Famous or infamous, 20th Century FOX sold its entertainment assets to The Walt Disney Company in 2019 to focus on news and sports. With the downsizing, industry observers would be forgiven for believing it was the last time Fox would be a proper news force. But to put it in a nutshell is the same studio icon Independence Daythey choose don’t let the night go quietly.
While legacy media was fighting over franchises, New Fox was betting on the creative economy. In January deal between Fox Entertainment and YouTuber Dhar Mann Studios (163 million followers, 20 billion views on the platforms of his long written content) to create a video sketch of microdramas a microcosm of the company’s strategy. The acquisitions of free ad-supported TV (FAST) service Tubi in 2020 and one-stop digital media company Red Seat Ventures last year make it clear where Fox is aiming. The question is whether the goal is worth hitting.
Betting on creators to drive the future of entertainment
As the Observer previously reportedearly versions of Superman (2034), Batman (2035), Joker (2036) and Wonder Woman (2037) enter the public domain over the next 15 years. These are not the only examples. It’s a reminder that the studio’s reliance on a major IP franchise has to contend with growing external competition, including from creators reaching for popular faces. Fox, having sold off its IP library, is trying to build something different, especially by outsourcing the rights to the NFL more than 25 percentage of Fox’s annual content spend.
Tubi made up 2.1 percent of US TV time, ahead of Peacock (1.8 percent) and WBD’s broadcast performance (1.4 percent), per Nielsen. The service achieved record-breaking times in Q3 2025, surpassed 100 million monthly active users (MAUs), and reached $1 billion in annual revenue. While its impressive catalog of Hollywood content is a strength, FAST’s library also contains 16,000 episodes of content from creators. These range from non-exclusive feeds licensed by MrBeast to original and documented entertainment featuring popular creators such as TikToker Noah Beck’s. It is set asidewhich became the most viewed topic on the platform.
“Viewers want long-form entertainment built more on authenticity and cultural relevance than big celebrities,” Tubi CEO Anjali Sud. said at the event hosted by the Paley Media Council in New York in March.
Serving the service: most FASTs prioritize channel-like channel surfing, while Tubi emphasizes its most in-demand feature. In that way, it has become a free ad-supported service (AVOD) behind YouTube. Creator-inspired content is no longer really to be seen by the general public outside of children’s media (even Amazon Animal Games is more than base rate rating rather than a home run), but niche niches can help justify budgeting accordingly here.
“It’s not always about the size of their reach. It’s about the depth and passion of the fandom,” Sud said of creators who don’t have legions of fans who still drive strong viewership on Tubi.
The power of a creator-driven audience
There is an audience for creator content in every language. YouTube boasts 202 million US adult users who are 7 percent more likely than the average consumer to watch a live stream, according to Greenlight Analyticswhere I work as the Director of Insights & Content Strategy. About 98 percent of Gen Z TikTokers also use YouTube. The platforms are not competitive; they share, making it easier to target businesses.
This is a monetized audience (with a caveat, which we’ll get to). About 38 percent of consumers say they sometimes or often buy based on influencer recommendations. They are 6.6 million new social media driven films most likely to be influenced by creators and subscribe to multiple broadcasters. The recommendations of the creators serve as the cultural currency of this group. Corner i Fox’s wireless audience follows.
The second side of the company’s influencer push is Red Seat Ventures, which helps creators build direct-to-consumer media businesses. Both traditional media enthusiasts and mainstream creators have chosen to launch efforts with Red Seat. The company was acquired by Fox in 2025.
Red Seat has engineers who will build creators’ home studios to include remote control rooms. They provide planning and marketing services, an ad sales team, and general skill development and management. The company emphasizes “creator monetization” above all else, CEO Chris Balfe said on the same panel as Sud last month. That is income from video and audio podcasts, short form content, branded content, subscriptions, off-site businesses, etc. Balfe argues that the advantage of the D2C model compared to mainstream Hollywood is that it gives the talent itself the ability to “control the outcome for a long time. It’s owned.”
Red Seat cultivates relationships with business foundations, while Tubi provides a growing audience.
Where is the real money in the creative economy?
But is there enough money to be made in the creative economy to justify such deliberate attention? There are arguments to be made both ways.
Linear TV still generates more than $120 billion in annual US revenue, and FAST revenue is expected to come in “just” $17 billion in 2029. It is growing, but the distribution is not expected replicate the open economy of pay-TV. Migrating audiences from creator-led platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to these increasingly corporate platforms is one absolute headache. A consistent conversion funnel is yet to be created.
Creators themselves are not spared from the universal law that has shaped traditional entertainment: content is historically a very difficult game. Only 4 percent of creators earn at least $100,000 a year, while half of all creators do less more than $500 a month. News commentator Doug Shapiro he argues that less than 1 percent of content creators account for 99 percent of revenue.
“It’s still early days among Fortune 100 companies,” Sud said of the creative economy advertising among top brands. “Madison Avenue is a great tradition.” Red Seat only works for high-end creators, as long-tail revenue democratization has not been seen by low-end creators.
One obvious obstacle is the attribute. Marketers understandably want to know that their campaigns are reaching and activating the right audience before turning over big dollars. While streaming offers more opportunities for personalization than linear, legitimately tracking this type of cause-and-effect remains tricky without affiliate links. Media consumption on Internet-connected TVs it can be sadly ineffective.
Then there is the audience wealth gap. Yes, social media buyers are willing to spend. But 52 percent of adult TikTok users in the US have an annual income of less than $50,000, per Greenlight. This speaks to its younger audience which is skewed. Until a direct line of high-income audiences is established, top marketers may remain cautious.
There is a concept of a war between the 37th Marvel Cinematic Universe and the 12th film. Fast & Furious franchise installment. After failing to get Warner Bros. in the 2010s, Fox’s great-grandfather Lachlan Murdoch took on the deep-seated tech companies that were sniffing around Hollywood and decided enough was enough.
Now, Fox’s bet is to diversify on a smaller scale—to exchange creator-owned content for the blockbuster-IP model. The audience is there, and it’s growing. But ad dollars are in flux, as the infrastructure is still developing, and we don’t yet know how passionate the enthusiasm will be. Can my pop culture sketch comedy or NFL commentator TikToks support dedicated channels in different mediums? Time will tell if the financial opportunity will catch up to the ambition. Fox is betting the gap between audience and business model will continue to narrow. I bet it will be fun to watch either way.
