YouTube starts commissioning shows, and the currency stops being CPMs

YouTube is offering some of its largest creators multi-million-dollar packages to keep their shows off Netflix, according to Bloomberg reporting relayed by TNW ^[1]. Several agreements are said to be close and none has been signed ^[2], but the structure matters more than the signatures: the platform is moving from splitting revenue to commissioning work.

The offers reportedly take three forms: direct financing for a creator's shows, a share of the platform-wide brand deals YouTube negotiates with advertisers, and upfront cash ^[3]. What YouTube wants in return is a period in which the work stays on YouTube alone, not total exclusivity ^[4]. For two decades the creator relationship was an ad revenue split and very little else ^[5]. Individually negotiated show funding is closer to how a studio commissions than how a platform pays out, and it puts YouTube in the position of choosing which channels get capital ^[6].

The lever that has drawn attention is not the money. Creators who take Netflix money alongside a YouTube deal are said to risk losing access to YouTube's marketing pushes, its major events, and a cut of those platform brand campaigns, which are promotional levers that do not show up on any invoice ^[7]. That changes what is being negotiated. A revenue share is a percentage both sides can read; placement in a marketing push is discretionary, unpriced, and revocable.

Netflix has been buying on the opposite basis, with non-exclusive licences that let the creator keep the channel, the ad income, the sponsorships and the merchandise while Netflix pays for the right to carry the library ^[8]. TNW's reading is that this is why the raid worked: a creator asked to accept a second cheque for content they were making anyway has no reason to refuse ^[9]. The names have accumulated over 18 months ^[10]. Netflix signed Ms. Rachel in early 2025 and Mark Rober that August, added the Stokes Twins in July, and has deals involving the Sidemen, Rhett & Link, Jordan Matter and Nick DiGiovanni, alongside podcast properties including The Bill Simmons Podcast and The Breakfast Club ^[11]. It also paid $100m in an arrangement that brought Jay Shetty to the service through Spotify ^[12]. Netflix's mid-year What We Watched report credited Ms. Rachel's videos with 126 million views on the service in a single reporting period, for content that remained free on YouTube throughout ^[13].

Revenue is not the pressure point. YouTube's total revenue passed $60bn in 2025, more than Netflix took in the same year, and the company says it has paid creators more than $100bn over four years ^[14], an average of roughly $25bn a year ^[15]. What is exposed is the advertiser argument that a given audience is found on YouTube, which a show also running on Netflix weakens even if the YouTube version keeps every view it had ^[16].

The direction of travel is consistent. YouTube recently doubled the entry requirements for its Partner Program ^[17], and X ended broad revenue sharing in favour of paying only for original work ^[18]; TNW frames both as the same instinct, paying more to fewer people ^[19]. The precedent it points to is the music industry of the 2000s, which found that exclusivity windows are expensive to buy, difficult to police, and resented by the audience, in about that order ^[20].

Two things to watch. Neither YouTube nor Netflix has confirmed any of the reported terms, and the accounts rest on people familiar with the talks rather than documents ^[21]. And the actual test is whether a creator large enough to hold both offers decides a window is worth more than a second buyer ^[22].