Called Creator Fast Trackthe new program announced by Meta offers $1,000/month to creators with at least 100,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, and up to $3,000/month for those who surpass one million followers on at least one of these platforms.
Despite not disclosing the details of its revenue sharing model, Meta revealed that it paid out US$3 billion to creators in 2025. For comparison, YouTube said it has paid out US$100 billion to creators, artists and media companies since 2021.
In an interview with CNBC, Yair Livne, vice president of product at Facebook Creators, stated that the program was created to meet the need to “make it easier” for creators, after hearing reports from professionals already established on other platforms about how challenging it can be to get started.
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“Yes, creators are too ‘intimidated’ to join a 20-year-old social network.”
Analyst Simon Owens’ irony is enough for him to assert that, as long as Meta doesn’t “take seriously” the idea of sharing a defined percentage of revenue with creators, it will have difficulty launching its own talents.
Scalable Pod also recalled that Meta focuses on established creators, rather than emerging creators, betting on the old formula of algorithm-driven reach.
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In recent weeks, Owens has brought to light testimonials from influencers in the United States complaining about remuneration on TikTok and Instagram. One of those cited is Elizabetheatsnyc, who explains how she has had 360 million views in eight months and yet isn’t earning enough to pay her rent.
Amid the outburst, an appeal made by the gastronomy influencer with 1.4 million followers on TikTok went unnoticed:
“If you work in TV, media, streaming or production… this is my candidacy to continue being myself on a bigger platform.”
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The spontaneous and urgent request to migrate to digital platforms reflects the growing interest in Creator TVa term that has gained strength in recent weeks, at the epicenter of this market.
Phil Ranta, a two-decade veteran of the creator economy, reinforced the movement, saying that “the concept has always been there”, but that now creators are beginning to understand long-form episodic content with television as the primary distribution mechanism.
For him, Creator TV “It wasn’t just about platform, distribution or cultural relevance, but all of that combined.”
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The buzz generated around the expression is due to data from a study carried out by Spotter and presented at an event held in New York on March 4: the public spent 52 billion minutes last year watching episodic programs from creators in long format on different platforms.
However, the segment still occupies a little explored space: around 7 thousand creators are producing this type of content, totaling more than 28 billion hours watched per year in the USA alone. This represents just 0.02% of all videos published on social video platforms.
The data also shows that 76% of viewers watch content on television, and 72% watch more than three episodes per session.
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Historically, the prized living room screen has been occupied by the dominance of broadcast and cable TV as a sacred ritual. Then came Netflix. More recently, this position began to be actively challenged by YouTube, and now Meta and TikTok are also looking at this place.
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The media industry can no longer afford to consider creator video as a separate category.
What differentiates Creator TV from influencer marketing
Data shared by Sofie Sue Rutgeerts shows that in the US, brands fund 62% of creator marketing with social budgets and just 21% with linear TV. What if TV embraces creators, asks the analyst.
First, however, it is important to make a distinction warned by Nic Paul, president of Spotter.
“Not all reach is equal. Fandom matters. Creator TV is not influencer marketing; it is continuous, predictable storytelling capable of building loyalty over time.”
Here there is a parallel with the business model of microdramas. Expert Ben Woods said that these platforms, like social networks, are optimized for disposable attention, not lasting relationships with the public.
Attention via infinite feed scrolling is not the same as fandom!
Earlier this year, of the $43.9 billion that advertisers are expected to invest in creator marketing in the United States in 2026, 55% will go toward paid amplification of existing content, not direct creation and publishing by creators themselves.
This percentage grows as brands and agencies start to treat creator content as creative raw material for paid media, supported by clearer performance and business impact metrics.
Analyzing Spotter data, Jennifer Quigley-Jones points out that the real opportunity often lies at the lower tier: creators with true audience loyalty who aren’t yet priced on par with TV buys. “You don’t need 148 billion views,” he jokes.
Recently, Mike Shields discussed how Meta has seen YouTube become a dominant player in connected TV, capturing traditional television dollars while becoming the center of the advertising economy for creators.
For the analyst, replicating this feat will not be simple. The differences between YouTube and Reels, Meta’s main video platform, are fundamental.
YouTube has historically paid 55% of pre-roll ad revenue to creators. More important than the percentage is predictability. Large creators are still able to secure significant organic reach, which supports flat-fee onboarding models.
At Reels, the logic is different. Despite its scale, the platform is not a consistent hotbed of premium talent like YouTube or Twitch. Organic reach is unstable, which discourages creator investment and makes brand integrations less attractive to media buyers.
The CPM Problem and the Virality Trap
The topic is timely to discuss Ian Whittaker’s latest provocation: CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is one of the most harmful concepts in advertising.
For the analyst, advertising is a capital allocation decision (how companies decide to spend their money), not a volume exercise. And here is the problem he points out: CPM pushes the industry towards efficiency. If everything is priced per thousand impressions, the logical answer is to buy the cheapest, eliminating differentiation. If inventory is comparable based on CPM, it becomes interchangeable and therefore commodified.
Whittaker argues that CPM is not related to revenue growth, margin expansion, or company value. The real question, therefore, should not be “what is the CPM?”, but “how can we generate lasting results?”.
In the same vein, cultural strategist Ana Andjelic highlights that viralization, driven by social media algorithms, is no longer a competitive advantage and has become a basic requirement.
Platforms are designed to maximize engagement, but this creates a trap as it encourages optimization for short-term metrics that can be manipulated by the algorithm.
Andjelic decrees the “death of virality” and says it can be attributed to algorithmic personalization, the exponential growth of content and the fragmentation of culture, leading to the creation of homogeneous micro-publics.
The story told here strengthens Creator TV, but not as a fad. The bottom-up format exposes and will force a choice the industry has already been putting off: continue optimizing for cost and virality, or start building value where it truly forms: in ongoing storytelling and fandom, now available on the living room screen.
