# the mediator

## Social Video is Eating the World
How Big It Is, Why It Will Continue to Grow and What Big Media Can Do About It
DOUG SHAPIRO
AUG 09, 2024
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The image is a cartoon of a social media influencer character eating the world. The character is a young boy with blue hair and large, expressive eyes. He is holding a fork and knife, and he is about to eat a plate with the Earth on it. Social media icons such as the Facebook "f", a heart, and a speech bubble with "33" are floating around him. There are also "Like" buttons with numbers on them. The overall impression is that the character is consuming the world through social media.

DALL-E, prompt: "Create a cartoon image of a social media influencer character
eating the world."

Every few months, someone writes an article about the threat that YouTube or perhaps
TikTok pose to traditional media (like here, here, here, here or here). The argument
goes something like this: social video (or short form, user generated content or creator
content, take your pick) is growing really fast, it is encroaching on consumption of
professionally produced content and Hollywood is in denial or asleep at the switch.

[here](https://stratechery.com/2024/the-youtube-renaissance/)
[here](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/hollywood-s-tiktok-panic)
[here](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/tiktok-youtube-hollywood-streaming-1235797033/)
[here](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/hollywood-s-tiktok-panic)
[here](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/tiktok-youtube-hollywood-streaming-1235797033/)

It might seem like I just set up a straw man to knock it down with a theatrical flourish,
but I didn't. I agree with all of it.

I have written many times that I believe the TV and film business is in the early stages
of a "second disruption." The first disruption occurred within the professional video
ecosystem, a.k.a. Hollywood, over the last 15 years, catalyzed by Netflix (which was
followed by Amazon, Apple and the media conglomerates' self-cannibalizing
streaming services). The second disruption is occurring from without the professional
video ecosystem, as social video, mostly on YouTube, TikTok and Reels, is now
siphoning consumer attention away from professional video.

Still, there are a few unanswered questions: How big is social video viewing, really?
Will it keep taking share? And what can the big media companies do about it?

Tl;dr:

Based on Nielsen's The Gauge, YouTube is already >11% of viewing on TVs (not
the 10% that is usually cited). This excludes YouTube viewing on mobile/PC,
TikTok, Reels and all other social video.

• It's hard to get a holistic view of all video consumption, but triangulating data
from Activate, eMarketer and a new dataset called Media IDentity Graph (MIDG),
I calculate that social video is now ~25% of all video consumption and it grows
every year.

There are many reasons to believe that this share will continue to grow unabated.

• Among them: most younger consumers express a preference for social over
professionally-produced content; for many viewers, their definition of quality is
changing to include attributes that favor social video (authenticity, relatability,
digestibility, etc.); social video triggers much more dopamine release per viewing
minute, so this isn't just a fad, it's enduring brain chemistry; social is structurally
more surprising and innovative; it's muscling in on Hollywood's turf with longer
videos and episodic stories; and GenAI promises to make video storytelling much
more accessible to the massive creator class.

For Hollywood, social video is a problem. It will never be as financially attractive.
It is still regarded as "less than." And most attempts to cross over social stars to
traditional have failed.
Subscribe

##
• But it is big and getting bigger, so traditional media companies need cohesive
strategies. A more holistic approach might include not only tapping into social
video for marketing, but more extensively for franchise development and perhaps
even a bolder push into influencer marketing and social commerce.

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## Professional vs. Social/Short Form/UGC/Creator Video
Before digging in, let's get squared away with nomenclature.

There are a lot of ways to categorize video consumption (e.g.,
cable/broadcast/streaming or linear/SVOD/AVOD/FAST). But arguably the most
important distinction is between "Hollywood-produced" video and "non-Hollywood
produced" video because they have very different business models and societal
implications.

• Hollywood. The traditional film and TV industrial complex is, of course,
dominated by a handful of big Hollywood studios (Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery,
NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount, Amazon and Apple) and maybe 100-200
independent producers. These studios spend a lot of money to produce content,
about $250 billion globally, and it is a risky business. They either distribute that
content on their own distribution channels or license it to other distributors, also
for a lot of money. It employs roughly 500,000 people in the U.S., but only a few
dozen people in Hollywood have greenlight authority and therefore are the
arbiters of what does and doesn't get made.

