TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and Reddit is the latest platform to take verification checkmarks for a spin. Sounds like r/AITA is about to get a lot more interesting.

Today’s News

BUNDLE UP

YouTube TV is reportedly plotting a sports-themed bundle

The bundle: YouTube TV seems poised to expand its offering in 2026 with a lineup of genre-specific skinny bundles. According to Sports Business Journal, the streaming service has ten new bundles in the works—including a comprehensive live sports subscription offering.

That report follows the resolution of a protracted carriage dispute between Disney and YouTube that centered heavily on sports rights. Clearly, the Google-owned platform knows just how valuable sports broadcast rights can be—that’s why it’s paying about $2 billion per season to distribute the NFL Sunday Ticket football package.

If YouTube TV is going to convince consumers that no other streamer can offer better live sports coverage, however, it’s going to need a killer lineup. The upcoming skinny bundle is rumored to bring together the ESPN family, Turner Sports channels, Fox’s FS1, and the NBC Sports Network under one roof. All basic network channels would be included as well.

Another aspect of that offering connects back to a different dispute involving Disney and YouTube TV. Earlier this year, the Mouse House sued YouTube in an attempt to stop its rival from poaching sports streaming exec Justin Connolly. The two parties reached a settlement in October, and Connolly is now set to play a key role in the development of YouTube TV’s upcoming skinny bundle (per Sports Business Journal).

The impact: If that bundle comes to fruition, the result would be groundbreaking for sports fans. It would mean no more bouncing between Paramount+ and HBO Max during March Madness. Baseball fans could watch playoff games on TBS, FOX, and ESPN in a single app—and YouTube would gain a bargaining chip it could deploy in any future carriage negotiations.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• In the U.S. and Canada, all Spotify Premium subscribers can now watch music videos from major pop artists. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• According to a new report from research analyst MoffettNathanson, the number of people paying for cable channels has grown quarter-over-quarter for the first time since 2017. (Ars Technica)
  
  

• A letter signed by dozens of U.S. Attorneys General urges major AI companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google to institute safeguards against “sycophantic and delusional outputs.” (TechCrunch)
  
  

• Meta is reportedly developing a proprietary AI model called Avocado. (Engadget)

TIKTOK TALK

All TikTok wants for Christmas is a Mariah Carey concert (and a new podcast series)

The concert: TikTok Shop might be all the rage this holiday season, but Bytedance wants users to remember that its platform is a major player in the music industry, too. On December 13, TikTok will team up with Apple Music to present Mariah Carey’s Here for It All Holiday Special, a concert promoting the legendary diva’s new record.

Both TikTok Live and Apple Music are set to broadcast the special, which fits neatly into Carey’s usual slate of holiday partnerships with social media platforms. She has belted out her Christmastime favorites on YouTube and Snapchat, and uses TikTok to share her annual introductions to the holiday season. According to a blog post, TikTok videos featuring “All I Want For Christmas Is You” have accrued 130 billion views to date.

The podcast: Carey’s holiday special won’t be the first big concert broadcast on TikTok Live—and it won’t be the platform’s last pop star collab of the season, either.

In 2023, celebs like Cardi B, Anitta, and Niall Horan gathered in Arizona for In The Mix, a musical extravaganza that attracted nearly 10 million live viewers. In terms of viewership, In the Mix clearly succeeded—but if it was meant to promote the then-nascent TikTok Music service, it missed the mark. TikTok Music shut down before ever arriving in the United States, and TikTok had to rethink its approach to music content.

As part of that reshuffling, the platform has announced the December 11 premiere of a live podcast series called TikTok In The Mix, which will delve into the lives and careers of pop hitmakers (including Demi Lovato, who stars in the first installment of the show’s first season). Jack Coyne of Trackstar will serve as the series’ host, meaning fans can anticipate a combination of fun music trivia and probing insights.

TAKE IT BACK NOW, Y’ALL

Is YouTube’s evolution from Rewind to Recap a step up?

The EOY wrap-ups: Since 2016, Spotify Wrapped has become a bona fide year-end Event™. People talk about their sum-ups for weeks, and Spotify has largely monopolized the medium by including elements like thank-you clips from artists.

Now, however, YouTube is entering the ring with a personalized highlight reel called YouTube Recap. That “fun, shareable summary” is the latest milestone in the platform’s tumultuous history of year-end wrap-ups.

Back in the day, YouTube used to release an annual production called Rewind, which aimed to encapsulate the platform’s year in one video by giving nods to top creators, trends, and songs. That tradition hit a snag in 2018, when YouTube overstuffed the video with brand safe celebrity cameos and forced memes while sidelining major creators and any sense of a common throughline. Within a week of its debut, Rewind 2018 became YouTube’s most-disliked video ever.

Ultimately, the platform’s attempt to shove everything intro Rewind doomed the endeavor. In 2019, YouTube pivoted to data-driven lists. It cancelled its EOY wrap-up altogether in 2020, and then announced a permanent end to Rewind in 2021.

The 2025 recap: Now, YouTube is rolling out Recap, which sums up each viewer’s top channels, interests, “viewing habit evolution,” and “personality type” through a reel featuring up to 12 “cards.” Folks who use YouTube Music will also see their top artists and songs, plus “options to dive deeper into genres and podcasts.” At least, in theory—because for some users, Recap isn’t actually working.

While the feature is supposed to appear in the “You” tab, many users are having issues seeing it. According to YouTube, that omission could be caused by not having “sufficient eligible watch history” from January to late October 2025, having your watch history paused, having your history auto-delete set to lower than one year, or not having “a sufficient diversity of topics and creators.”

WATCH THIS 👀

Lofi Girl is all dressed up for the holidays

The Christmas ‘fit: Seven years after her virtual study sesh began, Lofi Girl announced in August that she had “finished with all my homework.” Luckily for fans of the animated character, that study break didn’t spell the end of her famous YouTube playlist—or keep her from celebrating the holidays in style.

A little over a month since offering fans Halloween-themed vinyls and stickers (while sporting a zombie-inspired fit), Lofi Girl is all decked out for Christmas. This month’s holiday offerings: Christmas cow plushies, stockings, holiday sweatshirts, and a limited edition vinyl set “featuring 25 cozy lofi tracks.”

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