As the creator industry grows ever more entrepreneurial, we see more and more creators becoming pros and launching their own studios–not just to support their own personal production efforts, but also the efforts of fellow creators. One of those pro creators is MrBallen (aka John Allen), the Navy Seal turned storyteller whose “strange, dark, and mysterious” videos have netted him 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

In 2022, Allen and his manager Nick Witters parlayed his success into opening Ballen Studios. With the production company, they had one core goal: to be the campfire around which storytelling-savvy creators gather, hone their craft, and expand their reach to new audiences.

Now, just over two years later, Ballen Studios produces seven creator-led podcasts–and just introduced its newest, Late Nights with Nexpo.

Hosted by titular YouTuber Nexpo–who has 3.6 million subscribers tuning in for his in-depth, documentary-style videos about all things eerie–Late Nights with Nexpo will chronicle “some of the most bizarre and chilling true stories and mysteries from around the world,” Ballen Studios says.

“Storytelling has always been at the core of what I do, and a podcast feels like the perfect way to push that even further,” Nexpo (who signed with Ballen Studios’ management arm in 2023) tells Tubefilter. “My YouTube content is all about diving deep into eerie mysteries, psychological horror, and the unexplained, but there’s always more to uncover–more layers to the stories, more chilling details, and more ways to immerse the audience.”

He adds that he wanted to expand into podcasting because “there’s something about the podcast format that creates an entirely different kind of connection.”

“It’s intimate,” he says. “You’re right there with the listener, walking them through these stories in a way that feels immersive and atmospheric. I also love that it gives me the flexibility to dive deeper into topics and really build a world around these mysteries in a way that complements what I do on YouTube. For my audience, I think it’s going to feel like an extension of everything they already love–just in a format that lets them experience it in a whole new way.”

Ballen Studios has seen success with its other creator-led podcasts. Last year, it tapped Marine veteran Luka Lamana to host Wartime Stories and REDACTED: Declassified with Luke Lamana. The former went on to become one of 2024’s top ten new podcasts (per data from Edison Research), and the latter was picked by Amazon-owned Wondery for a video partnership.

Witters, who’s Ballen Studios’ CEO as well as Allen’s manager, says, “Ballen Studios isn’t just producing podcasts–it’s shaping the future of the digital landscape and turning the industry upside down by empowering the next wave of digital creators to take over the charts and redefine what success looks like in the podcasting space.”

The debut episode of Late Nights with Nexpo dropped as a special video edition on Nexpo’s channel, but future episodes will live (for now) as audio-only presentations on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. In this episode (embedded above), Nexpo chronicles a 1993 hiking incident where seven people left home to adventure in the Khamar-Daban mountain range, and only one returned alive.

Ballen Studios has big hopes for Late Nights with Nexpo: the series as a whole is repped by its management division and United Talent Agency worldwide in all areas.

“Since its inception, Ballen Studios set out to find, sign, and amplify the voices of the world’s best storytellers, and Nexpo is a perfect example of that,” Witters says. “It’s an honor to help expand his universe of content, bringing his unique storytelling to an even broader audience through podcasting. Late Nights with Nexpo is just one of many more to come, and we can’t wait for fans to experience this next evolution of him as a storyteller, and trust me, you won’t want to miss this one.”

Filed under: Ballen Studios, Creator, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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[Tubefilter Charts is a periodic rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. We use data directly from YouTube and in terms of subscribers, YouTube rounds that data to the first three significant figures. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.] 

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

During the month of February, 18 U.S.-based channels added at least one million new subscribers. The leader of the pack was MrBeast, who handsomely outdid his competition by hauling in 13 million new subs over the 28-day measurement period.

YouTube Shorts is still a dominant force in these rankings, with more than two-thirds of the listed channels operating primarily in the vertical video milieu. Among the minority of multiformat creators, however, there are some big names who are using polished pieces of content to climb the charts.