• "Non-Hollywood." This includes anyone who chooses to post online and is,
therefore, accessible to most of the global population. Everyone has greenlight
authority. Tens or possibly hundreds of millions of people around the world create
video content today, when including YouTube, TikTok and Meta's Reels.
According to Social Blade, there are 64 million creators on YouTube alone. Unlike
the studios, these platforms spend essentially zero on content 1 because creators
upload it for free.

So, on the one hand, the rise of "non-Hollywood" content threatens the traditional
professional content creation ecosystem. On the other, it has societal benefits, because
it makes video distribution accessible to everyone.

Sometimes "non-Hollywood" content is called short form, user generated content or
creator content, all of which have some limitations. For lack of a better alternative, I'll
call these two categories professional video and social video.

## How Big Is Social Video, Really?
It's difficult to get a holistic look at video consumption and compare the relative sizes
of professional and social video because people consume video on a lot of devices. 2

Below, I discuss a new effort, from Maverix Insights (founded by three of my former
Time Warner colleagues), called Media IDentity Graph (MIDG). It captures
consumption across all digital touchpoints (mobile, PC and CTV). But before getting
to that, let's survey what we know about social video from other sources and see if we

##
can triangulate on a holistic view.

### Nielsen
Every month, Nielsen releases The Gauge, which aims to provide a snapshot of linear
and streaming viewing on televisions. Figure 1 shows the latest, for the month of June.
As illustrated, for all persons 2+ in the U.S., YouTube viewing on TVs (this excludes
viewing of YouTube TV and also YouTube viewing on mobile/PC) is 10% of all TV
usage. Note that Nielsen TV usage includes an "Other" category that isn't really TV
viewing. (It's gaming, audio streaming, DVD playback and other dribs and drabs.) In
June, this Other was 12% of time spent on TVs.

YouTube's share of TV viewing is actually 11.25%, not the widely-cited 10%.

So, in actuality, to calculate YouTube's share of TV viewing (as opposed to usage), it is
9.9%/88%, or 11.3%. So, without accounting for YouTube consumption on mobile/PC,
TikTok, Reels, X/Twitter or anything else, social video is already ~11% of viewing. And,
Nielsen's estimate of YouTube's share of TV usage has been steadily growing since
they launched The Gauge, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. YouTube is 10% of All TV Usage...

The image is a pie chart titled "The Gauge" and subtitled "Nielsen's Total TV and Streaming Snapshot". It shows the percentage of total TV usage for various categories in June 2024. The categories and their percentages are: Broadcast (20.5%), Cable (27.2%), Streaming (40.3%), and Other (12.0%). The Streaming category is further broken down into Netflix (8.4%), YouTube (6.0%), Hulu (3.1%), Tubi (2.0%), Roku (1.5%), Max (1.4%), Peacock (1.2%), Pluto (1.1%), and Amazon (0.8%). The pie chart is colorful and easy to read, with each category clearly labeled.

Source: Nielsen

Figure 2....Up From ~7% Over the Past Two Years

The image is a line graph titled "Total TV Usage Share, P2+, Total Day". The graph shows the percentage of total TV usage share for various streaming services over time, from August 2022 to June 2024. The services included are Other, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Max, Peacock, Pluto, Tubi, Amazon, Roku Channel, Paramount+, and Disney+. The graph shows that YouTube's share of TV usage has been steadily growing over the past two years.

Source: Nielsen

### Activate/eMarketer
Activate and eMarketer both make valiant attempts at aggregating up disparate data
sources to gauge time spent across media. Figure 3 shows both of their estimates for
what I'm calling "professional" and "social" viewing, with two important caveats: for
both, YouTube viewing on TVs is included in "professional," not "social video," and,
unlike the Nielsen data, both estimates are for adults 18+. They both show that U.S.
adults' professional video consumption is around 5 hours per day and social is about 1
hour.

