Tube Trends: Media Cuts Out Middle Man On Creator-Like Content

Aug 20

Despite possessing significantly more resources than the creators they’re competing against, media companies are not reaching more viewers on YouTube relative to top channels in the “influencer” space.

That’s not to say that media companies are failing on YouTube and other social platforms. Quite the opposite, actually.

July data from Chartbeat Inc.’s Tubular Labs shows that in aggregate, the Walt Disney Company, Paramount, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery were all top-10 properties on YouTube in July — by unique U.S. viewers.

But when looking at individual channels, the top of the list is almost entirely a mix of brands (including paid views) and creators who reach 15-20% of the country with little to no spend attached. And without the cache of high-production videos, live telecasts and recognizable IP to bank on.

Media has known this for years now, and to some extent, chased the creator approach. Specifically, when it comes to Shorts, as discussed in this space last week. U.S. media has embraced Shorts to such an extent that 37% of their YouTube views in 2026 come from videos that run for under one minute (according to Tubular data).

That’s not their core competency, however. Shorts and vertical video are primarily where creators live.

And as a result, media companies find themselves constantly playing road games to keep up with the attention and approach games that individual creators are already excelling at.

Yet, there’s a shifting tide for these media companies (especially the largest ones) to just cut out the middleman and utilize the creators themselves.

Amazon Prime Video didn’t just partner with MrBeast a few years ago. It worked with him to develop an entire show, in Beast Games. But there, the tech company-turned-TV-co simply acquired his brand and recognition onto their platform for a show that still fit the dimensions of traditional television.

Disney did something similar with Charli D’Amelio, fitting her TikTok stardom into a Hulu reality series with Charli and her family (which ended after three seasons).

Recently, media companies have appeared to direct business the other way. Instead of using the “middleman” of their own channels and trying to co-opt these creators’ large audiences, they’re simply making deals with the creators to develop content for the company — which is then shared to their existing page and audience.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of this shift has been creator Dhar Mann.

Not only was he tapped as the NFL’s “Chief Kindness Officer” in the lead-up to Super Bowl LX in February, but he also inked a deal with Fox in Q1 that has Dhar Mann Studios creating vertical video for the network.

This week, Disney signed a deal with Mann as well, directly citing the connection to the audience that has already been forged.

While the scripted content will likely live on Disney+ to some degree, the audience mention gives life to the idea that these videos will have some sort of distribution via Dhar Mann Studios’ social channels as well.

Tubular data highlights that in July, Mann generated 575 million minutes of watch-time on YouTube, which would rank 30th among all domestic creators, media and brands. His U.S. watch-time is not too far behind that of MS Now. His channel generated more minutes watched than numerous networks and kid-focused IP characters as well.

Mann’s content, while already a fit for Disney, also lacks significant overlap with the House of Mouse (Tubular shows Disney Channel and Disney Junior’s audience overlaps by less than 10% with Mann’s).

So for Disney, working directly with him on the company’s projects and potentially distributing them through his large platform is as much a play for attention as it is new audience acquisition as well.