SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Created by Jimmy Donaldson and his team, Beast Games draws inspiration from Squid Game
company whose video codecs operate at every level of the media industry. “You’ve got huge volumes of people globally, each of whom might be supplying hours’ worth of content daily with free, easy access. And that’s a hard consumption platform to compete with when you’re behind a paywall or a broadcaster While publishing more content faster is one tactic broadcasters are using to compete, another has been to bring social influencers into the broadcast realm – sometimes paying through the nose for it. Alex Cooper, whose podcast Call Her Daddy is one of the most successful in the world, was paid $125 million to end her deal with Spotify and move to radio network SiriusXM. YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson – aka Mr Beast – boasts the highest number of subscribers on YouTube (368 million at the time of writing) and is the third-most-followed creator on TikTok (115 million). In 2023, Time magazine listed him among the world’s 100 most influential people. Amazon’s Prime Video enlisted him to create Beast Games , a reality competition series based on his YouTube channel. These creators have a reach beyond the dreams of even the biggest studios and broadcasters. But they can still be brought into partnership with known broadcast brands, often getting deals very much in their favour, with broadcasters hoping to catch just a bit of that reflected glory. having to rely on advertising.” If you can’t beat them, pay them “The question is how to define these creators now,” describes Shirley. “Do we treat them like a broadcast brand – like Game of Thrones – or should we start thinking of them as more along the lines of Endemol, where they are production companies?
The answer is a bit of both. They are going to have their own brand, but they can also be empowered to create new genres or content under that brand. However, I do think their longevity on a traditional broadcast platform – where it might be one series or a single show – is going to be shorter compared to social platforms, where they can fully exist as that brand.” Netflix is now looking at bringing video podcasts onto its platform, aiming to compete with YouTube and Spotify for a slice of the podcast pie. The company’s goal is to offer better monetisation for creators, which is infamously stingy on the two incumbent platforms. Alex Cooper’s hit content – along with most other podcasts – is really a talk show. Meanwhile, Mr Beast’s crazy contest for huge sums of money is really a game show. These are formats that have been perfected by broadcast TV. So, what is the difference between this influencer and broadcast versions of the same genre? Shirley thinks the differentiator is the brand of the influencer and the multiplatform following they foster. While broadcast focuses on a format then brings in talent, the social video world relies on personality first, and the content that personality engages in comes second. The types of content that work well on social platforms bear that out. Talk shows and game shows, for example, are clearly delineated forms, accompanied by the rituals inherent in social video – such as likes, comments and reposts. The creator economy needs to clear the space of complication so that the focus can remain on the creator, and that’s an aspect that broadcasters might find very hard to copy.
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