Instagram on TV, YouTubers on Netflix, Disney on AI

0:00Today on the Colin and Smear Show, we're talking about some trends that we're seeing at the end of this year based on some headlines that hit our desk. Number one, Instagram, launching a TV app. Yes, the app that you open the most throughout your day to scroll on your phone and DM your friends, wants you to watch together with your friends on your couch. Number two, YouTube videos from top creators showing up on streaming platforms. We're going to talk about some of the shows we've seen recently on Hulu, Tubi, and Netflix that all stemmed from creators' videos first on YouTube. And number three, Disney invests a billion dollars into OpenAI and allows users to generate content using over 200 of their characters.

0:44We'll break all these down and tell you what it means for creators. And then lastly, at the very end, we do a speed round of ins and outs of creator economy trends and tell you where we lie. All right. Second to last episode of the Colin and Spears show of the year. Let's get into it.

1:06All right. Our first story. Instagram launches a connected TV app designed to let you watch reels on the big screen with your friends. I use Instagram so much on my phone. I don't need it on my TV. So just to be clear, this is a pilot launch. It's US only. It's a partnership with Amazon Fire TV right now. And Instagram says in the announcement that there's a strong user demand for watching reels together on TV. And internal feedback suggests that people are watching reels socially with friends or in groups. And obviously this is Instagram's effort to try and join in on the connected TV wave right now.

1:47And maybe even a reaction to the type of content that's getting uploaded to Instagram. Yeah, I think it's the beginning of a push towards gaining space and time on this screen, which is still incredibly valuable and getting increasingly valuable, especially with what we've seen with YouTube being atop the list. Yeah, I think that the metric that matters here is like consumption time, in my opinion, right? So like how long is someone watching one piece of content? There's a really interesting thing I was looking at. You remember the creator Ray William Johnson? He's like a massive YouTube creator in the early days.

2:21He's like the influence for a lot of creators. Mr. Beast talks about him, Logan Paul talks about him, but he did these like kind of deep dives into things that were happening on the internet and like variety, almost like a clip show, like Tosh.0. That's what it was like. It was like pulling stuff from the internet. He has recently come back to Instagram and TikTok in a short form format, but it's 10 minutes long vertically. 10 minutes is long, but it's doing like millions of views between eight and 10 minutes. And I do think that the formats are starting to look and feel similar to what is happening on YouTube, whether that's, you know, Trackstar Subway takes and the shows that we talk about all the time.

2:59Like, you can watch a three to five minute video on Instagram now and actually watch it as a format, as like a show. Yes. I do feel like TV is being reinvented on Instagram and on short form. However, I don't think people will watch a lot of vertical video on their screen. Vertical video is what you watch on your second screen as you're already watching something. I do think that this opens the door for Instagram to host more horizontal content again? Yes. Right? Because, I mean, remember IGTV? Of course. Which was the beginning of, you know, vertical video that was longer, a little bit longer form on Instagram.

3:42It's almost as if like they could bring back IGTV, where as a creator, when we're uploading, you know, you're uploading Kareem Rama, you're uploading Subway takes. It's shot horizontally, but it's formatted vertically. So there's a world, especially with how AI, I guess, is sometimes helping to edit things and format them differently, where you're Kareem and you upload the vertical version and you also upload an extended long form version that surfaces on IG on the TV app for Instagram. Right? Like it seems like that's a reality. How crazy. I mean, look, we watch shorts on YouTube, you know? I hear you.

4:22I think the pitch of like people want to watch Instagram socially, I don't buy that pitch. I think people do watch Instagram socially, but through the DMs, we've talked about it before on the show, that's like their, that's their unfair advantage is that people do socialize with their content and watch them collectively, but socially means in the group chat, not sitting next to each other on the couch. Now, you know, the argument for it is that I do, largely because my wife doesn't have Instagram or TikTok or any of these platforms. Like Instagram specifically, I will show my wife a curated group of Instagram Reels that I think she would enjoy at the end of the day.

5:00Yeah. Because, and so we watch those together. Totally. Literally sitting next to each other on a couch. Yeah, my wife, I don't have TikTok. So my wife will just curate a group of TikToks that I should watch. And that would be a more interesting experience. You don't have TikTok on your phone? No, I don't. I have Reels. I've kind of gone all in. Like I'm, I have Instagram and I have YouTube. I, I think TikTok is exponentially better at serving me what I want to see, to be honest. And so I keep it on my phone. I thought I find it to be like, if I really want to open an app and within 10 swipes get to something, that's something I really want to see.