These creators are showing that a balanced approach to YouTube still Matters

I hope that photographer and creator Jordan Matter will excuse me for using a pun he’s probably heard a million times. Matter’s channel dates back to 2017, and he enjoyed substantial upticks in the early 2020s as his daughter Salish began to feature more frequently in his videos.

In 2025, the Matters are versatile creators who occasionally show up in the scripted morality tales published by long-time Chart Topper Dhar Mann. In February, however, Mann is absent from the U.S. Top 75 while the Matters are in. Jordan’s namesake channel offers a wide variety of videos, including regular uploads on Shorts, but his long-form clips are key to his subscriber acquisition. As he and Salish explored lavish YouTuber houses, he drew in 600,000 new subscribers during the second month of the year.

Videos like these show that creators can still benefit from producing more traditional forms of content. Shorts may grab headlines and viewership among the attention-defecit generation, but those young viewers are happy to explore a long-form upload, especially when it features likeable stars like the Matters.

Druski offers another example of this phenomenon. For years, the multihyphenate creator thrived on Instagram Live, where his broadcasts made him one of the format’s top draws. His recent activity on YouTube has changed the narrative surrounding his career. With his smash-hit dating show Coulda Been Love, Druski is taking his YouTube channel to new heights (550,000 new subscribers in February) while putting out a product that rivals reality TV favorites like the Bachelor franchise.

Data via Gospel Stats

So if you’re a creator who feels pigeonholed by YouTube’s emphasis on short-form content, don’t fret. It’s still possible to produce longer videos that hit their marks — but it helps to have the creative ability that Jordan Matter and Druski showed during February.

Channel Distribution

This month, 57 channels in the Top 100 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all of our news at Tubefilter by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook, and watching our videos on YouTube.

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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[Tubefilter Charts is a periodic rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. We use data directly from YouTube and in terms of subscribers, YouTube rounds that data to the first three significant figures. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.] 

Scroll down for analysis and then this week’s Tubefilter Chart. 👇

MrBeast has more YouTube subscribers than anyone else, and his lead keeps growing bigger with each passing month. The North Carolina-based creator added 15 million new subscribers in February 2025, and only one other channel got more than five million new subs.

To make the Global Top 100 at all, channels needed to add at least 950,000 new fans over a 28-day period. A few of the creators who reached that benchmark are putting their country on the map, though they had to travel the world to do so.

Here’s to the independent documentarians of Saudi Arabia

Once upon a time, Saudi Arabia was a budding YouTube hotbed. About a decade ago, the Middle Eastern kingdom boasted the most plugged-in YouTube viewers in the world, who collectively delivered a massive amount of watch time to a rising group of local creators.

In 2025, we rarely see Saudi creators in our Tubefilter charts, but that changed in February. Two Arabian locals cracked the list of the 100 most-subscribed channels of the month, with Joe HaTTaB moving up to 87th place in the ranking. The documentarian got one million new subscribers in February by taking his show on the road. With his fearless style, he captured the lives of imprisoned gang members in El Salvador. One long-form video from that series has earned more than 39 million views to date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0an7kovsPeQ

Joe HaTTaB has become an international superstar by sharing a globetrotting selection of stories. That description could also apply to the other Saudi representative in the Global Top 100, who uploads videos under the name Ali bin Wasel. Rather than releasing the sort of long-form documentary work you’d find on Joe HaTTaB’s channel, Ali plies his trade within the buzzy world of YouTube Shorts.

His hit clips aggregate fascinating stories from around the world, and viewers are hooked. This time last year, Ali bin Wasel was a nonfactor in our YouTube charts, but he has since rocketed up the ranking to reach 96th place in our encapsulation of February’s most-subscribed channels.

Will Saudi Arabia continue to flourish in our charts? Local creators are finding their voices, but as far as Middle Eastern content goes, Dubai is still the #1 hotbed.