Figure 3. Activate and eMarketer Have Similar Estimates for Video Consumption

The image contains two bar graphs comparing professional and social video time spent per day for U.S. adults 18+ according to Activate and eMarketer. The graphs show the time spent in hours and minutes, as well as the percentage of total video consumption. For Activate, the professional video time spent is 4 hours and 48 minutes (86%), while the social video time spent is 36 minutes (14%). For eMarketer, the professional video time spent is 4 hours and 48 minutes (82%), while the social video time spent is 1 hour and 12 minutes (18%). The graphs also show the data for 2021, 2022, and 2023.

##
Professional Social
Professional Social

Note: Both Activate and eMarketer data include YouTube viewing on TVs as what I am
calling "professional." Source: Author analysis of Activate and eMarketer data.

Using the Nielsen data from The Gauge in Figure 1 (and adjusting it to exclude kids 2-
18 viewing), we can move the YouTube viewing on TVs from "professional" to "social"
to get a better (if still rough) picture of the total time adults spend with social video
(Figure 4). As shown, based on this analysis, social represents an estimated 25% of all
U.S. adults' video consumption.

Figure 4. Adjusting for YouTube Consumption on TVs, Social Video is ~25% of Adults' Total
Video Consumption

The image contains two bar graphs comparing professional and social video time spent per day for U.S. adults 18+ according to Activate (ADJUSTED) and eMarketer (ADJUSTED). The graphs show the time spent in hours and minutes, as well as the percentage of total video consumption. For Activate (ADJUSTED), the professional video time spent is 3 hours and 36 minutes (77%), while the social video time spent is 1 hour and 12 minutes (23%). For eMarketer (ADJUSTED), the professional video time spent is 3 hours and 36 minutes (79%), while the social video time spent is 1 hour and 12 minutes (21%). The graphs also show the data for 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Professional Social
Professional Social

Source: Author analysis of Activate and eMarketer data.

### MIDG
MIDG tracks a panel of 30 million U.S. participants across all digital services (SVOD,
AVOD, FAST, vMVPD, Social) and devices (mobile, PC/laptop and CTV). So, it has a
complete picture of all digital video consumption, just not over-the-air broadcast and
traditional pay TV (cable, satellite and telco). The sample is representative of the U.S.
population and includes all age groups. As shown in Figure 5, for its total sample,
social video represents about 1/3 of all digital video consumption, with the other 2/3
coming from SVOD, vMVPD and FAST.

Figure 5. Social Video Makes Up 1/3 of All Digital Video

The image is a bar graph titled "Social Video Time Spent vs. Other Digital Video Total Sample". The graph shows the percentage of time spent on social video versus other digital video (SVOD/vMVPD/FAST) for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024. The percentage of time spent on social video has increased from 29% in 2022 to 32% in 2024.

Note: Snapshot taken in March of each year. Source: MIDG data from Maverix Insights.

Now, we can try to adjust this data by adding in all non-digital viewing using The
Gauge data from Nielsen. 3 The results are in Figure 6. As shown, social is still right
about 25% of total video viewing, right on top of the Activate and eMarketer estimates.

Figure 6. Adjusting the MIDG Data to Include Linear Viewing, We Also Get Social Video at
~25% of Total Video Consumption

The image is a bar graph titled "Social Video Time Spent vs. Other Video Total Sample (ADJUSTED)". The graph shows the percentage of time spent on linear, SVOD/FAST, and social video in 2024. The percentage of time spent on social video is 25%.

Source: Maverix Insights MIDG data, Nielsen, Author analysis.

## There's Little Reason to Expect it to Slow Down
So, anyway you slice it, social video is already one-quarter of all video consumption
and it continues to creep up every year. Will it continue unabated? There are plenty of
reasons to think it will:

### Generational Shift

##
For years, Hollywood has dismissed YouTube. The argument has been that most
YouTube videos are people slipping on the ice and cats playing the piano. Sure, the
argument goes, people may watch it while on line at the DMV or teenagers may get
together and then scroll TikTok sitting side-by-side to avoid actual social interaction,
but it doesn't compete with TV because it's a different use case.

That logic is looking increasingly rickety. As noted above, YouTube accounts for 10%
of all viewing on televisions, which is exactly the same use case: watching on a TV,
probably wherever the family usually watches TV. The implication is that viewers
don't only watch social video for lack of anything better to do. They are actively
choosing it over professionally produced video, at least some of the time. According to
recent surveys from Accenture, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) (where I am a senior
advisor) and Deloitte, that's particularly true of younger viewers.