5:42Hmm. I opened TikTok. I just think it's on its own. It's found its own cultural lane, right? Like the algorithm moves culture and is closer to culture than I think Reels is. But I've just kind of like, I've made my decision. For short form, for me personally, I can only have. So that's why you're like out of the loop. Well, for a number of reasons, I'm aging fast and getting out of the loop. And look, I opened the show saying I don't need the Instagram TV app, but I say that because I actually think it will just make me use it more. Like I think I will use it. I think it will be good. Like I trust the Instagram brand when it comes to content.

6:22Wait, so you would use the Instagram TV app? Yeah, I said I don't need it almost begrudgingly. Like I think, look, when I'm on my sofa and I'm looking at Netflix, I'm looking at YouTube, I'm looking at HBO Max, these are brand names that I know and trust. If Instagram was up there, I'd probably click on it. You know what I mean? Like I'm not going to click on some of these smaller streamers To me, I would need it to be more curated, almost like, can I go to a tile that is Subway Takes? Can I go to a tile that is Trackstar? Because I also think if I'm thinking to myself, oh, I want to show my wife this episode of Subway Takes, it is very hard for me to navigate to it.

7:06On a TV, I could probably find it pretty easily. And if it had kind of tiles and thumbnails where I could dive into shows and into creators. Sounds like YouTube. I mean, obviously this is a signal that these platforms work in the world of advertising. Of course, YouTube has done an excellent job positioning themselves as the next TV and the next linear TV and the TV of today. And I think that also comes with significant advertising dollars. It's not to say Instagram isn't a massive advertising business, just a different advertising business. So is there a path for Instagram to get to play in the world of like pre-roll advertisements while you're watching on a TV for extremely long session times?

7:53Maybe, but in a world where YouTube has gone in a direction of creators matching this type of content. Like creators are making TV style content. Drewski this year, he had like a very structured series called Could Have Been Love. It's kind of his version of like The Bachelor. And it was eight episodes. It has like a clear narrative arc. Creators have matched the fact that there is, YouTube is on TV. My guess here is that Instagram is asking creators, if this works, to match that and to say, make series. Like they're telling us, make series, make them feel like a show, make it bingeable, make it a little bit longer, right?

8:44I think they're asking us to make it horizontal. No. Yes. You really think so? Yes. I think they're going to say, please continue, of course, to make vertical because that's what gets the most distribution. You'll find the most audience. You'll dictate the conversation that way. Everyone opens Instagram every single day, multiple times on their phone. But a lot of these platforms allow you to upload both. I think they'll start becoming more open to horizontal content that does not get surfaced on your phone necessarily, but it services on the TV app. Like if Instagram said you can upload horizontal content to your Instagram account and it will primarily only show up on our new TV app, why wouldn't we upload our horizontal episodes?

9:31Yeah, I would. You know, I would. I think this, that - There would have to be some sort of monetization opportunity eventually, but - Yeah, I mean, that's happening though. Syndication is happening. And of course, we're going to talk about that in this episode or maybe we just talk about it now. Maybe we talk about it now. Yeah, the world of like syndicated content, so I think Instagram having a TV app and them being able to, you know, move into the direction of getting bigger video advertising on a TV would offer the opportunity for revenue share for creators, which is not typically in their culture.

10:06Instagram does not share revenue with us, but maybe that opens the door to make them more competitive to YouTube because now there's revenue share. One of the best players I've seen do this. And then one that's come up a ton this year for creators is Tubi. And Tubi is a platform where, you know, they're offering a lot of creators deals to say, hey, bring your library over here. They have something called the Creatorverse. You go to Tubi right now, you can find Mr. Beast. You can find, you know, Mark Rober. You can find a bunch of other creators. You can also find exclusive programming. Canigra Dion is making an exclusive show for Tubi.

