TOGETHER WITH

It's Thursday and with 250 million monthly users subscribed to Netflix’s ad-driven tier, the streamer’s ads now reach ~3% of the world’s population. How’s that for a stat?

BRANDCAST BUZZ

The presentation: This year’s Brandcast truly feels like a TV upfront.

For the 2026 edition of its annual presentation to advertisers, YouTube unveiled a packed slate of creator-led programming from stars like Kareem Rahma, Jesser, HopeScope, Dude Perfect, Alex Cooper, Trevor Noah, and Cleo Abram. (You can check out the full lineup here.) And while YouTube isn’t house-producing those 20-odd shows, it does have a team working to match them with brands for expansive deals.

Ideally, those partnerships would include three things: (1) sponcon integrated into the creator’s series, (2) separate ads made by the creator for the brand, and (3) the brand running additional programmatic ads across the creator’s channel.

Once a series debuts, YouTube will grant it even more special treatment by building upon Shows, an invite-only UX that gives some channels a streaming-service-style glow-up and boosts their content to 10% of YouTube users “in select countries.”

The ad products: YouTube’s presentation also featured key advertising announcements, including the unveiling of a new masthead product that “allows advertisers to showcase their core hero creative alongside a custom-curated shelf of videos” (per YouTube). The platform cited Adelaide data showing that, in the U.S., the YouTube masthead ad inventory is 46.6% more likely to capture attention than similar premium ad placements across other platforms.

YouTube also announced “Custom Sponsorships” (an AI ad product that “dynamically curates themed content packages for brands to align with at scale”) and a new “Buy with Google Pay” system that lets CTV viewers buy advertised products directly on their TV screens. 

According to YouTube, that particular development follows a 200% increase in CTV ad conversions from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026. Also along those lines, the platform debuted an “Affiliate Partnership Boost” where creator-made videos that link out to products can get more exposure “to drive incremental affiliate sales and creator earnings from YouTube Shopping commission.”

Cannes Lions is just around the corner, and LIONS Creators Ambassador JT Barnett is gearing up for a week packed with creator conversations, culture-defining panels, and industry networking. Here’s what he’s looking forward to most:

What excites you about coming to the Festival as a LIONS Creators Ambassador?
Being part of such a historic Festival that is positioning itself in the center of culture today.

How are you preparing for the Festival?
A lot of planning! I’ve been organizing meetings, mapping out events, and thinking through content opportunities so I can make the most of the week and capture everything happening on the ground in Cannes.

What LIONS Creators sessions are you most looking forward to? Is there a specific speaker that you are excited to hear from?
I’m especially excited for ‘Greenlight Your Brand: Step Inside a Billion-View Studio’, with Dhar Mann, Jessica Williams from Spotify and Fabiola Torres from GAP. I’m also looking forward to ‘Group Chats Powered by Adobe: How to Scale Content and Reach New Audiences,’ featuring Emily Sunderg - Feed Me and many other creative leaders.

Find out who’s on the 2026 programme.  

LIONS Creators | 22-26 June 2026 | Cannes, France

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

MONEY MOVES

The acquisition: Jonah Peretti’s tenure as the CEO of BuzzFeed has come to an end. Byron Allen—a comedian-turned-media mogul whose holdings include The Weather Channel and a multitude of local TV stations—will be the next exec to lead the millennial-coded media company.

Allen Family Digital, an arm of Allen’s sprawling media empire, will pay $120 million to acquire 52% (a controlling stake) of BuzzFeed. Peretti will stay on as BuzzFeed’s President of Artificial Intelligence, a role that will allow the co-founder to continue developing the AI-powered games and love stories that have served as the latest chapters in the 19-year-old company’s history.

The background: BuzzFeed once carried enough influence that it reportedly turned down a $650 million acquisition offer from Disney. But that was a different time, and the media company has since endured multiple rounds of layoffs while also watching its roster of in-house talent winnow.

To stay afloat, BuzzFeed jettisoned several of its subsidiaries. NTWRK paid $108 million to buy the pop culture publication Complex, and Hot Ones home First We Feast sold for $82.5 million. Now, this latest deal will allow BuzzFeed to negotiate its debt while giving Allen another property to mold into a multiplatform brand.

The company’s new CEO plans to turn it into a player in fields like streaming, user-generated content, and (through its subsidiary HuffPost) local news. “As of this moment,” Allen said on a conference call, “BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube and the other big tech platforms.”

CREATOR COMMOTION

The controversy: Earlier this week, the streamer Jynxzi hosted a League of Legends event that got more viewership than most broadcasts from the game’s professional circuit. Or did it?

Jynxzi gathered 40 top LoL streamers for an eight-hour marathon tournament that peaked at 920,000 concurrent viewers (according to data from Esports Charts). That was a higher sum than the combined peak viewership of three major LoL events that occurred earlier this year.

Once upon a time, that kind of viewership would have drawn widespread accolades—but in 2026, the streaming community is mired in a viewbotting controversy that makes it hard to take big numbers at face value.

The viewbot discourse hit a fever pitch during iShowSpeed‘s trip to the Dominican Republic, when he hit a seemingly record-breaking total of two million concurrent viewers. That number ultimately turned out to be fool’s gold, with Speed himself admitting that his DR viewership had been juiced. Fellow creator xQc theorized that it wasn’t Speed himself doing the botting, but fans adding artificial viewership on his behalf.

The big picture: In response to the drama, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced a new policy that caps the concurrent viewership of streamers accused of viewbotting. As that policy takes hold, the industry is left facing some tough questions. For one, how do you evaluate a record-setting stream when the veracity of viewership numbers is constantly in doubt?

That brings us back to Jynxzi. The viewership volume for his LoL event is impressive, but it makes more sense to focus on the cultural impact of his gaming content. His recent chess streams, for example, caused the game’s traffic to spike (per Twitch Tracker data). Some of those views may have been illegitimate, but the overall trend isn’t.

At the end of the day, viewership numbers may jump off the screen—but fan engagement is the truest indicator of influence.

The tour: A24’s Backrooms movie will hit theaters in just over two weeks, bringing one of the internet’s favorite creepypasta sensations to the big screen. And in the meantime, Blake Rosier is here to sell you on the actual Backrooms.

The YouTube comedian’s latest video casts him in the role of a realtor giving a house tour of the Backrooms—which he optimistically refers to as “an open concept rolling floor plan.” There’s only so much you can do to pass off an unsettling liminal space as a charming six-bedroom abode, but Rosier’s neon red Crocs do a pretty good job of evening out the vibes.

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