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 100 Most Subscribed channels this month in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 25
• United States: 21
• Indonesia: 7
• Mexico: 6
• Hong Kong: 5
• Brazil and South Korea: 4
• Japan and Spain: 3
• Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam: 2
• Belarus, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Peru, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates: 1

This month, 64 channels in the Top 100 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it. 👉  Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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Sorry what? What did you say? Turn it down?

OK, we’ll stop the bit. But we’re illustrating something important here: In the U.S., commercials aren’t allowed to be louder than regular TV programming. That’s thanks to the CALM Act, which Congress passed in 2012.

However, ‘not allowed to be’ and ‘aren’t’ are two different things. It appears some ads have slipped CALM Act enforcement, because after the number of complaints about loud advertisements “took a troubling jump” in 2024, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it’s now seeking public comment about the volume of commercials.

“Over the past several years the Commission received thousands of complaints about loud commercials on broadcast, cable, and satellite television,” it said in a press release this week. “Through this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission will consider additional actions the Commission could take today to make sure TV viewers aren’t inundated by exceedingly loud commercials in the future.”

Now, to be clear, the CALM Act as it stands only applies to traditional TV networks and pay TV providers like cable and satellite. It does not apply to advertisements played by streaming services like Netflix and YouTube (which, yes, Nielsen counts as a streaming service–in fact, the biggest in the world by watch volume).

As PCMag points out, though, complaints filed in 2024 included complaints about TV ads run by streaming services.

In its call for public comment, the FCC asks consumers “what actions the Commission, industry, or standard developers could take to further minimize consumer harm.”

Based on that language and the complaints specifically citing streaming services, we’re wondering if future additions to the CALM Act will include regulating streamers, now that they comprise such a significant part of TV watch time–not to mention a serious chunk of the $300 billion U.S. businesses will spend on digital ads this year.

We’re not surprised the FCC has seen complaints about ads on streaming services. They’re getting more and more frequent, with services like Netflix adding paid tiers and Amazon‘s Prime Video adding non-negotiable, unskippable ads. Meanwhile, YouTube-on-TV (not to be confused with pay-to-watch OTT offering YouTube TV) has been consistently getting more and longer ads, leading to ire from some viewers. If they’re getting louder, too? Yikes.

Filed under: Homepage Feature by James Hale
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TikTok is planning for its live shopping infrastructure to deliver astonishing sales figures in the years to come, but a few ambitious platforms may have something to say about that. As the ecommerce market continues to heat up, a court filing revealed that TikTok Live is projected to haul in $77 billion in annual sales by 2027.

TikTok estimated its future Live sales volume in a court document that pertains to an ongoing legal battle against the U.S. government (no, not that one). Federal prosecutors have worked with a group of state attorneys general to file a lawsuit against the ByteDance-owned app, alleging that its addictive structure and questionable content leads to mental and physical harms for underage users. TikTok attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed, but a judge struck down that effort.

In the middle of the unsealed complaint against TikTok, there are some fascinating statistics that show how much TikTok Live has grown — and how far it could continue to rise. Thanks revenue streams like gifts and subscriptions, TikTok Live sales peaked at a quarterly total of $1.7 billion in 2023.

If TikTok’s predictions come to pass, it will reach peak sales figures that smash the 2023 sum. “TikTok has described LIVE viewers as a ‘committed’ user base, with 62% of them watching it daily,” reads the complaint. “The company estimates that by 2027 it could capture up to $77 billion a year from LIVE alone.”

TikTok’s bullish projection is informed by the success of the app’s Chinese counterpart, Douyin. In 2023, Douyin’s ecommerce sales shot up to $274 billion over the first ten months of the year. Given the resistance to social shopping within Western cultures and the regulatory pressure coming out of Washington, TikTok’s ideas about the future of Live sales may seem overly optimistic.

But even if sales projections in the U.S. don’t pan out, TikTok will still be able to rely on its growing ecommerce empire in Southeast Asia. To support its operations in that region, the app recently committed $8.8 billion to open new data centers in Thailand.

