YouTube has stopped relying on its biggest creators staying put on their own. According to a Bloomberg report carried by Slashdot, it is offering popular channels millions of dollars to publish videos exclusively on YouTube for a set period. The aim is to stop Netflix, which has in recent months been luring YouTube stars and letting them publish on both platforms at once.
For a brand director planning campaigns around creators, this is a significant change in the rules. Where a creator publishes is no longer simply the creator's choice. It is becoming a matter of expensive exclusivity between two platforms.
What YouTube is offering
The offer has two parts. YouTube is discussing direct funding for some programmes and has also offered creators a share of the large brand campaigns it signs at platform level. According to Bloomberg, as Slashdot summarises it, the deal covers “funding directed at specific programs, and a portion of the revenue YouTube brings in through large advertiser partnerships”.
In return, YouTube asks for exclusive uploads for a defined period. Any video the creator releases during that time belongs only on YouTube.
What YouTube threatens
The other side of the offer is a penalty. Creators who publish simultaneously on Netflix could lose marketing support, invitations to events and a share of some large brand campaigns. Dexerto describes the same step as exclusion from marketing, events and brand campaign income for anyone who signs with Netflix.
No deal has been finalised yet. According to Bloomberg, however, YouTube is “close to deals with several partners”.
Mohan's U-turn and the value for advertisers
The decision came around YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. He agreed with his team in recent weeks that the growing number of creators publishing simultaneously on both platforms is a problem that needs solving. It is a reversal of his earlier position. Mohan previously argued that outside projects bring viewers back to YouTube.
The reason for the reversal lies in advertising. When the same video runs on YouTube and Netflix at once, it weakens YouTube's ability to persuade advertisers of its exclusive value. YouTube is therefore not just buying a creator's loyalty. It is buying inventory it can sell to brands as exclusive.
What the other side offers
Netflix, meanwhile, is building its own line-up of YouTube names. It has signed the baker and YouTuber Nick DiGiovanni, whose new episodes come out on YouTube and Netflix at the same time in a so-called day-and-date model. It has also brought in the Good Mythical Morning channel of the duo Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, Alan's Universe by Alan Chikin Chow, Mark Rober, and the 16-year-old Salish Matter.
Netflix wants something in return from creators. It requires finished videos in advance, asks for some sponsorships to be removed and, in certain podcast deals, limits the number of clips a creator may put on YouTube. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos summed up the logic of the deals. According to netinfluencer, he labelled YouTube a “farm league” for creators and pointed out that the platform does not provide upfront production funding the way studio deals do.
Brand campaigns tied to exclusivity
For creators, choosing a platform is turning into negotiating exclusivity. For brands, the inventory itself is changing. If part of YouTube's large brand campaigns is now tied to creators who stay exclusive, a creator's simultaneous presence on Netflix could mean being dropped from those campaigns.
In Europe, simultaneous distribution is also framed by stricter scrutiny of advertising transparency and of the position of large platforms under the Digital Markets Act. The question of where a creator may publish thus becomes one the regulator oversees, not just a commercial one. So far these are American deals. But a model in which a platform pays to keep a creator from going elsewhere concerns every brand that works with creators across several screens.
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