10:41And the way those deals work is on a 50-50 rev share with Tubi. But because Tubi is owned by Fox, they have a really good sales team and they're selling like TV ads. And because of that, creators can make good money on Tubi. And the numbers that I've heard are in like the six figures. Some creators are making the six figures per month on Tubi from their share of ads. That's really significant. And the thing about Tubi that's really interesting is that it is an editorial product, meaning it's not algorithmic discovery. it is if tubi's like we got an original show with canigra cool you open the tubi app there it is and because of the fox rights that they share they're able to fill this library with interesting stuff they did the super bowl for free i don't remember that um you this year that that that was like one of the big things that if you wanted to watch super bowl totally free stream it you can stream it on tubi um i say this because what i what i'm suggesting is that the syndication of creator content is clearly working on other platforms.

11:42Instagram, as an example, if they're able to actually pull off people watching some Instagram on their TV, maybe they can say to guys like us, hey, Colin, it's me or pull your long form interviews onto Instagram. This syndication thing, starting from YouTube and going to other platforms, we're starting to see a lot. So we've been talking about it first with Mark Rober and his series that is on Netflix that is essentially some of his greatest hits kind of lightly repackaged. Those episodes resulted in Mark Rober being a top 10 show on Netflix and a number one kid's show. So that is Netflix opening up to this syndication model of, hey, here's some YouTube videos.

12:29Let's repackage them a little bit, put them out on our platform. That's pretty new for them. Now, we also today, we're looking at Hulu. And Jesser, the popular sports and basketball creator, he is also syndicating some of his episodes. They're titled Ball or Nothing is the series. But when you look into the videos, you know, these are the same videos from YouTube, the same thumbnails. Yeah. So this is Jesser making one video for YouTube, monetizing it, and now being able to monetize the same video twice and just showing up on a platform that potentially gives him new audience. I think this is going to be a big trend in 2026.

13:16I also think this is a big deal for YouTube. I was thinking about this today. Mark Rober is a YouTuber. He's a YouTube guy, and I believe he will be committed to making YouTube videos YouTube first. Jimmy MrBeast has said the same thing. He is YouTube first. Jester, obviously, YouTube first. But if I'm YouTube over time and I start looking at my top creators and their greatest videos are available across streamers, a lot of people may come into contact with these creators for the first time on Netflix and think, that's a great Netflix show. That's a great Hulu show. You think? I think it's possible.

13:54over time. I really do. If you didn't have the context, maybe. And I understand that YouTube does not necessarily pay any more for exclusivity, but specifically when it comes to syndication and licensing, if I'm YouTube, just from a brand perspective, and they may completely disagree, but I may start looking at some of these top creators and say, hey, we want exclusivity on your videos for five years. They can go nowhere except for YouTube for the first five years.

14:29And start paying for creators' videos to be specific to YouTube. So it's like, you want Mark Rober, you want his greatest hits? You got to go to YouTube. You want to get a new experimental series? Fine. You can go to a different streamer for that. So I know that platforms, and specifically like Tubi, when they do an exclusive series, rightfully so they're paying for that exclusivity against youtube for a certain amount of time i think typically it's three months maybe six months but like i hear what you're saying that's a really interesting thought that but like i just don't think that's in you you think that's in youtube's dna to do that i don't yeah because i don't they don't do that but i wonder if that's a conversation that's happening within youtube right now as they start to see their top creators greatest hits syndicated.

15:14But does it matter? I don't think it matters right now. Because like Robur's top hits have already garnered 30 million views or 50 million views on YouTube. Totally. They've already done their job over there. Now, but I think if that's something that becomes really common where YouTube becomes the incubator for streamers and they start to strike these deals quicker. So instead of the greatest hits, it's like maybe there's no exclusivity what they did with the animated show. I'm blanking on the name. Amazing Digital Circus. Amazing Digital Circus, where the episodes came out on YouTube and Netflix at the same time.

15:47If they start striking a model like that, I don't know. I wonder if that changes how YouTube feels about its top creators, you know? Like, it's a big deal for YouTube to be able to go to Brandcast and get in front of advertisers and say, hey, these are our people. These are our creators. I still think, though, that when Mark Rober is on Netflix right now, he is YouTuber Mark Rober. Like, I was watching him. He's in a special. He's in a ton of stuff. Netflix is, like, really adopted Mark. and he's in this David Chang special where they're eating. Dinner time live. Dinner time live. And Sean Evans is in it too.