People don't watch social video only to kill time. Often, they actively choose it instead of
professional content especially younger viewers.

This is from Accenture's Reinvent for Growth: Only the Radical Survive report from
April:

And highlighting a seismic shift in entertainment preferences, 59% of consumers
said they regard user-generated content as equally entertaining as traditional
media, signaling a competitive upheaval in the quest for audience attention.

Figure 7 highlights a similar conclusion from BCG. As shown, according to this survey
by BCG's Global Institute for the Future of Television (GIFT), Gen Z respondents
prefer short-form for some attributes, like having relatable, useful and easy-to-find
content. Figure 8 shows a very similar finding from Deloitte.

Figure 7. A Recent BCG Survey Shows Younger Consumers' Preference for Social Video...

The image is a bar graph titled "Gen Z prefers short-form platforms over SVOD services for several features". The graph shows the percentage of respondents who think short-form services are better by feature/function. The features are: Has content/creators who reflect me (76%), Has content that helps me better live my life (71%), Ability to find videos I like (65%), Amount of content (56%), Length of content (38%), and Quality of content (23%).

Note: Among Gen Z households with 1 + SVOD subscription that use 1+ short-from platform.
Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Global Institute for the Future of Television (GIFT)
survey, March 2024.

Figure 8....As Does One from Deloitte

The image is a line graph titled "Younger consumers-who churn at the highest rates-prefer UGC videos because they don't have to search for things to watch". The graph shows the percentage of consumers who prefer watching UGC because they don't have to spend time searching for what to watch, broken down by generation. The generations are Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, and Boomers and matures. The graph shows that Generation Z has the highest percentage of consumers who prefer watching UGC because they don't have to spend time searching for what to watch.

Source: Deloitte Media Trends, March 2024.

### A Changing Definition of Quality
For a lot of media executives, it is hard to reconcile these data and surveys with their
own taste. How could people actively choose social video over professional video? The
reason is that the consumer definition of quality is shifting.

I've written about quality many times, including most recently here. Quality can be a
slippery topic, because there's no standard definition. But here's a simple way to think
about it:


# You can think of "quality" as a (somewhat mysterious) algorithm. It is the weighted set of attributes that consumers consider when choosing between identically priced goods. Consumers aren't necessarily aware of all these attributes themselves or their relative importance, but a convenient thing about this definition is that it is based on revealed preference, not stated preference. When consumers make different choices than they did in the past under similar circumstances, it reveals that their definition of quality has changed.

Media executives tend to have a relatively static definition of quality, but the consumer definition of quality is much more fluid, especially for younger consumers, who's definitions are less ingrained. The attributes that define quality, and their respective weightings, change over time. If new entrants introduce new attributes that consumers value and internalize-even if only in some contexts, for some use cases-it changes the algorithm.

In TV, clearly the definition of quality is changing for a significant number of consumers, especially younger consumers, some of the time. While many media executives still define "quality" TV as something like the kind of prestige series you'd find on HBO-high production values, household-name stars and showrunners, great writing, etc.-social video has introduced all sorts of new attributes, like authenticity, relatability, relevance to my sub-community, discoverability, social currency, digestibility, being educational, time-to-surprise/shock/laugh, etc. This is not to say that the old markers of value no longer matter, just that they matter less or less often.

## The Good Chemicals

A changing consumer definition of quality should always concern incumbents, because it can be really hard or impossible to adjust. But, if consumer taste is fickle and can swing one way, maybe it is just a fad and can swing back, right? In this case, probably not, because the shift is driven in part by enduring brain chemistry, not temporary fads.

This shift is driven in part by enduring brain chemistry, not temporary fads.

