TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and YouTube is giving creators a fresh and funky way to find the beat. A new “Music Assistant” feature will allow users to generate AI tracks for videos through YouTube’s Creator Music marketplace.

Today’s News

BONUS PROGRAM

TikTok tells creators to stick around for bonus monetization

The program: TikTok is giving top creators another reason to wait things out. As negotiations continue to drag on in D.C., the platform has announced a new, invite-only reward program—called the Specialized Rewards Program—that pays creators to make content in high-traffic niches. Not to be confused with its default monetization program (aka the Creator Rewards Program), TikTok says this new incentive program will give creators bonus earnings for “standout, high-quality content.”

At launch, the platform is inviting certain creators to make content around film & TV, automotive, education, and sports. It appears to be pulling candidates from the pool of people enrolled in the Creator Rewards Program, although the exact criteria for selection aren’t clear.

The context: The Specialized Rewards Program bears similarities to Snapchat‘s now-retired Spotlight program (which shelled out $1 million a day to top-performing videos) and Twitch‘s bounties, which give creators the opportunity to accept specific brand deals for bonus cash. While TikTok’s program doesn’t tap creators to make content for specific brands, it does allow the platform to essentially commission more content about certain subjects, which could be used to woo advertisers in those niches.

It remains to be seen how much TikTok will pay for that content, but the program’s debut is already good news for creators—it’s a sign that it’s business as usual for TikTok for now and the platform expects to remain up-and-running in the U.S.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

How can you improve your YouTube views? These 2 pro creators have shared what’s working for them:

Last year Spotter launched Spotter Studio, an ideation system that helps pro YouTubers ideate, validate, and package hit videos using personalized insights inspired by the world’s best Creators. 

So, how can you increase revenue with Spotter Studio? Here are two tips from pro creators:

1. Visualize the thumbnail before you record: Kinigra Deon makes thumbnails before creating her videos—allowing her to visualize and validate her idea before spending time and money making it. By using Spotter Studio’s Brainstorm l to conceptualize and optimize new thumbnails, Deon grew her video revenue by 34%.

2. Keep an eye on the Outliers: Guava Juice’s team used Spotter Studio’s “Outliers” tool to analyze top-performing videos and generate ideas based on those over performing pieces. The result: their channel saw a 15% revenue increase per video after just 7 days.

Ready to start increasing your revenue?

Try out Spotter Studio for free →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Rebecca Zamolo—a family-oriented creator who reaches over 18 million YouTube subscribers—has announced a motherhood-focused lifestyle brand and line of fertility wellness powders called MOLO. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• As it seeks to “remove bias” from AI, Meta says its latest model, Llama 4, is comparable to X’s Grok in terms of political neutrality. (Meta)
  ​

• Bluesky’s latest slew of Twitter-style features includes the introduction of emoji reactions to DMs and a rebranded “Explore” page. (TechCrunch)
  
  

• Here’s a good reason to mind your manners with ChatGPT: thanks to a new update from OpenAI, the chatbot can now remember and reference your previous conversations during new sessions. (OpenAI via X)

SHOW BIZ

Creators are getting their own version of MasterChef

The show: The Brazilian version of MasterChef is getting a YouTube-exclusive spinoff that will bring creators into the kitchen. The culinary competition comes from Banjay Entertainment subsidiary Endemol Shine, which has teamed up with YouTube to bring a creator-focused take on the classic show to life.

MasterChef Creators will be broadcast on the official MasterChef Brasil YouTube channel, where the first of three weekly episodes will drop on May 6. The show will feature judges Helena Rizzo, Henrique Fogaça, and Erick Jacquin (pictured above) and creator hosts Fih and Edu, who together reach more than three million YouTube subscribers on their Diva Depressão channel.

The context: Alongside other classic TV content categories, cooking shows have increasingly sought to reach younger generations by including creators as participants and judges. A notable example of that trend is the Korean Netflix original Culinary Class Wars, which featured a challenge that turned famous influencers into restaurant patrons.

Now, YouTube is taking the same approach in order to bolster its rising dominance on living room screens around the world. As Google Head of Content Projects Esla Paiva noted in a statement, the launch of MasterChef Creators taps into “the growing trend of YouTube content consumption on connected TVs, by leveraging a classic television format”:

REAL TALK

BeReal thinks it can capitalize on TikTok’s uncertainty with ads. Are they even competitors?

The platform: Over the last few years, smaller platforms like Kick and Bluesky have become adept at taking advantage of bigger fishes’ falterings. Now, BeReal hopes to benefit from TikTok’s precarious position in the U.S.

In its early days, the five-year-old French photo app pitched itself as a hub of candid authenticity and largely avoided ads. Its operations over the last few years have been powered primarily by $90 million in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. When Digiday asked BeReal in 2022 what it planned to do when that cash ran out, it didn’t answer.

The strategy: Three years later, we have an answer. BeReal has been running ads outside the U.S. from over 200 brands for a while, and it now plans to bring that model stateside. Digiday reports that U.S. advertisers must commit a minimum spend of $10,000 in order to access two ad formats: targeted in-feed ads (like those on Instagram and TikTok) and 24-hour, high-placement takeovers (similar to YouTube’s masthead).

The context: Ben Moore—who will lead BeReal’s new ad push as Managing Director of U.S.—said the platform is embracing ads now because marketing budgets appear to be growing tighter and uncertainty surrounding TikTok could motivate advertisers to “pull the trigger and shift some of those budgets to BeReal.”

But will an app with the tagline “BeReal won’t make you famous” actually pull ad spend from TikTok? The two platforms may have had similar audiences in 2020—when Gen Z was seeking a rawer approach to social media—but many creators now put high-quality production resources into their TikTok content. If BeReal intends to remain a platform that doesn’t make people famous, it may struggle to woo brands that are looking to tap into the influence of creators.

WATCH THIS 📺

YouTube is endorsing a Congressional bill that addresses AI concerns

The act: YouTube is throwing its weight behind a bipartisan effort to address the rise of deepfaked images and videos.

The No Fakes Act—which was reintroduced in Congress this week—aims to give individuals the right to control digital replications of their likeness. The idea is that ownership could be transferred to an estate in the event of an individual’s death, and digital likeness rights would not expire until 70 years postmortem. Over a dozen prominent media companies have already endorsed the act, including YouTube, Disney, OpenAI, and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

The endorsement video: On the same day the bill was reintroduced, YouTube Creator Liaison Renee Richie posted a Creator Insider episode filling in creators on the details. He noted that YouTube “collaborated closely with the bill sponsors” and described the act as a way to standardize “the legal right to protect your own image and voice online” across the internet—“not just on YouTube.”

Check out the full video 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.