songs playing in the backgrounds of videos, there are no objective claims made about the songs…For these reasons, it may not be necessary for a video to disclose that the content creator was compensated.”

The context: That leniency might be convenient for creators and marketers, but it comes with large-scale consequences. Billboard recently took a deep dive into the world of “sound campaigns,” where musicians, record labels, and/or promoters pay to have music tracks used in TikTok videos. It spoke to sources familiar with the matter, including one major label marketer who believes that “75% of popular songs on TikTok started with a creator marketing campaign.”

The issue: The problem is that many of those videos may not be disclosed as ads, because promoters often don’t ask the creators they’re paying to make any particular kind of content—just to play a specific song in the background. That means indie musicians and labels trying to go viral organically are competing against campaigns backed by hundreds or thousands of dollars of marketing.

Those indie artists might not know they’re competing, either. Back in 2020, labels were paying creators like Charlie D’Amelio tens of thousands of dollars to dance to new songs. Now, things are a little different: while top creators might still get around $10,000 per video, most music promoters are “spreading their budgets over many videos from smaller creators to make the illusion of a less-detectable groundswell of support,” Billboard reports.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Dogs on skateboards are back, baby! The canine star behind FADY Fily has climbed the charts over the last week, scoring a spot at #4 in our seven-day ranking of U.S. YouTube channels. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Over 10,000 celebrities and creators have signed a petition condemning “the unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI.” (TechRadar)
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• Meta and GoFundMe are joining forces to create an “interactive experience for potential donors” across Instagram and Facebook. (Engadget)
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• Streaming service prices might be on the rise, but a recent report from TiVo shows that subscriber satisfaction is on the decline. (Ars Technica)

TUBI TALK

Issa Rae is teaming up with Tubi to launch a showcase for creators “on the cusp”

The program: Issa Rae is continuing her championship of emerging creators. 13 years after the premiere of her web series, The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, Rae’s ColorCreative management firm is teaming up with Tubi to launch a new program that will support creators who are “on the cusp of being so fucking big” (per Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano).

That program—called Stubio—will showcase five projects, four of which have already been selected. So far, participants range from recording artist Lady London to TikToker Kelon Campbell and comedians Cris Sosa, Daniela Mora, and Grant Moore. Tubi’s audience will help pick the fifth project in the class by engaging with applicants selected by Tubi and ColorCreative. The first creator to reach 15,000 engagements on Tubi will see their pitch come to life.

The context: Rae’s experience with the traditional TV production process helped her advise a wide range of web series creators, but convincing networks to take a risk on those artists (the way HBO did with Rae’s Insecure) has always been a difficult proposition. Now, Tubi will provide an important link in that process. The FAST hub—which has developed a reputation as a supporter of independent Black artists—will fund Studio’s first class of projects, while ColorCreator will mentor its rising stars.

ALL GOOD THINGS

Netflix just closed its AAA game studio

The announcement: After just two years of operation, Netflix has closed its AAA game development studio in Southern California. Internally referred to as “Team Blue,” the studio opened in 2022 and was at the center of Netflix’s bigger gaming ambitions.

The context: Netflix first got into gaming in 2021, and was initially focused on acquiring outside developers (including indies Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games, and Spry Fox) and producing lower-lift mobile games (recent additions include a Minesweeper redux and a cozy Lord of the Rings simulator). By 2022, however, Netflix had opened its own studios in Helsinki and Southern California.

According to Game File, the second of those locations—Team Blue—was intended to produce big-budget, multi-device, AAA games. As part of that mission, it tapped several big hires: Overwatch producer Chacko Sonny, former Halo creative lead Joseph Staten, and God of War art director Rafael Grassetti.

The impact: Now, a source familiar with the matter says Sonny, Staten, and Grassetti have all been let go. It’s unclear how many other people may have lost their jobs, but Team Blue’s closure isn’t an isolated event: the video game biz is having a record-bad year, with more than 10,000 layoffs in the first half of 2024 alone. 

Despite that industry-wide slump, Netflix isn’t giving up on games entirely. The streamer brought on Ubisoft co-founder and former Epic Games alum Alain Tascan as the new president of its gaming division in July, and Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has confirmed that Netflix intends to “always have a very steady drumbeat of…games for our members to watch throughout the year.” The takeaway: there likely won’t be a Netflix equivalent to AAA titles like Overwatch—but fans can still look forward to IP-based mobile games like Virgin River Christmas.

WATCH THIS 📺

A new series from Recess Therapy puts celebs’ teaching skills to the test

The series: Recess Therapy is expanding. The Doing Things-owned brand has announced the launch of Celebrity Substitute, a new YouTube series that brings stars like Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield into the classroom.

Each episode will be set at a public school, where high-profile guest stars will attempt to educate local children. For the inaugural installment (which hit YouTube on October 22), Recess Therapy host Julian Shapiro-Barnum visited a school in Manhattan’s Lower East Side alongside celeb subs Pugh and Garfield. Their goal: teaching drama to a rowdy class of kiddos.

Check out the full episode here.

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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.