In February, Ted Gioia published a widely-circulated post, [The State of Culture, 2024](https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-state-of-culture-2024). He argues that we are entering a post-entertainment culture that revolves around compulsive entertainment and "this is more than just the hot trend of 2024. It can last forever-because it's based on body chemistry, not fashion or aesthetics." Here's a cool chart:

## Figure 9. Dopamine Culture

The image is a chart titled "The Rise of Dopamine Culture". It compares slow traditional culture, fast modern culture, and dopamine culture across various categories. The categories listed are: Athletics, Journalism, Film & TV, Music, Images, Communication, and Relationships. The chart uses arrows to show the progression from traditional to modern to dopamine culture.

*   Athletics: Play a sport -> Watch a sport -> Gamble on a sport
*   Journalism: Newspapers -> Multimedia -> Clickbait
*   Film & TV: Video -> Video -> Reels of short videos
*   Music: Albums -> Tracks -> TikToks
*   Images: View on gallery wall -> View on phone -> Scroll on a phone
*   Communication: Handwritten letters -> Voice/Email/Memo -> Short texts
*   Relationships: Courtship/Marriage -> Sexual freedom -> Swipe on an app

Source: Ted Gioia.

We often lose sight of it, as we sip an oat milk matcha latte in a temperature controlled Starbucks, wearing athleisure, tippy-tapping on our Macbook keyboards, but we're still animals and, if not beholden to, certainly heavily influenced by, our physiology. Our brains evolved to like dopamine, so we crave it.

Relative to professional video, whether on linear or streaming, social video is far better able to maximize dopamine release:

*   Variable rewards. In the 1930s and 40s, B.F. Skinner discovered that when rats were given food pellets at unpredictable intervals, they were more likely to press a lever than when they received the rewards predictably. Subsequent research revealed this occurs because the unpredictable rewards produce more dopamine. Smart product managers have known this for a long time. A decade ago, Nir Eyal published [Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products](https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/). In it, he lays out the "Hook Model," which relies heavily on variable rewards. Today, variable rewards are a key design feature in many consumer products, like slot machines, videogames, social media and, of course, social video-all geared to capture and increase usage. The unpredictable payoff of scrolling through TikTok, Reels or Shorts is likely to release more dopamine than sitting down to watch one 22 minute sitcom.
*   High frequency/low investment/rapid payoff. Estimates of the average watch time

## 2

per TikTok video range from 3-8 seconds. It is easy to quickly verify the "quality" of a TikTok video and decide whether to keep watching or move on. Social video viewers get a much faster dopamine payoff than long-form viewers.

The algorithm. Dopamine release is not only correlated with the variability of the reward, but also the perceived value of the reward. Social video is able to deliver very high value. According to eMarketer, the average U.S. adult TikTok user is on the platform 55 minutes per day, which may equate to 1,000 videos daily. (Crazy, right?) Social video platforms get vastly more signals than streaming platforms and can create extraordinarily fine-tuned recommendation algorithms and, therefore, higher value rewards. (They have far higher "signal liquidity," to quote Scott Galloway.) While the Reels algorithm seems to know you better than you know yourself (how did it know I was planning a vacation in Europe?), it is questionable whether the recommendation algorithms on streaming platforms are much use at all. Last year, Netflix discontinued its "Surprise Me" feature because "users tend to come to the service with a specific show, movie or genre in mind."

## Social Video is Structurally More Innovative

The degree of experimentation in professional content is constrained by risk aversion, cultural mores and rules of thumb. It is very expensive and risky to produce, so development execs are naturally drawn to formats, genres and story structures that have worked before. Some talent shies away from risky projects for fear it could damage their brands and careers. Dramas tend to range from about 40 minutes to an hour. Comedies usually can't sustain much longer than a half-hour. Movies are, of course, usually 90 minutes-to-one hour.

Social video is a hotbed of experimentation and innovation and sometimes these experiments work.

Social video, by contrast, has no such limitations. Since it is accessible to anyone who wants to press "upload," it is a hotbed of experimentation and innovation, in terms of length, format and story structure. Some of these experiments are bound to work.

## It is Muscling in on Professional Video's Turf

In addition, social video is increasingly breaking out of the bounds of short, fully contained videos to muscle in on professional video's turf: much longer videos and episodic structures.

