The creator economy’s first chapter was about owning the audience. Its next is about owning the intellectual property, and that changes everything about how these businesses get built, advised, valued and bought.
For most of its history, the creator economy has been obsessed with audience. Subscribers, followers, views, engagement: all important metrics. But the more interesting question is no longer how many people are watching. It’s what, exactly, you own.
The most sophisticated creators are no longer behaving like talent. They’re behaving like media companies. They commission content, build production teams, launch podcasts, stage live experiences, develop consumer products and manage rights. Most importantly, they own attention, arguably the most valuable asset in modern media. And unlike broadcasters or publishers, they own the audience too.
Historically, media businesses controlled distribution while talent supplied content. Today, a growing number of creators control both, reaching millions without permission from a broadcaster or commissioner. A decade ago, that would have been almost unimaginable.
Creator-led studios are now hiring television executives, building writers’ rooms and developing properties with genuine franchise potential before a broadcaster becomes involved. The traditional television industry spent decades trying to predict audience demand before investing in content. Creators prove demand before anyone invests at all. That is an extraordinary structural advantage, and buyers are paying attention.
Platforms including Roku, Tubi and a growing number of FAST and AVOD operators are actively seeking creator-led programming, often wanting longer-form content and asking rights owners to package libraries into coherent channel propositions. Revenue-share models remain the norm, but some platforms do pay minimum guarantees for the right content. Many deals remain non-exclusive, allowing rights owners to stack revenues across multiple platforms and build long-term value.
Where the money is flowing
What’s most telling is the direction of capital. Recent transactions tell a clear story. Accenture’s acquisition of Whalar, Publicis’ acquisitions of Captiv8 and BR Media Group, and continued investment into creator infrastructure are not simply advertising plays. They are strategic bets on content creation, audience ownership and intellectual property. The market is beginning to value creator businesses as media assets, and there is growing speculation that production groups, media companies and private equity-backed players are actively exploring investments into creator-led studios and management companies.
The rationale is straightforward. Creators bring something traditional media struggles to manufacture efficiently: genuine audience attention. Traditional media still owns production scale, rights management and international distribution. The most interesting businesses are now combining both.
Creators themselves are increasingly behaving like commissioners and rights buyers. The Sidemen’s investment into sporting properties and premium event programming, After Party Studios’ acquisition by Sister, and Banijay’s acquisition of rights to Stop the Train (the gameshow created by French YouTuber Squeezie) all point to the same conclusion. Some of the most valuable IP development is no longer happening inside traditional television. It’s happening on YouTube.
The rights gap
Despite this progress, much of the creator economy still approaches commercialisation very differently from traditional media. Creators have been conditioned to think about reach. Producers have been conditioned to think about rights. Those are not the same thing.
The television industry grew up managing scarcity: rights windows, chain of title, exclusivity, format protection, ancillary exploitation. The creator economy grew up in a world where distribution was free, global and immediate, and rights strategy was often an afterthought. That approach becomes increasingly risky as creator IP matures.
A creator may be sitting on a valuable international format without realising it. They may be licensing rights in perpetuity where a shorter term would create greater long-term value. They may be granting blanket exclusivity when a more nuanced approach would let multiple revenue streams coexist. The difference between a three-year licence and an outright assignment can fundamentally alter the value of a business. These are not legal questions. They are strategic ones, about leverage, optionality and enterprise value.
Traffic flowing both ways
What makes this moment particularly significant is that the traffic is now flowing in both directions. Between 2015 and 2020, many creators sought validation from traditional media. A broadcaster commission or a Netflix deal was often viewed as the destination. Today, established television talent is looking towards creator economics with equal curiosity: not simply for the audiences, but for the ownership, the speed, the direct consumer relationship and the ability to build equity rather than simply earn fees.
Alan Titchmarsh’s collaboration with Middlechild, the growing number of established broadcasters launching YouTube-first propositions, and talent increasingly experimenting with digital-first production all point the same way. Creators once wanted television validation. Now television talent increasingly wants creator economics.
The result is a growing middle ground. Digital-native businesses are borrowing the rigour and production expertise of traditional television. Television talent is borrowing the agility and audience ownership of creators. Somewhere in between sits an entirely new category of media business: part studio, part publisher, part rights holder, part community.
Perhaps that’s why so much capital is flowing into the sector. Investors aren’t simply buying access to creators. They’re buying access to audiences, to intellectual property, to distribution and to businesses that combine all three.
The creator economy’s first chapter was about owning the audience. The next is about owning the rights: the formats, the IP, the future value. The irony is that the creator economy was supposed to disrupt traditional media. Instead, it may be reinventing it. Only this time, the talent owns the means of distribution.
Luci Sanan is Director of 53 Degrees North Media