16:19I saw that, yeah. And in the conversation, they're talking about Mark's YouTube videos. And I found that to be just so interesting. Obviously, it's the same way that if an athlete goes onto Netflix, they're known as a tennis player or an F1 driver. Mark is known as a YouTuber even in the context of Netflix. What he is talking about at dinnertime is how he makes his YouTube videos. But that's because Mark spent almost, what, like two decades worth on YouTube first. I think what I'm saying is like, if they start to strike these deals sooner before someone gets known as a YouTube creator. Yeah, that's interesting.

16:57But that's also just, I think so long as YouTube can tell the story that these creators are emerging on YouTube, YouTube will always reign supreme that it's like the SNL to the comedians, right? This is where it all originates. So like, sure, yeah, you can get that over there, but like it came from here. And as long as the economics and the distribution continue to be valuable enough that these creators will keep publishing to YouTube, which they will. Yeah. But again, think about the storytelling in an advertising pitch room. It's like, yeah, Netflix got it, but after it was already done, like it hits YouTube first.

17:38So that means if you want to be where the most current culture is, it's here. Like that's actually better. It's better for YouTube if Netflix is pulling these libraries. The biggest library sale I think we will see in YouTube is Rhett and Link. They're coming up on 3 ,000 episodes of Good Mythical Morning. They've made that show relatively evergreen, where you can watch an episode and it's not tied to any date or event. and it's the probably one of the biggest catalogs of the same show on youtube i think that will be a really interesting thing to see where that catalog goes if that catalog goes somewhere but it's kind of like a late night variety show which to me doesn't always feel like the show you go back and watch after i i i think it's like i think for a lot of people it's like the office comfort watch yeah i think good mythical morning's like the office and i think it will carry a lot of value over time.

18:39I think if anything, as creators libraries start getting syndicated to these streamers over time, I do think it will be a net benefit for these creators, for Jesser, for Robur, that there are groups of people who may be getting exposure to them for the first time. Yeah, for sure. People on these streaming platforms. I think there's a... Well, from the creator perspective, it's huge because Mark has a subscription box with Crunch Labs, he gets to talk about that at a huge scale. But I think even Mark may become even more mainstream. Yeah, I agree. Through showing up on Netflix. For sure. I mean, I talked to Ryan Serhant the other day, last week in New York.

19:19I was chatting with him about his show, Owning Manhattan. And I was like, how do you think about your Netflix show versus your social content versus your YouTube, meaning versus like Instagram and YouTube? And he was like, Netflix is mass media. I am capturing like mainstream audience and it's only eight episodes. So my hope is that I capture enough audience that then they come watch my weekly YouTube videos. And if I capture the audience there, then they watch my daily Instagram content. So it's a funnel. And basically Netflix is top of the funnel for Ryan. From an audience perspective. But didn't we say that, it's interesting for him, but didn't we say last week that if you still want to reach the most amount of people, YouTube's your best bet?

20:00Are we just not considering YouTube's audience mainstream? Yeah, it's an interesting note. It's the same people, right? I don't know. I actually don't know the answer to that question. I think it is a different group of people. Yeah. I mean, yeah, one is free and one you have to pay for. Now, as we're talking about this concept of YouTube on TV and creators going to other platforms to syndicate their content, I want to talk about one thing that I think is, it came out in the YouTube Culture and Trends Report, and I've been studying that. I think it's one of the most interesting stories of the year.

20:29is actually the opposite thing happening, which is that this creator named Zach Nani, he's from France. He won the rights to the French national U21 football team for two years. He is the exclusive broadcaster. His YouTube channel is the exclusive broadcaster of the French national U21 team. They estimate they're going to play 14 matches in that time. He has the exclusive rights. Do we know how much that cost? I have no idea. I was reading the article about it, but yeah, he was awarded it. It was a bunch of different networks trying to get it. And it's a two-year deal. And he streams the matches on YouTube and Twitch at the same time.

21:21And then he can also post the highlights across his social accounts. That's fascinating. This is an individual personality-based creator who does a lot of gaming content around FIFA and soccer content. So he's acquired the audience that would be interested in this. Yeah, but he's the broadcaster. So the opposite direction is I have IP that I want to syndicate or distribute. How do I get it out to the right audience? It's through this individual creator. that is that is so interesting to me and also suggestive of like yeah because that creator's audience he probably in his pitch was like look how many people watch me on tv so like your stuff will be on tv on this big channel i mean that was the pitch to me many years ago about the lacrosse network from you like hey i'm acquiring people who want to watch lacrosse you're making a show about lacrosse that's true why don't you just put it on my channel all right so let's just close the loop here.