At launch, YouTube limited videos to 10 minutes and Music.ly, the predecessor of TikTok, once limited clips to 15 seconds. That's no longer the case. Today, YouTube videos can be as long as 15 hours. YouTube has also changed its algorithm and monetization policies to encourage longer uploads. (For instance, videos longer than 8 minutes are eligible for midroll ads.) TikTok is now experimenting with raising the video length to as long as 60 minutes for some users.

Maybe Quibi was onto something.

There are also at least weak signals that some viewers like watching long form content broken up into short episodes. The premise behind Jeffrey Katzenberg's short-lived Quibi was that consumers want to watch long-form scripted content on a phone, broken into short snippets. It might have been the wrong strategy to invest heavily in premium content for an unproved format, but he may have been right about the emerging consumer behavior.

Today, there are dozens of short form scripted entertainment apps, like FlexTV, DreameShort, Kalos TV, GoodShort, MiniShortes, Playlet and ReelShort. These feature high-brow fare with titles like Knocked Up by My Ex's Billionaire Uncle and The Call Boy I Met in Paris, generally broken up into 70-100 one-minute episodes. According to TechCrunch, these apps have been downloaded 120 million times worldwide.

Reinforcing the consumer appetite for serialized stories, it is common for people to illegally upload movie clips, sometimes including entire films spliced up. Last October, as a promotional stunt for the Mean Girls musical remake, Paramount put the entirety of the original 2004 film on TikTok for one day, cut up into 23 videos. And every now and again a serialized short form story will go viral. In February, TikTok user Ressa Teesa started posting videos about her marriage in a 50-video series called "Who TF Did I Marry!?" It blew up, with the first installment alone viewed about 40 million times.

## GenAl is Coming

The production value and breadth of social video is also likely to increase over the next several years, propelled by GenAI. I've written about this a lot (here's a recent overview), so I won't rehash it. The basic idea is that GenAI tools (especially next-gen Al video generators, like OpenAl's Sora, Runway Gen-3, LumaLabs' Dream Machine, etc.) will democratize high quality production. This isn't to say they will enable a kid in a dorm room to rival the production value of a blockbuster movie or prestige TV series

## 3

anytime soon. But they will make video storytelling accessible to millions of creators who otherwise wouldn't even think of acquiring the expertise or incurring the costs to shoot video.

## What Can Big Media Do?

So, social video is big and likely to continue to encroach on professional video share of viewing indefinitely. For the big media companies, a bigger presence in social video will never offset pressure on traditional video. Unless you are a platform that aggregates the tail or a creator who somehow emerges out of it, it is a fundamentally less attractive business. But they still need a strategy to capitalize on its growth.

## Social Video is a Different Business

Why social video is fundamentally different is probably obvious:

*   A different market structure. Traditional video has high barriers to entry, namely significant capital to finance production and marketing. It also has limited shelf space-there are only a few broadcast networks, a couple of dozen relevant cable networks, a few general entertainment streaming services and a limited number of theater screens-which constrains the competitive set. By contrast, social video has no barriers to entry and is therefore highly (highly, highly) fragmented. Even a mediocre TV show might find an audience and partially recoup its costs. But if you put something mediocre out on social, it is instantaneously swallowed into the anonymity of the long tail, never to be heard from again.

A mediocre TV show might recoup some of its costs, but in social video mediocrity is instantaneously swallowed into anonymity.

*   Different monetization. While traditional video monetizes through subscription fees and advertising, most social video only monetizes only through advertising or sponsorships, if at all. And social advertising has lower CPMs and fewer ad units per hour, generating less ad revenue per unit of consumption.
*   A different balance of power. In traditional video, the largest content providers have substantial bargaining leverage over their distributors. Social video distribution is controlled by only a few massive platforms, who have all the bargaining power and can change algorithms or monetization policies at will.
*   A different audience. Social video viewers are highly attuned to perceived authenticity and are accustomed to more free-wheeling, less polished content, which may not lend itself to a lot of the programming created by a large corporation.

## What's the Right Social Video Strategy?

Even acknowledging that it won't likely move the needle financially and it's hard to do, big media companies should have a comprehensive and cohesive social video strategy anyway. Most don't.

