Everyone wanted to be YouTube‘s friend at MIPCOM this year.
The Cannes TV market was entirely upended by the presence of the content behemoth which, as a major presence on the Croisette for the first time in its 20 year-existence, became emblematic of creator-driven success — the future of entertainment production.
The creator economy was, of course, MIPCOM 2025‘s headline focus. Influencers quite literally ran the show: the London-based After Party Studios introduced The Nella Rose Show, France’s superstar content creator Inoxtag was a MIP headliner and Tubi showed off its episodic “Creatorverse” platform. Swathes of social media stars, including sessions with Twitch streamers, sports influencers and heads of digital media studios, speckled the lineup with talks on how to do creator content right.
The Google-owned YouTube — the U.S.’s leading streamer, ahead of Netflix, per Nielsen — demanded the spotlight from the get-go, helped by EMEA vp Pedro Pina’s keynote session on Monday. Next to BBC Studios’ senior vp of digital, Jasmine Dawson, Pina touted their partnership as the most viable way forward for traditional TV players, who arrived in Cannes seemingly frantic in their bid for innovation. (“Traditional” became every speaker’s go-to when describing broadcasters and cable TV networks.) Audiences are more online than ever, we were told. And creators are your route in.
In Q2 of this year, YouTube clocked nearly $9.8 billion in ad revenue, with analysts predicting that YouTube, in the U.S., is going to dethrone Disney as “the biggest media company without even selling a churro and a theme park,” said Foundation Distribution CEO Sarah Craig at a panel titled “Investing in the Creator IP Boom.” Other session titles captured perfectly the totality in which creators (and, therefore, the world’s largest video-sharing platform) dominated MIP this year: “Boost Your Audience by Crafting Compelling Content on YouTube”; “Why Digital Media Studios Will Dominate the Future”; “Reinventing TV Shows with Creators”; “Reshaping Entertainment in a Creator-Led Future,” to name a few.
“What we do is, if you’re successful, I’m successful. If you’re not successful, I’m not successful,” said Pina at the keynote session. “It’s the best combination ever. The audience will determine whether the content is good or not.”
He was also clear about where others are going wrong: “Typically, people look at distribution platforms from a broadcasting standpoint. [They say], ‘I have a piece of content right now and YouTube reaches however many million people, so I’m just going to push the content, and somehow magically it shows up on in front of people on the other side.’ And that’s just not how it works. It’s not a push mechanism anymore,” he continued. “It’s a pull mechanism. That’s why hiring YouTube creators is so important, because they understand fundamentally that this is about curating, taking care of your fandom, [and] feeding your fandom what they need in order for them to start pulling [in] their audience.”
Dawson concurred. She told audience members that BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the British broadcaster, has done exactly that. Content creators now hold senior positions at the company. “Putting our audience obsession at the heart of everything we do is what makes our business work now,” she emphasized. “[We’re] fandom first.” Pina echoed the sentiment that with fandom comes power and that makes creator input a necessity.
This word, fandom, then began popping up everywhere. And YouTube, marketing itself as the global hub of fandom cultivation, became queen bee. For good reason: Little Dot Studios’ Tarif Rahman said when talking to 14 to 44-year-olds online, 85 percent describe themselves as a fan of someone or something — 73 percent of those fans run to YouTube first for that content.
But why? “The platform is just made for them,” said Rahman. “Fans get lost in niches. When you watch a YouTube video, you can always see a recommended video, a suggested video, a playlist. You’re just being pushed down a niche, and you continue to see more and more content that is related to your online IP.” This then morphs into its own community and Little Dot — specializing in digital video production, distribution and monetization — capitalizes on the frenzy. “You can repackage fan-favorite moments in so many different ways,” he said at the MIP Innovation Lab. “Whether it’s a short, a live stream, a marathon, a long-form compilation, there’s so many different ways to be able to serve the same content and still have your fan base really engaged.”
Take British chef and presenter Gordon Ramsay, whose Studio Ramsay (Kitchen Nightmares, Culinary Genius America, Ramsay in 10, the works) first approached Little Dot to get their content on YouTube 10 years ago. Some might fear that putting his best TV moments on YouTube for free would cannibalize viewership on the original network, but results shows the opposite effect. “It’s all very complimentary,” said Rahman. “It helps you tap into a new audience that you wouldn’t have been able to tap into before.” Crucially, studios like Little Dot don’t treat this content like linear TV would. “We really focus on how we can maximize the IP as much as possible,” explained Rahman.
