Future of TV Briefing: What it costs brands to fund long-form creator series

A creator-led long-form original video series can cost a brand anywhere from $150,000 to $5 million, according to Cyndi Steele, a former TV executive producer who leads talent management firm G&B Digital Management’s &Beyond Creators’ Studio.

A six- to seven-figure investment may be an eye-popping amount for CFOs wary of buying into creators. But paying that premium begins to make more sense as video platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have started highlighting serialized shows and as brands treat creators less like media properties and more like creative collaborators. 

Fifty-seven percent of brands said that generating content is a goal for their creator campaigns, according to a study by LTK and Northwestern University released last month. Your reaction to that stat may be something like, “Isn’t generating content 100% the point of brands hiring creators for campaigns?” Yeah. But the shift underlying the stat is how brands are looking to squeeze more content out of the content that creators produce beyond social. 

• 36% of brands use creator content on connected TV
• 19% of brands use creator content for TV ads
• 39% of brands use creator content for affiliate marketing
• 50% of brands use creator content for display ads
• 22% of brands use creator content for out-of-home ads

Recycling creator content to this extent requires a lot of content. Which is where the long-form series pitch can come in.

Consider a brand-sponsored, creator-led series that spans 10 long-form episodes plus three short-form videos per episode for a total of 40 pieces of content. That can average between $300,000 to $500,000, according to Steele. Again, that’s a pretty penny. But consider the cost for a brand to produce a traditional TV show.

“When I was in unscripted reality TV, let’s say 10 episodes of a 40-minute-long show, the budget for that is usually around like $5 million. That’s only to do literally the physical production, nothing else,” Steele said.

There are different levers a brand can pull on to adjust the costs of a creator-led long-form show. The episode count can be changed, for example. But the primary line items include: 

• the show’s production and post-production costs
• the creator’s fee, which varies based on their following
• the number of platforms that content will be produced for
• usage rights
• IP ownership

IP ownership is the least settled aspect of the deal, as Digiday recently reported. For starters, it’s subject to how many ownership the creator retains as well as &Beyond’s ownership stake. The studio prefers first to agree to an ownership split with the creator. 

“If it’s an original concept that we’re developing as the exclusive development and production partner, we do split ownership with our talent. A lot of times we like to have the talent typically have the majority ownership. So it a lot of times looks like a 60-40 or 70-30 [split],” Steele said.

But then where does the brand’s cut come from? Well, that becomes a re-appraisal of everyone’s equity. But only if the brand opts to pay for IP ownership. 

“The way we’ve approached it so far is they’re not owning the IP. But we can set up specifically owned assets within there, and they can have first right of refusal for future seasons,” Steele said.

Then if a show succeeds and there are future seasons, the brand can pick back up the IP ownership conversation.

“From a brand’s perspective, I think a lot of them aren’t ready to fully dive in with a full IP investment at that level because it is something that takes a long time to really come back and to grow. But from our standpoint, it’s fine because we approach it [by] pulling a little bit from the model of how our managers are currently doing brand deals with the talent and then also how we experience doing brand integrations from the traditional side. It’s just a lot more flexibility,” said Steele.

And a lot more content.

What we’ve heard

“When a federal agency formally recognizes millions of creator-led businesses, the people who decide where money goes start to treat creators as an asset class.”

— Go Fish Digital’s Lauren Lyster on creators being classified as small businesses

Numbers to know

$1.3 billion: Roku’s platform revenue in Q3 2026.

2-3%: Percentage share of Netflix’s London-based employees who are being laid off.

$2.08 billion: Fox’s advertising revenue in Q3 2026.

$11.2 billion: YouTube’s ad revenue in Q3 2026.

20%: The cost reduction that Disney is aiming for as it plans more layoffs.

$373 million: Versant’s ad revenue in Q3 2026.

What we’ve covered

How political creators are juggling platforms to find the three Rs: reach, revenue and rules:

• Political creators need platforms that can deliver reach, revenue and clear rules. But no single platform reliably provides all three
• Digiday spoke with six political creators about which platforms they are finding most fruitful, and which they’re struggling with.

Read more about political creators’ platform strategies here.

Why the 2026 midterms could mark a turning point for influencers in political campaigns:

• Political campaigns are taking a page out of the brand marketing playbook for the upcoming midterms, hiring creators to reach voters across an increasingly disjointed media marketplace.
• This year’s midterms, political organizations campaigns and related companies started creator-led campaign work earlier, testing clipping strategies and working with more creators.

Read more about political campaigns’ creator strategies here.

Creators are now classified as small businesses, but what does that actually mean?

• On Oct. 15, the U.S. Small Business Administration issued the nation’s first small business classification guidance for content creators.
• Creators now have easier access to SBA loans, which include micro loans of $50,000 or less and the 7(a) loan program which has a maximum amount of $5 million.

Read more about the SBA’s creator classification here.

What we’re reading

Instagram’s six-figure play for YouTubers:

Instagram is offering to pay some YouTube creators as much as $500,000 to post videos to its long-form video platform IGTV Features, according to Business Insider.

Netflix’s new ads platform chief:

Netflix has hired former Google exec Darshan Kantak to oversee engineering, product and data science for its global ad business, according to Axios.

IShowSpeed’s livestreaming spectacle:

IShowSpeed’s livestreams blend aspects of reality TV and podcasting and have made him the top streamer on YouTube, according to The New York Times.