The gaudy dollar amounts associated with TikTok’s live streaming sales help explain why that industry has drawn so much attention from Big Tech firms and investors. Major players like YouTube have reorganized their monetization structures to provide more inroads for streamers, while rising platforms like Whatnot have secured major funding rounds. Another notable milestone for the live shopping ecosystem is the launch of SoCom, a conference dedicated to the ecommerce world.

The latest financial transaction coming out of that industry concerns LyveCom, a company founded by Shopify expert Maxwell Drut and Kombo Ventures founder/CEO Kevin Gould that integrates TikTok-style videos into Shopify hubs and other social storefronts. Once plugged into those storefronts, LyveCom allows retailers to 1) upload their own clips and aggregate video content about their products from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram and 2) host and distribute livestreams. Those seem to be performing especially well.

The company recently spearheaded a Halloween livestream for energy brand GFuel and its collaboration with iconic horror movie villain Chucky. The creator-led event drove over $200,000 in sales, with a customer conversion rate of 42.4%. “Before integrating LyveCom, our biggest challenge was bridging the gap between real-time community interaction and purchase conversion. Now, our influencer partners livestream directly from our website, creating an integrated experience that’s driven substantial revenue growth,” Victoria Hana, Director of Ecommerce at GFuel, said in a statement.

It was announced today LyveCom was acquired by Verb Technology, a platform developer that operates in the live streaming and social shopping space. It’s the latest of several indicators that showcase the intensifying interest and investment in this growing sector.

TikTok may not reach its ambitious long-term goals for its live-streaming format, but even if it falls short of its 2027 projections, money is all but guaranteed to continue flowing into the ecommerce world. If you want a piece of those rapidly expanding earnings, all you need to do is tap the “LIVE” option when it pops up in the TikTok app.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, TikTok by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube‘s Primetime Channels hub, which offers subscriptions to streaming services like Max and Paramount+, has struggled to gain traction. To bring more attention to its one-stop shop, YouTube is trying out a new idea: It’s going to make its TV app look more like the streaming services it’s selling.

According to The Information, a redesigned version of YouTube’s TV app will sort content into shelves, as you’d see on a service like Netflix, Hulu, or Peacock. That layout will create room to highlight Primetime Channels, which YouTube is reportedly making a priority for the coming year.

Shelves featuring category-based suggestions or curated collections of creator content will live next to a display for Primetime Channels. “People come to YouTube for everything from scripted dramas to podcasts, NFL games to the latest music—it’s all on YouTube,” reads a statement from a YouTube spokesperson. “We give users more ways to customize their experience and get all their favorite content in one place with products like Primetime Channels, NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube Premium.”

Primetime Channels launched in 2022 as YouTube’s answer to Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, a similar hub stocked with a wide range of streaming sign-ups. Initially, YouTube looked to improve Primetime Channels’ compelling yet incomplete lineup by adding other coveted subscriptions, including some in the FAST lane.

But that plan seems to have been foiled by a resilient boogeyman in the streaming space: Discoverability. A great product means nothing if users can’t find it, but if YouTube put Primetime Channels on its homepage, the mix of free and paid offerings could cause confusion.

The solution seems to be a shift in focus, with less emphasis on filling in channel gaps as YouTube tries to get Primetime Channels in front of its target audience. To make its move, YouTube is turning to one of its most dominant screens: TVs. That’s where the Google-owned hub continues to eat up more watch time each month, delivering strong returns for Google parent Alphabet. The new layout will test whether the growing community of YouTube viewers on TV are interested in using the app to consolidate their other subscriptions.

The payoff could be huge. With viewers complaining about interruptive ad experiences and the rising price of YouTube Premium, the platform’s existing revenue streams only have so much room to grow. Primetime Channels could be YouTube’s next big thing — it just needs to make sure its users know that its subscription hub exists.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
Comments Off on YouTube wants to use its dominance on TV screens to sell more premium subscriptions

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart. 👇

No U.S.-based channels reached 500 million views in the week’s ranking of the nation’s most-watched YouTube hubs. Toys and Colors led the U.S. Top 50 with 469.2 million weekly views after coming in second seven days ago.