They prioritize virality. “We focus on his iconic moments, his viral reactions and his shareable chaos, because we know he has a deep fandom. We know he has people who love when he drops an f-bomb or he calls someone an idiot sandwich.” Little Dot now own 135 YouTube channels and reach 930 million people a day. Studio Ramsay is one of the site’s top creators.
But it isn’t just world-renowned stars like the foul-mouthed chef who can carry an entire studio on his back. Creators are now able to diversify their revenue streams like never before, setting up their own studios through merch sales, live events, localization and more. Dhar Mann Studios, launched by YouTuber Dhar Mann — who boasts 26.2 million subscribers — had CEO Sean Atkins (formerly MTV president) on the ground in Cannes to speak to the stratospheric success of Mann and others, including the globe’s most-followed creator, MrBeast. Atkins spoke on the main MIP stage about the increasingly varied pathways for monetization in the creator space (The Economic Times reported the net worth of MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, to be around $1 billion in 2025).
This, in turn, means the quality of content is only rising. The kicker is creators are better set-up to fail and reboot like linear TV can’t. “[Traditional TV] can’t rapidly test out new things in the same way that digital can,” said Silver Berry CEO Matthew Gielen in another session about the reign of digital media studios. “Traditional also has a ton of gatekeepers. [That means] they have to move slower, and their hands are tied in so many ways that a digital company’s hands are not.” With production levels in L.A. at their lowest in years, that kind of financial freedom becomes a superpower.
With the creator economy firmly established as the future of TV at MIPCOM, then came the deals. Fremantle struck a content partnership with Viral Nation to develop a slate of “creator-led social-first formats” and Banijay unveiled FC Failliet/Finesse (FCF), a professional Dutch soccer club co-founded with digital creators Ilias Vietto, Aimane Charbon and Kleine John. One of the buzzier announcements, Banijay’s Creators Lab, was confirmed Monday; CEO of Banijay France Alexia Laroche-Joubert walked The Hollywood Reporter through the plan.
Laroche-Joubert confessed it took a little while for Banijay to figure out a “win-win deal” for both Banijay and creators. Partnering with YouTube, they found a breakthrough with the Creators Lab, launched through their new Banijay Creators Studio. The project will see five selected YouTube stars inject new life into Banijay’s dormant formats with the help of €50,000 ($58,000) and complete control over the series pilot. Global game show Minute to Win It, for example, has been reimagined in a workplace environment that Laroche-Joubert said makes for fantastic viewing.
Yet, with this wild enthusiasm about the creator production space and all of the power seemingly in their hands, Laroche-Joubert made sure to note it’s not entirely one-sided. Creators need something too, something only linear TV platforms can offer, and that’s some of the best-known IP in the world. “There’s a study that has been released last week that [said] all the creators have burn-out,” Laroche-Joubert told THR. “They have to produce so much and they have to be in touch with the brands, find good stories, good ideas, produce them, release them, follow their community. This is why I think that [this deal] is for them, too — to see them reshape something, to have some format, a pillar to rely on.”
Said Gielen about the stability and prestige of traditional TV: “You have the best IP in the world, the ability to fund the best IPs in the world. And you have clout. Everybody wants to be a fucking star,” the U.S. exec added. “The closest thing to a rock star is a movie star, right? You have access to unbelievable amounts of money that digital does not have. You have massive distribution networks […] massive libraries that can truly be exploited, adapted, changed, reinvested, and then you have relationships. You have relationships with these platforms. You have relationships with distribution networks, studios. These are all things that you can leverage to hold off the incoming digital media creators.”
Perhaps it’s not entirely accurate to say creators are in the driving seat, but if MIPCOM made anything clear, they’ve certainly got a hand on the gear stick. What remains clear is the demand for a convergence in place of rivalry. “Creators aren’t a threat to the core ecosystem of the media,” said Atkins. “This is an opportunity to work together, and we’re going to see more of these hybrid relationships between traditional and creators over the next few years, [away from] the fear-based [mood] that you see now.”