YouTube News

YouTube Offered Top Creators Millions for Exclusivity

Creators who signed with Netflix were excluded from YouTube marketing and from shared proceeds on platform-wide brand deals YouTube brokers.

Bloomberg reported that YouTube offered top creators millions of dollars to upload exclusively on YouTube, with names at that tier including Salish Matter, Alan Chikin Chow, and Jay Shetty.

In some cases YouTube promised creators guaranteed portions of revenue from major platform-wide brand deals it brokers. In other cases YouTube offered to personally finance creators' productions.

Creators who signed Netflix deals were excluded from YouTube marketing campaigns and events and were denied a share of proceeds from platform-wide brand deals YouTube brokers. YouTube told creators that taking Netflix deals while cross-posting content conveyed that channels were deprioritizing YouTube as their primary outlet.

Netflix asked creators to deliver finished videos in advance and to remove some brand sponsorships, unlike YouTube's creator-controlled upload schedules. Some Netflix podcast deals included clauses that limited how many show clips creators could post on YouTube.

Some creators chose not to work with Netflix, at least partly because of Netflix's requirements.