Toy channels, content aggregators, and top creators remain the most common sights in the U.S. Top 50. Over the past few months, however, a new category of Chart Toppers has emerged: News organizations. And yes, the 45th and 47th President has a lot to do with it.

The resistance is staying informed on YouTube

Last week, we discussed Fox News’ recent growth on YouTube, which was catalyzed last November by the return of a Republican-led government in the United States. Seven days later, Fox News is still flying high, reaching 35th place in the U.S. Top 50. At the same time, some organizations to Fox’s left are working their way into the ranking as well.

We haven’t seen much of the Forbes Breaking News channel in the U.S. Top 50, but that changed this week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s…atypical visit to the White House. As news of Zelenskyy’s awkward encounter with Trump and Vance went viral, Forbes emerged as one of the key sources offering complete footage of the chaotic conversation.

The Forbes Breaking News account of Zelenskyy’s Oval Office visit has reached nearly nine million views on YouTube. In total, the aforementioned channel collected 93.9 million weekly views, reaching 41st place in the U.S. Top 50.

Forbes may not be far enough to the left to serve as a Democratic antidote to Fox News, but MSNBC certainly is. Thanks in large part to its frequent activity on YouTube Shorts, the news-breaking arm of the Peacock was one of the fastest risers in the U.S. Top 50, reaching 25th place with 113.9 million weekly views.

Data via Gospel Stats

Much has been said about the role internet culture played in the right wing’s return to power, but let’s not ignore the left’s growing digital presence. MSNBC may not be quite as big a deal on YouTube as Fox News is, but it is a trusted source for liberals during an era defined by misinformation, and that alone bodes well for the channel’s long-term viability on social media.

Channel Distribution

This week, there are 31 YouTube Shorts channels in the U.S. Top 50.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it. 👉  Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, News, statistics, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart. 👇

There’s a new leader at the top of the Global Top 50. Anaya Kandhal is back in the driver’s seat after picking up 968.5 million weekly views.

Indian children’s creators like Kandhal have become heroes in their home country by appealing to the non-English-speaking masses who turn to YouTube in search of family-friendly content. We’ve already discussed that phenomenon at length, but this week, some more official sources of Indian content moved into the Top 50 as well.

A rupee saved is a rupee earned

From crypto pump-and-dumps to AI-powered phishing tactics, there are numerous financial scams that regular internet users should be aware. The Indian government wants its citizens to up their awareness when it comes to those schemes, and it is using YouTube as one of the main vectors it uses to spread that information.

As a side effect of the fight against financial misinformation, the Reserve Bank of India‘s YouTube channel has grown considerably. During the happening known as Financial Literacy Week (or just FL Week for short), the RBI YouTube channel has housed 30-second spots that have scored millions of views each. The total sum of those ads and other RBI videos adds up to 233.3 million weekly views, which was enough to reach 44th place in the Global Top 50.

The national treasury isn’t the only official Indian entity benefitting from the financial content uptick caused by FL Week. A channel called UPI Chalega, which represents a titular system called the Universal Payments Interface, has also seen rapid growth this week.

With videos classified under the tag #MainMoorkhNahiHoon — which translates to “I am not stupid” — UPI has advised Indians about the steps they can take to protect themselves from scams.  The campaign powered the official UPI channel as it reached 267.6 million weekly views, securing a 32nd-place finish in the Global Top 50.

Data via Gospel Stats

We already have plenty of Anaya Kandhals in America, but broad promotion of financial literacy is an Indian trend that would be a worthwhile addition to our American discourse. There are definitely some creators out there who could use an additional line of defense against scams.