22:16I would say like the macro trend to look at or the thing to pay attention to is the growing importance of the living room TV for everyone. It is arguably one of the most important screens. And I think it's interesting that Instagram is suggesting that like group viewing matters. That's also a big thing with YouTube right now. A lot of people are talking about co-viewing in the context of selling ads and pitching shows. So to me, this for creators, I think what's important to know is that with the living room being important, you got to structure yourself as like a show creator. You got to be making a show.

22:55And I think that gives you flexible opportunity across that screen, across every app that's on that screen. You have the biggest opportunity if your show is clean in that you own the rights to everything. There's no logos or locations or anything there you don't have the rights to. Yeah. Including people who appear in your videos. Like if people have signed off, yes, you can distribute this elsewhere. It can be sold. Like if your content is truly clean, which a lot of these top creators have clean content, you have the maximum amount of opportunity to end up on a Hulu or on Netflix. Yeah. As TVs become more important.

23:29And I think that's like if you're an Instagram creator, if you're a TikTok creator, if you're a YouTube creator, you got to make a show to participate in this iteration of the creator economy. I actually think you got to make a show. It's got to be bingeable. It's got to be a thing. And you'll have opportunities across all the apps. I would say to make it simple, like having a show is just a repeatable format that can be remembered. There's a lot that's uploaded today on the internet if you want to be remembered. And remembered means like being remembered by the people watching you, coming back, wanting to watch more.

24:03You got to have a show so that they have these cues that remind you of them and build your brand. All right, let's talk about this next story. I found this to be so interesting. Disney is investing$1 billion into OpenAI and entering a three-year licensing agreement that lets OpenAI's generative model, Sora, as well as ChatGPT, through images, use over 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters to generate content. So what this means, this is a pretty major moment that Disney's saying, hey, here are characters, go have fun. You can play with them on Sora and you can generate them on ChatGPT.

24:50So I want Mickey Mouse or I want Elsa from Frozen in an image or in a video doing a backflip. I can do that now. Now I just want to note that this comes at the same time that Disney just sent Google a cease and desist for the use of their characters or even similar characters through their models. And it's basically saying, you can't use anything that looks like our characters. They also sent similar ones to Meta earlier this year, as well as Runway, Midjourney, a bunch of other LLMs. And so now we're entering the world of like IP licensing to AI models in a potentially exclusive relationship, right?

25:37Where it's like, if you use Sora or ChatGPT, then you get the Disney characters, but not if you use Gemini. Yeah, which is a really big deal. It's like the Marvel versus DC universe of like where these characters get to show up. Now, I want to pull this quickly into the world of creators because maybe you're listening and you're like, okay, why does this matter? this matters a lot because it could set precedent for how ip gets distributed through llms meaning another example how does how does colin and samir get distributed through an llm if you're like give me a colin and samir breakdown of why this matters for creators that maybe that's that's something in a way you could engage with us in the future hey i want marquez brownlee reviewing this thing hey i I want Mr.

26:24Beast, you know, I want to use a video of Mr. Beast doing something in my video. And I think this is the first time where there's precedent of a studio saying, yeah, you can use our characters. Of course, when Sora first came out, I'm sure if you used it, you saw Jake Paul over it. You saw a bunch of like people like Sam Altman that you could use their face. But this is like, this is a company in Disney that has basically made all of their money by figuring out how to monetize the IP they're creating, how to monetize the characters they're creating. So this move is a clear move to say, first of all, we're putting our money in here, putting a billion dollars into this company because like, this is the future of IP and entertainment.

27:10And here are our characters for people to play with. So this could set precedent for what we see in the future of how entertainment engages with AI. Isn't it interesting how OpenAI and Sora was the problem and then they became the solution? Yeah, that feels common. It's so common that you see that, that as new tech moves into the world, it sort of breaks things first. And Disney's IP was being stolen and used on Sora when it launched. Right, yeah. And then now it's like, okay let's get on the let's get on their team and at least have their tech to help solve it like using ai to help with the fight against ip ownership um yeah i find it so interesting i keep calling it like a napster moment for visuals that you know napster all of a sudden you wake up and music is just free you don't have to buy cds anymore right that was illegal and it broke the way that we think about it.