It’s Tuesday and YouTube has been shaking the money tree. The proof is in the pudding: in the last eight years, the platform’s ad revenue has increased by 343.52%.

Today’s News

MESSAGE FROM MOHAN

CEO Neal Mohan has a message from YouTube—and a vision for the platform’s future

The platform: YouTube is heading into its 20th year as a formidable challenger to TV networks, streaming services, and podcasting platforms alike. In his 2025 letter to creators, Neal Mohan described YouTube as both “the new television” and "the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S.”

The CEO backed up those titles with some hefty stats. YouTube gets over a billion hours of watch time on living room TVs every day and—according to Nielsen—has been the most-watched streaming service on TVs for two years straight. Now, Mohan says living room TVs are officially the #1 place for people in the U.S. to watch YouTube content.

On top of challenging TV networks and streaming services, Mohan’s letter reaffirmed YouTube's position as a competitor in the podcast space. Despite Spotify's aggressive investment in video podcasts, data from Edison Research support the CEO’s claim that YouTube holds the crowns as the most “used service for listening to podcasts” among U.S. users.

The creator community: Mohan also pointed to the financial and cultural evolution of YouTube’s creator community—including its growing impact on the entertainment industry. The exec pointed to production studios launched by stars like Alan Chikin Chow and Kinigra Deon as evidence that YouTube channels are “becoming the startups of Hollywood.”

While some creators have turned their attention to Hollywood-level production, others are embracing social ecommerce. Mohan said more than 50% of channels earning five figures or more in 2024 made money from avenues other than AdSense and YouTube Premium, with affiliate marketing becoming a significant source of revenue for top-earners like South Korean fashion creator Bora Claire. On the in-platform side of monetization, Mohan called attention to Hype and Communities—two recent updates aimed at facilitating creator/fan connections within the YouTube bubble—and noted that the number of Channel Memberships has risen 40% year-over-year.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Korean creators made a big impact on this week’s Global Top 50 chart, with KIMPRO emerging as the only YouTube channel to pull in over 1 billion views during the week of February 9. (Tubefilter)
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• A group led by Elon Musk’s xAI company has reportedly offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion. CEO Sam Altman’s response: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” (Engadget)
  
  

• Meta began the process of laying off thousands of employees earlier this week as part of a planned effort to cut 5% of its staff. (ABC News)
  
  

• Roblox, Discord, OpenAI and Google have joined forces to launch Robust Open Online Safety Tools, a nonprofit organization designed "to build scalable, interoperable safety infrastructure suited for the AI era." (Engadget)

GOSPEL STATS 🏍️

Top Branded Videos of the Week: Podcasts, superglue, and space cities

STEM videos and podcasts regularly rule Gospel Stats’ weekly Brand Reports—and the first ranking of February is no different. Frequent chart-toppers Theo Von and Veritasium both claimed spots in the Top 5, while social media-savvy brands like Brilliant, PrizePicks, Manscaped, and Nebula enjoyed the spoils of backing viral hits.

🥇 #1. Theo Von x Celsius, PrizePicks, Moonpay, Tecovas, Blinds, Manscaped: Katt Williams \ This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #558 (9M views)
Theo Von is one of several right-leaning podcasters who was tapped for Trump‘s presidential campaign press run. The creator’s YouTube viewership has steadily increased since the election’s conclusion in November, attracting the attention—and financial backing—of frequent podcast sponsors like Celsius, PrizePicks, Moonpay, Tecovas, Blinds, and Manscaped.

🥈 #2. Veritasium x Brilliant: Why Super Glue Is Perfect for Gluing Skin (8.2M views)
It’s common sense not to put super glue on your skin…or is it? For his latest video, the creator behind Veritasium dove into one of the few scenarios in which glue and (superficially wounded) skin are a match made in heaven. The channel’s science-based explanation was sponsored by longtime partner Brilliant, which offers its own take on STEM content through online course material.

🔎 #492. Joe Scott x Nebula: NASA’s Plan to Build Cloud City on Venus (and other questions) (215.3K views)
Veritasium is far from the only STEM channel hitting viewers with unexpected science facts. Joe Scott—who describes himself as a “curator of interestingness”—recently offered viewers a 31-minute FAQ, which answered questions about EMPs, the Mayan calendar, and the plausibility of a “cloud city” on Venus. That video was one of nearly 20 clips backed this week by creator-owned streaming service Nebula, which continues to be one of the biggest sponsors of edutainment content on YouTube.

Check out the full branded ranking here or head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

BEAST MODE

MrBeast’s toy line is already a bestseller. Now, it’s getting its own series of animated shorts.

The announcement: MrBeast’s toy line is expanding into the world of animation. A series of shorts are due to arrive later this year, giving fans a chance to tune into content based on the “Mutator” characters that first hit retail shelves over the holidays.

The color-changing Mutators were among the first toys to come out of MrBeast Labs—a venture boosted by a collaboration between MrBeast and Moose Toys—and became almost instant bestsellers. Shortly after the characters’ debut, Moose Toys announced that Mutators were the top-selling toy line in the Action Figure supercategory in both September and October 2024 (per data from Circana).

Now, Mutators are set to play a pivotal role in animated narratives that will pit MrBeast items—including the microcollectibles known as Swarms—against an enemy called the “Shroud.” A number of “Hybrid Beasts” will also show up along the way (possibly hinting at an upcoming toy?).

The partnerships: To help bring those “explosive storylines” to his 360 million YouTube subscribers, MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) is getting assists from two digital-savvy firms: existing partner Moose Toys and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. The former company has entered into partnerships with several high-profile creators, while the latter (which was co-founded by Seth Green and helped produce his Adult Swim classic Robot Chicken) has teamed up with media companies like Vimeo, EA Sports, and Crackle.

The context: MrBeast isn’t the first creator to promote IRL products by harnessing animated storytelling on platforms like YouTube Shorts. Bonkers Toys, which has produced retail items based on the viral Skibidi Toilet universe, similarly used fan-made content to tell stories that put its toys front-and-center. Now, we’ll see if videos starring MrBeast’s Mutators can generate the same kind of buzz.

WATCH THIS 📺

From dancing tongues to Seal the seal, this year’s Super Bowl ads went to some pretty weird places

The Game Day ads: When it comes to the Super Bowl, there are three kinds of viewers: those who watch for the sport, those who tune in for the half-time show, and those who come purely for the commercials.

This year’s big game offered plenty of content for that final contingent of viewers—including some that we could have lived without (looking at you and all your many tongues, Coffee Mate). Among our personal favorites: Seal’s appearance as an actual seal for Mountain Dew, Hellmann’s’ callback to Harry Met Sally, and Uber Eats’ star-studded movie pitch to Barbie director Greta Gerwig.

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