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 23
• United States: 8
• Japan and Pakistan: 3
• Canada and Indonesia: 2
• Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, El Salvador, Peru, South Korea, Spain, and Vietnam: 1

This week, 29 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it. 👉  Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, News, statistics, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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Welcome to our rundown of the most-watched branded YouTube videos of the week.

We’re publishing this snippet of a larger Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report in order to analyze sponsorship trends in the creator economy. Any video launched in tandem with an official brand partner is eligible for the ranking.

And – as the name up above would imply – all the data comes from Gospel Stats. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.

Welcome back to the Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, where we have quite a week for you. TikTok Live always seems to spawn strange new genres, and Rotten Mango has the #1 video this week with an explainer on the latest. Veritasium, meanwhile, is exploring the nitty-gritty of Google interviews. And Joe Rogan? He’s making yet another appearance…but this time, sponsored by Netflix of all companies.

Check ’em all out below:

#1 Worst TikTok Mom Loves To Date Killers In Prison & Makes Daughters Call Them “Daddy”
Channel: Rotten Mango
Brand: Shopify
Views: 7,988,630

Rotten Mango opens this beast of a two-hour video with a story that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s spent a little too much time on the internet: the (fake) Russian Sleep Experiment, where POWs were allegedly given the chance to escape scot-free if they just agreed to stay awake for 30 days. Long story short, things went very wrong, and the researchers got a good look at what happens when you deprive the human brain of sleep. Rotten Mango posits TikTok Live has a whole bunch of people putting a too-real spin on this (again, fake) creepypasta by pushing themselves and their sleep schedules to the limits on TikTok Live. But that’s not the only dangerous behavior happening on the platform. Mango eventually transitions into talking about Ash Trevino, a TikTok Live creator who’s been called “TikTok’s Messiest Mom“–and the story gets wild. Her deep dive is sponsored by frequent YouTuber collaborator Shopify, which paid for a total of 20 videos this week.

#2 The Google Interview Question Everyone Gets Wrong
Channel: Veritasium
Brand: Incogni
Views: 5,397,609

Don’t want to flunk your next big Google interview? Veritasium has you covered. There’s one interview question that stumps almost every person: You’re shrunk down to the size of a nickel and dropped in a blender. The blades will turn on in 60 seconds. How do you save yourself? Veritasium man-on-the-street interviews a bunch of folks who have good answers. Crouch down? Stand on top of a blade? Run from one side of the blender to the other and push, hoping to tip it over? But none of these are correct. To find out what is correct,  he goes on a 20-minute, physics-filled journey sponsored by digital security company Incogni, which paid for nearly 40 videos this week.

#3 Joe Rogan Experience #2275 – Magnus Carlsen
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: Netflix
Views: 4,386,397

If you’ve been in the digital space for, well, any length of time, you’ll know one thing: Netflix kinda has beef with YouTube. So we were pretty surprised when the sponsor of this week’s The Joe Rogan Experience episode, which lives on YouTube, turned out to be Netflix itself. More specifically, the sponsor is Netflix’s new Robert De Niro political thriller, Zero Day. And what did Rogan do with the Netflix big bucks? He brought in chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen for a two-hour chat. Checkmate.

#4 Update on Delta 4819 – Who were the pilots?
Channel: Taking Off
Brand: Flying Eyes Optics, Marshal Protective Services
Views: 2,899,971

Airplanes are having a rough time lately, and Delta Flight 4819 was at the center of a recent incident. While attempting to land at Toronto’s airport, it flipped over onto its roof in a dramatic, icy crash. Thankfully all passengers and crew survived, but it was still a startling incident–and this investigative video from aviation news channel Taking Off digs into the story behind the crash. The video is sponsored by sunglass company Flying Eyes Optics and personal safety company Marshal Protective Services.

