TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and Warner Bros. is giving Paramount one last chance to “make its best and final offer.” Watch out, Netflix.

MONEY MOVES

The funding: Talent management company Night has raised $70 million from a handful of investors, including StepStone Group, Founders Fund, House Capital, K5 Global, and PagsGroup.

The firm—which reps creators like Kai Cenat, Sam & Colby, Safiya Nygaard, The Rizzler, and more—says it plans to use that cash injection to “build, operate and acquire businesses embedded in internet culture across all facets of media and entertainment, including digital media, music, sports, gaming, podcasting, streaming and live events.”

It adds that the fresh funding arrives during “a period of significant growth,” citing its 2024 acquisition of Rooster Teeth‘s podcast network The Roost and 2025 buy-up of marketing firm Experiential Supply Co.

Night also acquired John Nelson’s LFM Management in 2023—a move that brought Cenat and his creator collab group, AMP, to its roster—and Chas Lacaillade’s Bottle Rocket Management in 2024—which brought tech and gaming oriented creators Austin Evans, JerryRigEverything, UrAvgConsumer, and more into the fold.

Night has also had a hand in a number of other businesses and startups. Some of those companies are owned and operated by Night. Others the firm invests in to build alongside its creators. More are portfolio companies of Night Ventures, the investment arm managed by Night Founder and CEO, Reed Duchscher, Night President, Ezra Cooperstein, and Night Ventures General partner, Ben Matthews. The company also has presumably made investments through Night Capital, the $100 million VC firm it launched in 2022 with The Chernin Group.

The motivation: As for why Night is raising money now, Duchscher stated on LinkedIn that “we believe the most successful media companies of the future will be built by the people who understand internet culture and attention.”

He added that he sees this happening not only across traditional entertainment like TV and movies, but in music, sports, and live events.

Open Masters Games Abu Dhabi 2026 is a wrap. On February 15, a stunning farewell ceremony concluded 10 days of competition in 38 sports, celebrating achievements by 40,000+ athletes from 150 countries. 

The Open Masters Games Abu Dhabi presented the largest multi-sport event ever held in the Middle East.

OMGAD 2026 set a new global benchmark for lifelong participation in sports, with competitors like Radnaa Tseren (age 91) showing that athletic accomplishment knows no age limit. 

Roughly half a million spectators flocked to 20+ venues across the Middle East to watch the games—including creators Stephanie Pena, Dalton Chandler, Jenna Sinatra, Peter Hollens, and Evynne Hollens. As part of Tubefilter’s Creator Program, those cross-platform stars hit the sand for events like beach wrestling and cheered on participants from the stands. 

Visit the Open Masters Games Abu Dhabi website to learn more:

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

POD PEOPLE

The beta feature: After playing an integral role in the birth of podcasting over 20 years ago, Apple is launching a beta feature that lets Apple Music users switch between audio and video versions of their favorite shows. The new video podcast product is powered by HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), an adaptive bitrate protocol developed by Apple and released in 2009.

Apple is putting that toggle to good use by partnering with companies like Acast and SiriusXM to distribute the video podcasts on their rosters. The tech giant has also encouraged independent creators to produce video podcasts alongside their audio shows.

The context: Video podcasting has become an arms race, with platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, and TikTok leveling up their libraries through distribution deals, content partnerships, creator monetization programs, and product innovations.

In that context, Apple is playing catch-up—but the company’s early embrace of serialized talk shows shouldn’t be ignored. Even the word “podcast” (a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcast”) is a reminder that many consumers first experienced the format on their Apple devices.

As time passed, the shift to streaming media made iTunes’ downloadable video podcasts feel clunky for many consumers. Now, however, Apple is prioritizing technical upgrades as it modernizes its video podcasting endeavor. The audio-video toggle resembles a similar feature that has facilitated Spotify’s video push, and the arrival of dynamically-inserted podcast ads lets Apple match YouTube’s offering. Video podcasts can also be downloaded for offline viewing.

Apple expects its video podcasts to publicly launch in the spring. Until then, the company will stay in data-gathering mode during a developer beta period.

THAT’S SHOW BIZ

The microdrama boom: Microdramas are at the center of an industry worth tens of billions of dollars in Asia. The format’s footprint is closer to $1 billion annually in the U.S.—but as of 2025, microdramas’ popularity appears to be rising rapidly.

Hollywood is cautiously investing in the bite-sized format after the initial jump-scare of Quibi’s epic failure, and new independent production companies are springing up in hopes of riding the next format boom.

The brand activity: Meanwhile, brands are embracing that boom as a timely marketing opportunity. Both JCPenney and Maybelline debuted branded microdramas in late 2025, and Procter & Gamble took things one step further by launching a 55-episode show called The Golden Pear Affair earlier this month.

Crocs is the latest company to leverage the buzzy format. Its five-part series, Charmed to Meet You, is a partnership with Creative Artists Agency and ReelShort, the short-form streaming app founded in 2022 by Crazy Maple Studios.

Charmed to Meet You (which was apparently inspired by a real employee) follows Lexi, an early-20s single woman who notices a pair of plain men’s Crocs outside a door in her apartment building. Her friends encourage her to connect with this mysterious Croc-wearer, so she starts decorating his shoes with the brand’s signature Jibbitz.

The first 45-second episode of Charmed to Meet You went live on February 13 (appropriate timing, given that the series takes place around Valentine’s Day). That premiere racked up just 1.2K views on YouTube, where the official Crocs channel has 29,000 subscribers. Over on TikTok, however, Crocs’ audience of 3 million followers helped the episode score over 20,000 views.

The next four episodes of Charmed to Meet You are set to go live in the coming weeks and will be between one and two minutes long.

WATCH THIS 👀

The Shorts game: Creators all over the world are eager to get a piece of the online traffic associated with the Winter Olympics—and Indian YouTubers are no exception. 

For India’s top family channels, tapping into the fervor around this year’s games means distilling ideas into simple, universal themes and storylines that can connect with millions of viewers across multiple language groups and generations.

Take Mampi Roy: the Hindi-language hub recently turned “The Tortoise and the Hare” into a mock Olympic event, with two adorable kids as the competitors. That well-timed video has picked up over 650 million views since the start of the calendar year, contributing to Mampi Roy’s rise to #41 in our latest Global Top 50 ranking.

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