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Today’s News

THAT’S SHOW BIZ

YouTube will broadcast the Oscars in 2029 and beyond

The rights deal: YouTube will be the official host of the Oscars from 2029 to 2033. An initial rights deal between Google’s video platform and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—which organizes and votes on the Academy Awards each spring—will run through 2033 (though the agreement could potentially be extended beyond that point).

That means the 2028 Oscars, which will double as the ceremony’s 100th birthday, will bring an end to ABC‘s five-decade run as the gala’s broadcaster. The network was reportedly paying upwards of $100 million a year for the rights to the broadcast, and generating $140 million in annual revenue from the event.

As part of its distribution deal with YouTube, the Academy is also working with the Google Arts & Culture initiative to digitize the Academy Collection and enable access to select Academy Museum exhibits. The result of that partnership will be “a true hub for film fans” (per the Academy).

The context: YouTube’s successful bid for the Academy Award broadcast rights doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. A Bloomberg report revealed YouTube’s Oscar ambitions all the way back in August, and the video platform has spent freely to acquire the rights to other big-name events (including the exclusive NFL broadcast it hosted at the start of the current football season).

Now, YouTube will have to figure out how its creator community fits into its Oscars broadcast. The platform has made influential contributions to cinema in recent years, especially as creators like RackaRacka and Chris Stuckmann become in-demand Hollywood filmmakers. But if YouTube beats the creator drum too fiercely, it risks alienating entertainment traditionalists.

Luckily (or unluckily) for the video hub, the Oscars don’t actually have much of an audience for YouTube to alienate. The ceremony’s viewership has plummeted since its turn-of-the-millennium highs and seems unlikely to recover without significant updates. If YouTube can keep the Oscars’ Nielsen-style ratings above 20 million, it would be a marked improvement over recent traffic numbers.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• After launching its Playables gaming library in 2024, YouTube is now beta testing an AI-powered tool that makes it easy for creators to develop and launch their own video games. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• FIFA will bring a "reimagined FIFA football simulation game” to Netflix next year—just in time for the World Cup. (Engadget)
  

  
  

• YouTube says it will no longer provide data for the Billboard Music Charts because Billboard is “unwilling” to update “an outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported.” (YouTube)
  
  

• Snapchat has introduced Quick Cut, which it describes as a "Lens-powered video creation tool that helps Snapchatters turn their favorite Memories into beat-synced, ready-to-share videos in seconds.” (Snap Newsroom)

POD PEOPLE

Netflix just poached a bunch of top YouTube podcasts

The rivalry: Netflix isn’t YouTube’s biggest fan—and there’s a good reason for that. Google’s video platform is currently dominating Nielsen‘s streamer watch time charts, which used to be reserved for services like HBO Max, Netflix, and Hulu (aka the deluxe-production hubs that pour millions into original series like Stranger Things). That status quo shifted in 2023, when Nielsen began counting YouTube as a streaming service.

As a result, the video hub has now been the #1 streaming service in the U.S. by sheer watch time for almost three years. And Netflix isn’t happy about that.

So, it’s taking aim at YouTube’s podcast business.

The deals: Earlier this week, Netflix announced separate but similar video podcast deals with Barstool Sports and iHeartMedia that will pull new episodes of popular shows off YouTube and take them exclusively to its own platform, along with “select” older episodes. (The rest of the series’ catalogs will remain on YouTube.)

The Barstool deal is multiyear, and covers video versions of new episodes from Pardon My Take, The Ryen Russillo Podcast, and Spittin’ Chiclets. Audio versions of episodes will continue to go out across platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

At the same time, Netflix’s deal with iHeartRadio gives it video rights for new episodes of over 15 shows, including The Breakfast Club, true crime series My Favorite Murder, Joe and Jada, Chelsea Handler‘s Dear Chelsea, The Psychology of Your 20s, and This Is Important.

The context: With the rise of video podcasts, YouTube and Spotify have emerged as top destinations—but these deals show that Netflix is ready to throw its hat into the ring. After all, the streamer didn’t just pick up a couple of shows; it poached major producers of some of YouTube’s most-watched podcast series. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see how that big swing pans out.

CREATOR COMMOTION

YouTube is expanding AI Portraits to turn creators into chatbots

The chatbots: YouTube has spent the past few months turning public figures into AI chatbots—and now, it’s giving some creators the same treatment.

As discussed on a Google Support page, a “small group of creators” has given YouTube permission to scrape their likenesses to train AI chatbots that look and talk like the individuals they’re based on. The test is part of the rollout for Portraits, a product that fosters conversations between AI facsimiles and fans of their real-life doppelgängers.

Portraits entered the testing stage earlier this year, when Google began using its Gemini large language model to develop AI personalities that resemble a group of real-world motivational speakers and business leaders—including author/podcaster Kim Scott—who lent their likenesses to the effort.

Now, thanks to the expansion of Portraits, participating creators will be able to streamline interactions with fans. According to Google Support, “U.S. viewers 18 years or older watching YouTube on desktop may see the option to ‘Talk to Creator’s Portrait’ on a participating creator’s channel, where viewers can engage with the creator’s Portrait by asking questions and exploring topics related to their content.”

The context: YouTube is far from the first tech giant to compile chatbot libraries inspired by real-life likenesses. Meta arguably led the charge on that front when it introduced genAI characters modeled after creators like MrBeast and Charli D’Amelio. In 2024, Instagram followed suit by getting to work on a program that turns consenting creators into chatbots.

Meta has speculated that those kinds of creator-inspired chatbots can reduce work demands by handling fan interactions that would otherwise pile up in inboxes. That use case certainly applies to YouTube as well, which is one reason why Google has advanced its own chatbot development program. Now, YouTube’s Portraits will help demonstrate the potential of that effort.

WATCH THIS 👀

MrBeast brought David Letterman to his hometown

The episode: The latest guest on David Letterman’s eponymous interview show truly needs no introduction. In an episode that hit Netflix on Tuesday, the legendary late-night host sat down with MrBeast for a chat in his hometown of Greenville, North Carolina. The focus of their conversation (according to this YouTube teaser): “wildly expensive viral stunts, philanthropy, and how to bury yourself alive.”

Get a sneak peek at the episode here, or head on over to Netflix to catch the full interview on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman.

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