Well, what a year that was…from Angry Ginge winning ITV’s I’m A Celebrity to live sports rights being licensed to social channels, this was the year when the relationship between legacy media and social platforms changed for good.
But what of the new developments that have disrupted the market?
Three stand out:
AI: As Forbes notes, AI is now woven into almost every part of the creator workflow. With 86% of global content creators already using GenAI, the new content economy has seen an explosion in content that creators would not have been able to produce on their own. Looking ahead, this will help take the creator economy to the next level.
Microdramas: After building a base in Asia, 2025 saw microdramas go global. Short-form scripted video formats are projected to have generated $11 billion in global revenues this year, according to Omdia. Revenues from this format were expected to be nearly twice the size of FAST in 2025, said OMDIA.
Vodcasts: New data from YouTube shows that viewers watched over 700 million hours of podcasts on living room devices in October 2025, up from 400 million hours from just a year prior. YouTube also announced 1 billion monthly active podcast viewers and launched a Podcast chart in the US.
And what about next year? Why not look at The Drop’s 2026 Digital Leaders Predictions to find out what will be the big trends for the coming year?