For years, most big media companies have dabbled with several approaches to social video, some of which have worked better than others. You can think of these efforts in the following categories, rank ordered from most to least developed, although there is some overlap between them. The first three treat social video as a cost center, the last as a profit center:

Marketing. Most media brands have active social media marketing functions. This includes distributing trailers or trying to boost social momentum around their content through both paid media (such as influencer marketing) and earned media (like viral challenges or creating social-worthy events). As mentioned with the Mean Girls example above, sometimes they break up long-form content into short episodes or even release entire teaser episodes (such as a pilot) for free.

Franchise development. As opposed to marketing activations around specific movies or shows, franchise development aims to keep fans engaged outside of big content releases. It's usually handled by social media or community managers. Today, this includes dedicated social video channels (like the Star Wars YouTube channel), video podcasts, social-specific content (like The Walking Dead: Red Machete web series), and behind-the-scenes footage or cast interviews.

Over time, I think progressive media companies should also enable and encourage fan creation on social video, especially as GenAl tools develop. As consumers increasingly face "infinite" media choice, one of the filters they will use is the strength and desirability of the community associated with that content, something I've written about before (see [What is Scarce When Quality is Abundant](https://dougshapiro.substack.com/p/what-is-scarce-when-quality-is-abundant)). It probably seems radical to media companies that regard their IP as precious, but one powerful way to build community and fan engagement will be to facilitate fan creation (as I wrote about in [IP as Platform](https://dougshapiro.substack.com/p/ip-as-platform)).

Talent development. Big media companies have tried to cross social media stars over to traditional media, but underscoring the challenge of integrating the two, mostly unsuccessfully. In 2014, Disney acquired Maker Studios partially to source new talent.

## 4

It ultimately failed and Maker was absorbed into the Disney Digital Network a few years later. There are a lot of other examples, like the lukewarm reception of The D'Amelio Show or Lilly Singh's talk show, which was canceled. Mr. Beast's high profile deal with Amazon will be an interesting test case whether even the biggest star on the internet can translate to TV. (The show, Beast Games, is currently mired in controversy.)

Occasionally there is a star who can legitimately cross over, like Quinta Brunson, the creator, producer, co-writer and star of hit Abbott Elementary, who got her start on Instagram, or Issa Rae, the multi-hyphenate behind Insecure, who started on YouTube. So far, though, these examples are the exception, not the rule.

The biggest question for big media: is there any money in it?

Monetization. The bigger and more interesting question for big media companies is whether there is any money in it.

*   Branded content. Most media conglomerates have branded content divisions, which work with TV advertisers to create social video campaigns. For instance, when I was at Turner, our ad sales division created a business unit called Launchpad, which managed social video campaigns using Turner social properties (like, say, having Conan O'Brien eating a Snickers bar during a Team Coco post). Disney (CreativeWorks), Paramount (Velocity) and NBCU all have similar efforts. It isn't clear this is a big business though, probably topping out at a couple hundred million dollars within multi-billion dollar ad operations.
*   Social video distribution. Original webisodes, podcasts, etc., all likely generate some ad revenue, although-again-probably not much in the scheme of things. One opportunity that hasn't been explored much is the idea of using social as a downstream monetization window for premium content. For instance, would it ever make sense to distribute, say, old movies (on a non-exclusive basis) on TikTok or YouTube after they've run their course on theatrical, home entertainment, first-window pay/streaming, free TV, etc.? Maybe.
*   A bolder push into influencer marketing and social commerce. Probably the biggest opportunity and boldest bet would be for traditional media companies to make a push-probably through acquisitions-into influencer marketing and social commerce. Influencer marketing is a relatively large business, estimated at $24 billion this year and social commerce is supposedly $600 billion globally (a lot of that is in China; it is probably $100 billion in the U.S.). These are highly-fragmented ecosystems comprising influencer agencies, campaign management tools and social commerce enabling technologies. A progressive media company might be able to roll up the influencer marketing stack, for instance. This might enable them to create more holistic video campaigns across traditional premium video and social and possibly reduce transaction costs for big brands.

## Facing the Challenge

Social video is already probably larger than a lot of people realize and it will almost certainly continue to gain share. For big media, it's a problem. Their history with social video is spotty. In Hollywood, it is still considered "less than." And it's really hard to rally an organization around a business that makes less money than the core business.

