All Access

Media Deals

Media Deals Alerts

Alert

Standard

Media Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Media Deals

BFD Expert Voices

YouTube is betting that marrying a new revenue-sharing model for YouTube Shorts with its existing creator roster will make it TikTok's chief competition in the short-form video space, Tim writes.

Why it matters: TikTok has dominated short-form video and essentially forced other social media platforms to create their own versions of the popular ByteDance-owned service.

Driving the news: Yesterday, YouTube unveiled a bunch of new additions to its YouTube Partner Program, including a new revenue-sharing model for its TikTok clone YouTube Shorts that will begin early next year. 

YouTube will pool all the money it makes from ads that air in between Shorts videos and allocate 45% of that to creators, which will be distributed based on creators' share of total Shorts views.

Shorts-focused creators can now apply to the Partner Program if they meet a threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million views over a 90-day period. YouTube will also introduce lower-level access to YPP for smaller creators.

Additionally, YouTube will launch a new music licensing platform called Creator Music later this year. It will give creators the option to either pay for a license to use in their video or share their revenue with music rights holders.  

The big picture: A pioneer in online video, YouTube is trying avoid becoming irrelevant as social media companies have led the short-form video revolution. That starts by keeping their creators on YouTube. 

"The need for having tools that support our creators around that format is something I hear every day," Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer, told creators and journalists during an event yesterday in Los Angeles. 

YouTuber Kris Collins said that most creators had to balance doing Shorts, which can appeal to potential new subscribers, with their long-form content that brought in revenue. "So there's been sort of a trade-off," she said yesterday. 

But now? "I'll be able to make a living from both formats."

Between the lines: Despite the growing popularity of the short-form format, many creators find it difficult to make the same kind of money that they can in long form, which features a more lucrative revenue-sharing model.

1 big thing: YouTube targets TikTok in short-form video war 

Illustration of the Youtube and TikTok app logos battling in a comic book style. 

A New York-based startup has raised $4.6 million in seed funding for its build-out of a music collaboration platform, the cofounders and co-CEOs exclusively tell Kerry. The company's name is: [untitled]. Yes, that's the name, and we didn't forget to fill in the brackets.  

Why it's the BFD: Collaboration tools have helped improve productivity and become lucrative investments — the latest example being Figma's $20 billion sale to Adobe.  

Details: The co-founders — Dan Lilienthal and Jose Chayet — say software has underserved the music industry.

"Artists are using around eight to 10 tools, if not more, to manage their creative process," Chayet says. "[That] has really led to a lot of fragmentation, a lot of friction, and a lot of uncaptured creativity."

General Catalyst led the seed round. Looking Glass Capital, Shine Capital, Not Boring Capital and angel investors also participated. 

Catch up quick: Lilienthal and Chayet are childhood friends whose families both immigrated from Mexico City to San Diego. They bonded over how their brothers loved and played music. 

They started working on [untitled] in 2020, after Lilienthal graduated from college and Chayet quit his job at Facebook.

How it works: It's an app on mobile, web and desktop that helps subscribers manage music creations, so that means recording, storing and sharing all of those related files in one place. 

Daniel Park, a product designer who worked at Facebook and website building platform Universe, recently joined as part of the founding team. 

Tebs Maqubela, head of A&R at Hillman Grad Records, serves as an adviser.

The bottom line: "You see the amount of songs being uploaded to Spotify every day growing," Lilienthal says. "If we just give people these beautiful tools, hopefully, we can increase that output a little bit and make it even more delightful for more people to engage in the creative process." 

2. The BFD: Music software exclusive

Illustration of a piano keyboard made of a hundred dollar bill.

Data: Axios research; Table: Simran Parwani/Axios

Publishers are leaning into books, NFTs, commerce sites and Hollywood deals as a way to make money beyond advertising and subscriptions, Sara Fischer writes. 

Why it matters: Many of these alternative revenue streams begin as marketing vehicles for the journalism that supports them.

