I cover creators at Like & Subscribe, a standalone Ankler Media newsletter that’s being sampled today for paid subscribers to The Ankler. I wrote about creators launching scripted series on Instagram and how Spotify is partnering with Twitch to challenge YouTube. I’m natalie@theankler.com
Today I’ve got four stories that capture where the creator economy is heading right now — and how quickly Hollywood is trying to catch up.
I dig into Alex Cooper’s reset at Unwell after a major new investment, a beverage business winding down and an agency shake-up. Then: why the company behind Hot Ones is betting on vertical video, how an Oscar-winning team is building a scripted series that can bypass Hollywood altogether, and the eye-popping $500,000 salary Sony Pictures is offering for an executive to help crack YouTube.
Let’s get into it.
Unwell’s Healthy Business Moves
Back in April after the surprise sale of TBPN to OpenAI, I pointed to Alex Cooper’s Unwell as another smart investment. Patrick Whitesell clearly agreed, announcing last week that his WTSL had invested an undisclosed amount in the company behind Call Her Daddy at a $500 million valuation.
Sitting next to Whitesell in the CNBC studio on Aug. 12, Cooper, 31, said she decided to bring on an investor for the first time to help her profitable business “go to the next level.” The next day, Bloomberg reported that Unwell would wind down the energy drink line it launched with Nestlé less than two years ago. And over the weekend, news broke that Cooper and Unwell had parted ways with their longtime agents at UTA. Bloomberg reports that her new home is CAA, and while that appears likely, a source familiar with Unwell says Cooper and her business partner husband, Matt Kaplan, don’t yet have a deal in place and are still taking meetings.
The move follows a period of intense scrutiny for Unwell after reports of staff turnover and complaints about Kaplan’s behavior. I reported this spring about Unwell’s podcast deals, revealing why some reps have steered clients away from the company after Alix Earle’s high-profile exit in 2025.
Now Cooper appears to be hitting reset. Several in-the-know sources tell me an investment from superagent Whitesell, previously co-CEO of WME alongside Ari Emanuel, is a stamp of approval. (The $425 million valuation that Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett nabbed for his FlightStory business last fall is an interesting comp for the Unwell deal, which I hear closed a few months ago and was valued as a next-gen media business rather than creator venture.)
Cooper hasn’t publicly commented on the future of Unwell Beverages, whose Instagram account is promoting a new apple cider donut flavor for fall. But if the brand does shut down, the investment community won’t see it as a major blight but rather an opportunity for Unwell to focus on media ventures, where Cooper, Kaplan (a producer who was behind YA hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) and Whitesell have more expertise. Unwell’s television business includes Netflix dating show Let’s Marry Harry, starring reality TV veteran and Unwell podcaster Harry Jowsey, which popped into the streamer’s daily top 10 chart in the U.S. and many other countries after its early August premiere, and a slate of romance book adaptations. Meanwhile, Unwell has invested in a slate of originals for YouTube.
In their CNBC interview, Cooper and Whitesell also talked up Unwell’s creative agency, which counts Google among its clients, and Cooper said the business is on track to rival the podcast business by the end of 2027.
That’s right around the time I’d expect Cooper to have news on the podcast front too. She signed a massive $125 million deal with SiriusXM in August 2024, and the standard term is around three years — something for her new agents to get busy negotiating.
By then, Father Cooper, as her fans affectionately call her, will also have taken on another new role: mother. Cooper’s social media accounts have already made a notable shift since she announced her pregnancy, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her leaning further into parenthood content. She said it herself last week when she posted about helping “clear” baby registries for her followers: “Call Her Mommy era loading.”
Hot Ones Producer Goes Vertical
When it comes to YouTube shows, almost nothing is hotter than Hot Ones, the 11-year-old celebrity interview series that’s spawned countless copycats and just as many spoofs. But First We Feast, which produces the spicy hit, has been spreading its wings. Earlier this year it signed a deal to bring a Hot Ones spinoff to Netflix, and now the company is also rolling out a slate of series designed for vertical video on Instagram and TikTok.
First up is The Hot Line, premiering Wednesday, in which host Marie Faustin takes calls from everyday people to debate their hottest takes.
Next week, First We Feast will debut Hearts on Fire, a dating show where potential matches chew through a Hot Ones-inspired three-wing gauntlet while answering questions about themselves. And in September, the company will innovate again on the celebrity interview format, this time with hot dogs, with The Bun Club, in which host Chris Klemens will interview boldface names from a New York City hot dog stand.
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Sony ISO $500K YouTube Whisperer
A source recently pointed me to an interesting job opening at Sony Pictures Entertainment that was posted a couple of weeks ago. The studio is hiring for a senior executive to lead its YouTube and social platform business strategy and operations. And it’s not just the salary (listed at $475,000-$525,000) that caught my eye.
The role will report to SPE co-presidents of global distribution and networks Mike Wald and Jason Spivak and is a very senior EVP position that will be responsible for maximizing the value of Sony’s extensive film and television library. It sounds similar to the role Lionsgate filled with Westbrook veteran Brad Haugen last year and signals to me that Hollywood is finally getting serious about YouTube.
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An Oscar Winner’s Social-First Indie Series
After I wrote about all the creatives turning to social media to make scripted shows, I heard from a veteran of the digital video business who just wrapped production on a new series that speaks to how much YouTube has changed the game for people who just want to get their projects made and their stories told.
The series is called SAHD Life (the acronym for stay-at-home dad, pronounced “sad”), and it’s a mockumentary from creator and showrunner Ryan Thomas Patrick and exec producer, director and writer Travon Free — former writer on The Daily Show and a 2021 Oscar winner for his live-action short Two Distant Strangers. The six-episode series was produced independently through Free’s company, The Unreasnble.
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YouTube will start counting views immediately when a video plays, rather than after 30 seconds. Expect view counts to get a lot bigger!
Creator management firm DBA, which is owned by UTA, acquired boutique firm V1sion Ventures.
After a dustup over his use of AI, Hank Green published his AI-use policy and says no portion of any script will be written, edited or outlined by an LLM.
Live shopping platforms are battling to woo top creators.
The comedians behind ScreenTime — aka “SportsCenter for the creator economy” — tell Rachel Karten, “it can really activate people when they see two 5-foot-6 guys in 3-piece suits acting as the authority on their favorite creators.”
The hour-long finale of Kareem Rahma’s Keep the Meter Running, filmed over two days in Syria this summer, premiered less than a week ago and has been viewed more than 300,000 times, making it the second-most viewed episode from the show’s YouTube reboot.
