The Great Media War: Part 2. YouTube, FAST & Creators — New Video Streaming Alliances

Discover how YouTube, FAST channels & creators synergise in the streaming battlefield, create audience-first strategies and new media alliances for 2025 and 2026.

IBC 2025 has just wrapped, and once again, Evan Shapiro reminded the industry that Netflix has already won the so-called streaming wars. The real fight now isn’t about who has the biggest library or the most subscribers but about shifting from a platform-first to an audience-first mindset. 

Video-on-demand platforms, FAST channels, and even linear TV are no longer competing only with each other. They are measured against music apps, gaming platforms, social feeds, and the vast world of user-generated content. They are all fighting for the same limited resource, time and attention, or as Shapiro put it, KPIs now stand for “Key Passion Indicators.”

In the first part of our conversation, From Streaming Wars to the Great Media War, we mapped out the battlefield and established the leading players. We also examined how different generations engage with content and how much of their daily lives are spent consuming various forms of video streaming.

In Part 2, we turn to strategy and real-world cases. How can film and TV streaming platforms stop treating every attention-holder as an enemy, and instead turn competitors into partners? How can they use the reach of others to build synergy and keep their audiences engaged?

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Enemies Closer

Have you had an original show or acquired a franchise? Don’t limit its reach to your own platform. The most innovative way to build momentum is to generate buzz where your audience already spends its time. That could mean launching a companion podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to keep conversations alive between episodes, like Office Ladies did for The Office, giving the show a second life with audiences who hadn’t paid much attention before. 

It could also mean working with influencers on Instagram and YouTube who can react to storylines and host informal discussions. Or you might bring scenes back to life on TikTok, the way Wednesday did with its now-famous dance, which probably wouldn’t have become such a phenomenon without going viral online and inspiring Gen Z and Gen Alpha to dress as Wednesday Addams for Halloween that year.

This matters even more when you consider who makes up today’s audience. Gen Z now accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s population, and they are the first generation to have grown up entirely online. They seek community and online spaces where they can talk, debate, and bond with others over what they love (or hate).

And then there is the universal language of online culture: memes. Without them, Shrek might have faded into the early 2000s, but instead, its meme legacy has made it evergreen, keeping it alive for new audiences who weren’t even born when it premiered. Millennials, who represent around 23 percent of the global population, grew up in the age of Instagram and meme culture. For them, humor, shareability, and cultural references are what keep entertainment alive long after a show ends or a film leaves the theater.

So don’t think of platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram as rivals stealing your screen time. Think of them as megaphones. They can get people talking, sharing, and laughing in ways you couldn’t manufacture on your own. And once that conversation starts rolling, it’s much harder for anyone to ignore your content.

Elephant in the Room: YouTube

Any conversation about attention has to eventually point to the giant in the middle of it all: YouTube. The 20-year-old video platform has become the only true all-purpose media hub. Within a single app, it now competes across almost every corner of audio and video streaming: cinematic content (Netflix, Max, you name it), user-generated content and shorts (Instagram and TikTok), how-to guides (Google), live sports (linear TV), music videos (Spotify), long-form podcasts (Spotify and Apple Podcasts), kids’ shows, educational explainers, and even shopping recommendations. Thanks to its potential ad reach of over 2.5 billion people and highly accurate recommendation algorithms, YouTube remains the dominant video ad platform, accounting for 44% of global video ad spend. In 2024, that equaled $36.1 billion, nearly matching Netflix’s entire annual revenue.

In other words, YouTube has become the ultimate edutainment and shopping hub, available on any screen, TVs, tablets, desktops, and smartphones. As of late 2024, it captured a record 11.1% of all U.S. TV watch time, topping Netflix at 8.5%. And, again, that figure only measures YouTube on televisions, not the billions of hours consumed daily on phones and laptops.

So, while Netflix may have “won” the streaming wars, YouTube has changed the vector of the battlefield. It beats streamers at their own game, dominates social video, leads in podcasts, and has become the go-to platform for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the fastest-growing generations of viewers.

This dominance stretches across categories. YouTube is now the top podcast destination in the U.S., surpassing Spotify and Apple Podcasts, with 31% of weekly listeners selecting it as their first choice. It attracts roughly 2.7 billion monthly active users globally, nearly half of the planet’s internet population.

Let’s talk about YouTube’s success formula.

First, breadth of content matters. Hollywood spends over $140 billion a year producing films and TV. By contrast, YouTube paid creators, artists, and media companies $100 billion between 2021 and 2025.

With a fraction of the investment, it still captures more attention because it serves every niche, from ASMR to live sports. It’s where audiences spend filler minutes, background hours, and increasingly, prime-time evenings.

Second, the open creator model drives diversity, inclusivity, and freedom of expression. The youngest generations are the most diverse in history, and representation is something they actively seek in the content they consume. Where traditional media often falls short, they find it on social platforms, and ultimately on YouTube.

Finally, the tech and recommendation system. By 'tech,' we mean everything: availability on any screen with a click, picture-in-picture viewing that allows interaction alongside content, ad formats that feel less disruptive (such as QR codes), and seamless integration across devices. And of course, the recommendation engine, which is sometimes eerily accurate, keeps viewers hooked. As we’ve written before, discovery is everything. Despite all the noise about making metadata cleaner and improving discoverability, people still spend more time searching for something to watch than actually watching, leading to frustration, abandonment, or even unsubscribing. Younger audiences are already turning to social recommendations to choose what to watch, rather than relying on platform home screens. At the end of the day, you stick with the platform that seems to know your taste better than you do.