As is the case for many of the challenges that big media faces today, there are no easy answers. But, as is also the case, a clear understanding and acknowledgement of the challenges is the first step.

Thanks to Maverix Insights for supplying the MIDG data and Nathan Micon and Shilpa Bisaria for their insights and feedback.

1 Other than occasional "creator programs," which are usually about the size of what they spend on providing lunch for their workforce each year. YouTube pays out 55% of advertising revenue to creators, but it is therefore only paid in success and incurs no risk.

2 Last year, Nielsen launched Nielsen ONE, which tracks audiences across linear TV, streaming and digital, but the primary application so far appears to be optimizing cross-media ad campaigns, not providing a holistic view of video consumption.

3 The Gauge captures all broadcast and cable viewing over the air, on traditional MVPDs and vMVPDs, so the key is to add in all the non-vMVPD viewing of broadcast and cable, since this is already accounted for in the MIDG data.

The image contains the logos for WSC Sports and The Only.

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B. Earl THE 666 SHOOTER Sep 3

Drugs feel great until we hit rock bottom and realize we are sick. And then we gotta quit. Hollywood has always had maverick storytellers who shake up the business. Right now we are watching folks like Mr. Beast single-handedly destroy the algorithms by forcing the "social media" creators to rip off his style and mash it up with reality tv flavors to create an amped-up amalgamation of emotions turned to 11. I remember back in my reality tv days (before I quit that part of the business) and how we would manipulate everyone and everything. Nothing was real. It's still the same with social media content creators but now with more "authentic production value. People wanna be famous. Why? Because they want to matter. They want their lives to have some sort of meaning. Living in Hollywood and hanging with the 20-something Tik Tok kids I've asked them why do you want to be famous...and the answer is because I get to be famous. I recently read Stephen King's opening to his Dark Tower series that he wrote back in 2003 as a retrospective on the series. He waxed poetic about being a 19-year old writer and his big ambitions to write the longest novel. Why? Just because he thought it was good idea at the time. Similar scenario but King had a story to tell that was itching his brain. Maybe along the way the children will find their way...or maybe they will be eaten by their own, drowning in a cesspool of synthetic data. The funny thing is that with all the data and metrics, we miss the point. It was never about being famous. It was never about being rich. It was about having meaning, crossing a threshold from childhood into adulthood. It's one that has been lost as we have been given way too much data and no training on how to use the sword to hack our way through the useless noise.

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James Heggs James Heggs Aug 12

All this sounds good but today's kids like my 25 year nephew will grow up. The 20 somethings will get a wake up. And that will affect what they watch. My nephew now knows the engagement is all manufactured. Is it real fans, click farms, bots or AI?

Add he's had that mid 20's shock to his life. Broke up with his girl, lost the good job. Had to move in back with his folks. Now watching some dude fake his lifestyle or whatever he's doing to "connect" doesn't hit like it use to.

It's easy to be revolutionary when you don't have any responsibilities besides wash your ass. The sudden reversal -he left Brooklyn at 19 to move in with his now ex, cut to 25 and back in Brooklyn they are now split it shifted his perspective.

Also wasn't self publishing books gonna be a game changer? There was a book store in Soho that had a print press. They shut down. Store still has other sites in NYC sans the print machine.

I bought those books. And the authors were more or less arrogant. Their entire selling point was I should buy it because they aren't relying on Simon and Shuster, I'm like how about rely on basic writing skills. Punctuation, correct spelling, proper syntax and grammar was all out of the question. Scene construction and plot sequences were a mess.

Only one of those authors for high enough to have her book adapted. It was dipped in theaters late august and few years ago. The rest of those self publishing authors went the way of the blackberry curve.

I asked my nephew about Kai Cenant, he knows who he is but he doesn't revolve any time around him if he remembers to watch his channel that day fine. I asked who do you follow from high school, he said no one. I suspect as this sector grows it will do so like how the state lottery works. Different players same game. But here it will be interchangeable fans and creators. And don't get me started on that WSJ article in which a majority of the creators make as much as most Hollywood writers and have 0 of the protections or benefits. Hence burn out is 18 months.

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