It's Monday and over the weekend, two YouTuber-directed horror films dominated theaters as the #1 and #2 top movies at the box office.
Today’s News
📚 Creators advise an education startup
📱 Twitch gets an update
👀 YouTube Premium leans into podcasts
🧱 A Minecraft Movie goes for round 2
PLATFORM UPDATES
Premium subscribers are getting three new podcast perks.
The context: From $100 million deals to new data dumps, it’s been quite the month for the podcasting industry. Now—on top of Netflix’s agreements with Jay Shetty and The Breakfast Club, and Spotify’s gen AI podcasts—YouTube has announced new podcast perks for Premium subscribers.
YouTube Premium debuted in 2018 at $9.99/month. Back then, its primary perk was access to YouTube’s slate of original programming. Fast forward to 2026, and pretty much all of that has changed. YouTube no longer makes original programming, Premium costs $15.99/month, and subscribers’ biggest perk is no ads. Now, even more changes are coming—and that’s a good thing for podcast listeners.
The new perks: In a company blog post, YouTube said Premium subscribers tend to be “podcast super-users” and noted that, in April 2026, “YouTube Premium users watched over 800 million hours of podcasts.”
That correlation makes sense. Podcast episodes tend to be long, and on YouTube, longer videos mean longer (and sometimes more frequent) ad breaks. For someone who consumes a lot of podcast episodes, then, going ad-free is probably worth the cost of Premium.
As YouTube pointed out, its paid service also offers additional perks to podcast fans, including “features like background play, Jump ahead, and faster playback speeds”—plus a few shiny new updates. Those fresh features include…
“On-the-go mode,” which introduces a Spotify-esque control panel with bigger, simplified controls for things like play, pause, skip forward, and go back.
Auto speed, which YouTube says “intelligently adjusts playback during relevant moments like slower speech or information-dense segments.”
And finally, an expansion of the platform’s chatbot Ask feature, which now will respond to users asking for personalized podcast recommendations “based on genres, your current mood, or shows you already love.”
Those three updates may be small quality-of-life changes, but they reaffirm YouTube’s focus on podcasts—and keeping listeners on its platform.
HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰
Twitch is getting in sync. (Photo by George Chan/Getty Images.)
Twitch revealed several platform updates at TwitchCon Rotterdam, including a Dual Format feature that will allow creators to stream horizontally and vertically at the same time. (Engadget)
Loryn Brantz—who created “The Good Advice Cupcake” while working at Buzzfeed—has urged viewers to boycott the company over a deal that will bring her character to an AI-driven Amazon Prime Video series. (Gizmodo)
Multimillion-dollar settlement payments made to Breathitt County by Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube reportedly outstripped the Kentucky school district’s entire annual budget. (TheNextWeb)
In a letter sent to TikTok USDS, Senator Ed Markey pressed for additional details on the joint venture’s plans to ensure data security and the extent of Bytedance’s influence on TikTok’s U.S. operations. (Gizmodo)
THE BIZ
Ben Newtown is the brain behind the creator economy’s latest educational startup.
Bedford is a creator school for executives, not aspiring YouTubers
The startup: As our industry becomes increasingly populated by experts, creator-led companies are stepping up to help guide the next generation of content-makers. The latest example of that trend is Bedford, a creator education startup founded by Ben Newton, who previously co-founded and CEO’d childcare and education company Vivvi.
Bedford bills itself as an “educational institution” designed to help enrollees master the art of “creating content to communicate expertise, build credibility, and generate opportunity,” and boasts an impressive lineup of founding advisors. So far, that list includes YouTubers Jordan Matter, Michelle Khare, and Samir Chaudry, as well as Google Director of AI Product Will Houghteling, organizational psychologist Adam Grant, beehiiv/Twitter vet Katherine Rundell, and Sunil Gupta, a professor at Harvard Business School and an expert in digital strategy.
The details: Bedford’s annual tuition structure is reminiscent of other creator industry education programs we’ve seen pop up. The startup charges a yearly membership fee of $3,750 for continued access to educational programming, exclusive events, and mentor support. All new members begin their time at Bedford with a personalized six-week course.
According to the company, the starting course involves a “structured cycle of ideation, production, publication, and refinement of content, with individualized coaching, peer reviews, creator-in-residence feedback,” and AI workflows. Participants, meanwhile, “range from entrepreneurs to senior executives, while companies and brands can partner with Bedford to help their teams become more digitally fluent and effective communicators to drive opportunity.”
Bedford’s first cohort is set to kick off on July 20. Anyone interested in applying can check out its website.
WATCH THIS 🧱
A Minecraft Movie is coming back for round two.
Minecraft is putting fans to the test ahead of its next film adaptation
The challenge: The success of A Minecraft Movie shows that Gen Alpha is a force to be reckoned with at the box office. While some of the kiddos who saw Minecraft in theaters proved to be a tad disruptive, the blockbuster took home nearly $1 billion, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2025.
Now, the movie’s creators are gearing up for a sequel—and finding new ways to hold fans’ attention in the meantime. The newly announced Minecraft Build Challenge will encourage gamers to keep their eyes on the prize and their minds on Minecraft until The Minecraft Movie: Squared comes out next summer.
Check out this video from Minecraft’s official YouTube channel for more details about the challenge and upcoming film.
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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, James Hale, and Josh Cohen.