YouTube Is the Biggest Media Company — and Creators Are Going Full Studio
Plus: I talk to Alex and Leila Hormozi about their B2B empire and CNN’s Bijan Hosseini about his Iran war coverage
This is a preview of Like & Subscribe, my standalone Ankler Media newsletter on the creator economy. I scooped that Beast Industries fired the employee who was investigated by Kalshi over insider trading and covered how video podcasts are taking over TV. I’m natalie@theankler.com
Happy Tuesday, and happy 15th anniversary to the word “creator” — at least as used to describe a person who makes content for the internet. Hat tip to former YouTube exec Timothy Shey, who pointed out in a Substack essay that March 7, 2011 marked the first time the company used the word “creator” in a blog post. Shey’s larger focus, though, was on the platform entering its “studio era” — dominated by such stars as Kinigra Deon and Dhar Mann, who’ve built media businesses that “currently sit atop the food chain at YouTube.
“Now that the business model of YouTube is well-proven, [with] revenue and audiences there for longer-form programming, we can expect the libraries of the smarter traditional players and studios to open up on YouTube,” writes Shey, who now invests in and advises creator businesses. Driving the point home, Fox Entertainment announced today that it’s tapped veteran digital executive Billy Parks — most recently a venture partner at Slow Ventures, investing in creator-first businesses like Jonathan Katz-Moses’s KM Tools — to lead its new Creator Studios division. And MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson released a new report that has crowned YouTube as the world’s largest media company after finding that its $62 billion in revenue last year was slightly above the $60.9 billion Disney’s media assets brought in for 2025. Nathanson estimates YouTube’s worth at somewhere between $500 billion and $560 billion. (That’s well ahead of Netflix’s market cap of $417 billion, for those keeping track of the massive players’ heated competition.)
With Hollywood’s interest in creators blossoming, YouTube’s studio era isn’t a one-way street. Just last week, both Dude Perfect and Ashley Flowers’ Audiochuck announced that they were bringing in entertainment veterans to help them expand. Dude Perfect added chief content officer Kevin Sabbe, a former assistant to Nancy Meyers who has bounced between film, TV and digital gigs, while Audiochuck tapped former Sony Pictures TV development executive Matt Shanfield to lead a new film and TV division as it expands into video (which I detailed last week).
And today, I’ve got a scoop for you about another creator team entering their studio era. Alex and Leila Hormozi — the married couple who’ve attracted a following of more than 21 million across platforms with their business education content — are building a studio and production arm of their consultancy, Acquisition.com, with plans to develop unscripted series, documentaries and educational programming for a business-to-business audience. They’re investing eight figures into the division, dubbed ACQ Media, and have brought on production executive Gabriel Blanco as chief media officer.
“We’re trying to solve what we believe is a big vacuum from a media perspective, specifically around B2B content,” says Alex Hormozi, who adds that their focus is on small businesses. “A plumber who’s in the middle of Indiana is probably not looking at Forbes to figure out what he’s going to do with his business.”
Keep reading for the full details about the Hormozis’ plans for ACQ Media, then stick around for my revealing (and somewhat inspiring) interview with Bijan Hosseini, a CNN senior producer and a member of the CNN Creators team I profiled last year, who’s become a familiar face on the network’s cable and digital platforms with his on-the-ground reporting from Doha as the war with Iran rages.
Over at Like & Subscribe, I’ve got details on how these three creators, doing very different kinds of work, are expanding their reach and looking for more impact with their work. Subscribe there to learn:
Why the Hormozis see media as such a valuable investment for their business-to-business brand
How they’ve built a flywheel of in-demand content, live educational events and fresh creator talent
Their edge in generating meaningful storytelling to support their growth
How Hosseini pivoted from CNN Creators to Iran war coverage, and how this conflict compares to others he’s covered in his decade at the network
The reporting and interviewing tools Hosseini uses to draw on multiple streams of information and connect with viewers
How he sifts through the noise, official government accounts and on-the-ground sourcing for the most timely and accurate narratives
The rest of this column is for paid subscribers to Like & Subscribe, a standalone newsletter dedicated to the creator economy from Ankler Media.
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