PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
YouTube Recognizes Netflix As A Rival
Battle royale // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
YouTube is reportedly offering incentives to top creators not to double-dip their content on Netflix.
Why It Hits: YouTube is finally acknowledging that Netflix is encroaching on its core business — being the home of top creators. Of course, Netflix has started poaching creators as YouTube has become the TV-viewership leader and now competes with film and TV streamers for sports and live-event broadcast rights. The real streaming wars are now between the two biggest juggernauts in media.
Behind The Scenes: YouTube is using both the carrot and the stick to keep content creators on its platform.
According to Bloomberg, YouTube is now offering deals worth millions of dollars to creators who don’t post their content on Netflix.
Those incentives include direct cash payments and a share of revenue from major brand deals.
The company is reportedly close to inking deals with several top creators.
Additionally, it’s penalizing creators who double-dip by not including them in marketing campaigns or official events and not sharing brand-campaign revenue.
Payout: The tit-for-tat battle between YouTube and Netflix is one for engagement and advertisers. Creators are now posting on Netflix to get some sweet licensing money and reach a new audience. YouTube says that cross-posting ultimately hurts viewership on its platform. It also disincentivizes advertisers from seeing YouTube as the primary place to reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha eyeballs.
But by getting so involved with top creators who are flirting with Netflix, YouTube could be showing too much favoritism to a certain level of creator… potentially upsetting the platform’s larger community. How long can YouTube bill itself as just an online distribution platform?
Next Negotiation: It may be getting back to a world where YouTube launches a premium studio division. But instead of being for film and TV, it’ll be for top creators.
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.