“YouTube is the best ally to TV…” *

*Justine Ryst, MD, YouTube France

YouTube’s great recommendation system can be used to the advantage of broadcasters by pushing a five-year-old documentary back into the spotlight. That’s exactly what Channel 4 in the UK discovered, reporting a 169% audience increase on YouTube in 2024. One of its most significant recent hits wasn’t a new release but an older documentary that the algorithm picked up and served to millions of users. On Channel 4’s own streaming platform, the title was almost invisible. On YouTube, it found a second life.

For traditional broadcasters, handing over their IP to a third-party platform and trusting an algorithm may feel risky, but the risks have paid off, literally. YouTube’s ad model is revenue-share by default: broadcasters keep a majority of the cut from the advertising placed against their content. Channel 4 goes a step further by selling its own ad inventory around its YouTube uploads, often at higher rates than YouTube itself could command. That way, the broadcaster earns new revenue from content it already owns, without additional production costs.

On top of that, there’s the analytics. Instead of relying on panel-based ratings, broadcasters now get detailed insights from YouTube about who is watching, where, and on what device. This kind of real-time data is undoubtedly invaluable for programming, packaging, and ad sales, as well as for understanding younger audiences who are less likely to engage with traditional measurement systems. For Channel 4 and others, that knowledge is almost as valuable as the revenue it generates.

When YouTube Comes to TV: Creators on FAST Channels

If broadcasters are finding new life by putting their archives on YouTube, the reverse is also happening. YouTube creators are now expanding into television, specifically the FAST (Fast Affordable Streaming Television) channel space. Samsung TV Plus has recently announced partnerships with top digital-native names, including Dhar Mann, Mark Rober, Smosh, The Try Guys, and others, providing each of them with dedicated channels on its service.

For Samsung TV Plus, the benefit is obvious. Creators bring YouTube’s and their own audiences into the FAST ecosystem, a following that adds up to 175 million combined subscribers across these names. Viewers who already know and follow Dhar Mann and others will come to Samsung TV Plus to watch exclusive content and, hopefully, stay for more. In this way, Samsung TV Plus becomes a bridge between the world of UGC and the world of traditional TV.

But the more interesting question is: what’s in it for the creators? Samsung TV Plus claims to offer them a new audience reach, reporting about 80 million monthly global users. But YouTube reaches 2.5 billion people, as we noted earlier. At first glance, it appears to be a step down. After all, aren’t most FAST viewers already YouTube users anyway? If it’s not simply about new eyeballs, then maybe it’s about something else.

Prestige and validation play a role. Moving from UGC, even if it’s close to professionally produced, to cinematic TV content signals legitimacy and creates new buzz for the creator. For someone like Dhar Mann, producing scripted originals for Samsung TV Plus reframes him from “YouTube creator” to “TV producer,” opening doors to new partnerships and monetization routes.

Then, of course, there’s revenue diversification. FAST channels operate on ad-supported models that can deliver incremental revenue, often structured differently from YouTube’s rev share. For creators, that means not relying solely on YouTube’s algorithms or monetization rules.

Let’s see where this will go.

Bringing UGC Creators to Hollywood Cast

Despite the questionable benefit for creators in the Samsung TV Plus example, there is definitely potential in combining the UGC and cinematic worlds. As we move further into an audience-driven environment, it makes sense to look at what the demand side is telling us. Nearly half of Gen Z (49%) and four in ten Millennials (40%) say they’d be more willing to watch a TV show or movie if it starred their favorite online creator. They also report feeling a stronger personal connection to creators on social platforms than to traditional actors, and often see creator-driven content as more relevant to their daily lives.

Part of this comes down to style. Online creators show everyday life, communicate directly, and project a unfiltered authenticity that younger audiences value nowadays. That doesn’t mean Gen Z or Millennials won’t watch polished cinematic content, but it does mean they want to see some of that authenticity carried into it. When TikTok star Addison Rae headlined Netflix’s He’s All That in 2022, it created lots of buzz despite mixed reviews. The film climbed to the #1 spot on the platform in 78 countries. This is how a creator’s fan base can transition from short-form clips to feature-length films.

Examples of how robust an online creator’s fan base can be date back to the Vine era. AwesomenessTV’s teen comedy Expelled, starring internet star Cameron Dallas, had only a limited theatrical release before shifting to digital platforms, but that was enough. The film shot to the #1 spot on Apple’s iTunes store after a single day, outperforming titles like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Maze Runner. Variety called it a case study in how to capitalize on younger consumers with movies. 

Blurred Lines of Today’s Video Streaming

It’s no longer Disney, Netflix, or Warner calling the shots in video entertainment, but the audience. They don’t care where content comes from as long as it feels relevant and convenient. The future belongs to those who treat rivals as amplifiers, turn platforms into allies, and see synergy as the real weapon.

Netflix may have won the streaming wars, but all-in-one platforms like YouTube set the new rules, blurring the lines between cinematic, creator, and social content. Broadcasters, FAST platforms, and studios that once dismissed UGC as competition are now forced to take it seriously.

But what if this competition isn’t the enemy at all?

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