BONUS #1,482 The WILD West of Early Sonic
Channel: chaomix
Brand: Factor
Views: 53,825

Sonic is one of the world’s most legendary video game characters, and with his newest Hollywood appearance bringing rival + ally Shadow into the limelight, this dynamic duo is getting more attention than ever. Which is why it’s quite the trip for gaming enthusiast chaomix to investigate why Sonic’s 1991 English-language debut made the character so different from his original Japanese counterpart. Was the original Japanese Sonic more like Shadow? Or was he a different person entirely? Why didn’t Sega‘s localization team do a better job? Get into all this and more (and fast) thanks to sponsor Factor, which paid for nearly 80 videos this week. Yowza!

…and there’s a lot more data where that came from. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.

Filed under: Articles, Brands, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by James Hale
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Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry. This week, a hip-hop icon pretended to take over for a popular creator while a major media outlet whipped up its version of a hot meme.

Creator commotion

The new Moist Cr1TiKaL is…T-Pain? With help from Ray William Johnson, Ironmouse, and others, the creator whose real name is Charlie White pretended to move on to a “second season” hosted by T-Pain. Moist then informed us that season two is canceled and he’s back to hosting his channel. Still, T-Pain is a pretty good get for a guy who sits in his room talking about YouTube drama.

Asmongold officially leaves OTK. The streamer has departed from the organization he co-founded. Other members, such as Emiru, have indicated that their OTK status is still active.

Ludwig’s critics won’t stop his VTuber plans. After the creator debuted his virtual model in a stream, some critics replied that the space should be reserved for “native VTubers.” Oh well; Ludwig has plans to continue streaming using his animated avatar.

Sway House got the band back together for a reunion stream. The live broadcast featured the housemates (and their friends) who came together as a YouTube supergroup during the early years of TikTok.

The court of law

Thomson Reuters sets a new precedent for generative AI training. The corporation emerged victorious in a case described as the first major copyright lawsuit of the AI era. Will the protections afforded to rights holders be maintained in future cases?

YouTube and TikTok have evaded a “choking challenge” lawsuit. In this particular instance, the platforms are not being held accountable for hazardous trends that propagated on their respective platforms. There’s evidence to suggest that the tide could be turning in those cases, so YouTube and TikTok should enjoy the wins for now.

Passes hit with class action lawsuit. Allegations of child pornography are at the center of a case that targets the creator marketing platform.

The ad world

TikTok launches Oscar hub. The app’s community of film critics, clip channels, and movie buffs are in the spotlight with their own destination. The Oscars go live this Sunday, with Conan O’Brien hosting on ABC.

YouTube will be the presenting sponsor of the PGA’s Creator Classic Series. Three tournaments slated for 2025 will pit golf creators against one another. YouTube will be the place to go to catch all the action on the links.

Events and happenings

Sean Evans, Rhett & Link and Marques Brownlee join Variety’s SXSW Podcast Brunch. Multiple creators of note will join forces for a March 8 panel that will discuss strategies in the rising world of video podcasts. Variety Chief Awards Editor Clayton Davis will moderate.

Movers and shakers

After MrBeast gig, Marc Hustvedt heads to Contrarian Thinking. The longtime creator economy exec, former President of MrBeast, LLC, and Tubefilter Co-Founder is heading to Contrarian, a digital media company dedicated to financial education and empowerment. As Contrarian’s new President, he will work closely with Founder and CEO Codie Sanchez.

The internet is a strange place

Internet memes spoke the New York Times‘ Lemony Garlicky Miso Gochujang Black Butter Gnocchi into existence. The best way to respond to memes is to turn them into reality. Social media users joked that the wordy dish would be the ultimate example of the heightened descriptions on the New York Times cooking app. It was all fun and games until @nytcooking actually released a L.G.M.G.B.B.G. recipe — and it ended up looking quite lemony and garlicky indeed.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Jake Paul‘s November bout against Mike Tyson was one of the biggest Netflix broadcasts of 2024, but not even an influencer boxing spectacle can top the most popular 3D characters in the world of children’s entertainment. Entertainment company Moonbug reported that its hit franchise CoComelon was the most-viewed show of the year on Netflix, totaling 231.1 million views.