3. Charted: Diversifying revenue

Immortal Game, a web3 chess platform and marketplace, raised $12m in Series A funding. TCG led, and was joined by Cassius, Greenfield One, Sparkle Ventures, 35Ventures, Blockwall, Kraken Ventures and Spice Capital. https://axios.link/3BVh5EC

Random Games, a Boulder, Colo.-based science fiction-focused gaming studio, raised $7.6m in seed funding co-led by Resolute Ventures and Asymmetric. https://axios.link/3f7zWDu

Spot, a Seattle-based metaverse communications platform, raised $5.5m in seed funding. Freestyle led, and was joined by Liquid 2 Ventures, Community Access Fund and Founder's Co-Op. www.spotvirtual.com

Ares Management, which just raised a sports-focused fund, is in talks to finance John Textor's (ex-fuboTV) bid for French Ligue 1 club Olympique Lyonnais, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3BB31P2

TGI Sport agreed to acquire Brand Brigade, an ad tech company specializing in virtual product placement. https://axios.link/3UnajyJ

WPP acquired JeffreyGroup, a corporate communications, public affairs and marketing consulting firm in Latin America. https://axios.link/3Lupm5v

Future sold his publishing catalog to Influence Media Partners, the fund backed by BlackRock and Warner Music Group. https://axios.link/3UqoKSy

Kobalt signed a new licensing agreement with Meta for 700,000 songs. https://axios.link/3fc5ubq

Clover, a Toronto-based dating app that features livestreaming, agreed to go public via FoxWayne Enterprises Acquisition Corp. https://axios.link/3dxE6Eg 

Tencent Music Entertainment debuted a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. https://axios.link/3dz7VEj

4. Deal flow

APA hired ICM's Jen Rudin as head of animation and voice over department. She's the 12th former ICM Partners agent or executive brought in over the past year, per Deadline. https://axios.link/3UqJR7e

Religion of Sports hired Kevin Sullivan as head of talk. He was executive producer at The Center for Investigative Reporting. https://axios.link/3S1HTbI

Warner Bros. Discovery is losing Marc Graboff, president of global business and legal affairs. https://axios.link/3LuCxDk

Warner Bros Discovery restructured its diversity, equity and inclusion group, headed by Asif Sadiq. https://axios.link/3f4jyU7

Warner Music Group named YouTube's outgoing chief business officer Robert Kyncl as its new CEO. https://axios.link/3faePjX

Charter Communications named longtime senior executive Chris Winfrey as president and CEO, starting in December. https://axios.link/3BVDgKG

5. Movin' on up (or out)

"One of our objectives is to build out a third substantial revenue stream beyond subscriptions and advertising," CEO Nicholas Thompson tells Sara. "Affiliate IP is obviously one place you could get that, so it's a significant focus."

33% of U.S. TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020 (TechCrunch)

"If TikTok were to become one of the primary ways younger people in the U.S. learned about news and current events, then the app could potentially provide a channel for a foreign power to influence those users' beliefs with subtle tweaks to its algorithm," Sarah Perez writes.

CNN to launch rebooted, "more concise" "Reliable Sources" newsletter Sept. 26 (THR)

Oliver Darcy tells Alex Weprin the new "Reliable” newsletter will have a "more concise format" though it will "continue to tackle issues relating to newsrooms, partisan media, social media, podcasts, and streaming services."

Golden Globes officially returning to NBC (THR)

"[It] appears ... NBC's association with the Globes will end after the 2023 ceremony, apparently the result of a renegotiation of a 2018 deal whereby NBC was contracted to pay the HFPA and DCP some $60 million per year to broadcast the ceremony through 2026," Scott Feinberg reports. 

6. Channel surfing

Illustration of a pair of sunglasses with lenses that look like tv screens.

🎰 Situational awareness: Twitch will ban the streaming of unlicensed gambling sites, including slots, roulette and dice websites, starting next month, per NBC News. 

✈️ 1 travel thing: The Axios Pro Deals team is back on the road, and we want to know what events you're attending. Tell us where you're headed.

@tim_bays: "Andor" on Disney+. Biding my time until Baby Yoda is back in our lives.

@kerrymflynn: "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire. Almost got married today because of this epic song.

✏️ Thanks to Michael Flaherty for editing and Katie Lewis for copy editing this newsletter. 

Thank you for reading Axios Pro Media Deals! Please ask your friends, colleagues and TikTokers to sign up.

September 21, 2022

1 big thing: YouTube targets TikTok in short-form video war