After years of secrecy regarding its traffic, Netflix has started sharing precise viewership data in biannual reports. Though Netflix’s data dumps may inflate some statistics because of how the streamer counts views, the What We Watched report offers a broad look at the programs and trends that have won over Netflix subscribers.

During the second half of 2024, many Netflix viewers had their eyes glued on the Paul/Tyson tilt. Beyond its concurrent live audience, which peaked at 65 million, the broadcast has also attracted 49 million views on-demand. That made it Netflix’s most-watched special of the second half and the seventh-most-watched show over that period. Squid Game took the top spot in that ranking with 87 million half-year views.

Photo credit: Netflix

The Paul/Tyson fight may have earned a shout-out in Netflix’s Q4 2024 earnings report, but another program was arguably just as dominant on the platform at the same time. Influencer boxing specials and South Korean dystopian thrillers enjoy surges of viewership around the time of their premieres, but CoComelon and its spin-off CoComelon Lane are evergreen choices among Netflix’s youngest viewers and their parents. Moonbug reported that those two shows combined for 148 million Netflix views (across multiple seasons) over the second half of the year.

“CoComelon and CoComelon Lane have helped millions of families learn and bond through songs,” reads a statement attributed to Moonbug execs Nicolas Eglau and Courtney Holt. “Each episode is enriching and fun because our creative team and child development experts put a lot of care into making it. We’re proud to become not only the most viewed kids show, but the most viewed show overall on Netflix in 2024.”

Overall, Netflix’s viewership share among young children is declining as YouTube continues to advance. Luckily for Moonbug, CoComelon is one of the largest channels on YouTube as well, regularly ranking near the top of our Tubefilter charts. Like Netflix’s data, our Top 50 shows big-name influencers and nursery school entertainers competing for viewership records. Look for that trend to continue into 2025.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, Netflix, News by Sam Gutelle
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TikTok‘s infinitely scrolling vertical feed is designed with mobile consumption in mind, but the beleaguered app wants to reach viewers on other devices as well. To attract more traffic on the browser-based version of its platform, TikTok is bringing an intuitive new design to its desktop hub.

According to a Newsroom post, the new TikTok.com will feature a “modular design” that repositions the navigation bar to provide viewers with a distraction-free experience on their computer screens. The video player at the center of that layout will be “floating,” allowing users to keep their eyes on their For You Page as they visit other websites. A new Collections feature — which resembles a similarly named product on Instagram — will let users compile their favorite TikToks in a single location.

The changes coming to TikTok.com resemble the updates YouTube made to its TV app in November 2022. That’s when the Google-owned hub rolled out a new design that refitted Shorts for viewership on bigger screens. The update has helped YouTube increase its traffic on TVs, and TikTok could be hungry for its own big-screen blowup (especially as more workers return to offices and the desktop devices therein).

Aside from those general advantages, TikTok has some specific priorities that help explain the rationale behind its redesigned website. The growth of TikTok Live has turned the app’s vertically-oriented streams into lucrative opportunities for creators. To bolster that community, TikTok has progressively increased the max length of its uploads, doled out rewards to long-form creators, and implemented products that are essential parts of the monetization ecosystem on streaming platforms like Twitch.

But if TikTok really wants to compete with Twitch, it needs to be active on desktops, where Twitch first rose to prominence before expanding to mobile about eight years ago. Improvements to the browser-based TikTok experience will make it a more attractive option for video game streamers. To sweeten the pot even further, TikTok is adding an option to stream in a landscape orientation rather than portrait mode.

Then there’s the TikTok ban of it all. It’s possible that TikTok would have updated its web-based experience even if the U.S. government wasn’t threatening to ban the app. In a post-ban world, however, users would probably find it more intuitive to install a virtual private network (VPN) on their desktop device rather than their phone. In that scenario, the browser version of TikTok could become a key destination for displaced viewers.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, TikTok by Sam Gutelle
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