CTV looks to invest in creator content to win over more ad dollars

On August 14, Tubi became the latest CTV company to announce the expansion of its creator business, adding thousands of videos to its creator portfolio and hiring Kudzi Chikumbu, TikTok’s former global head of creator marketing, as a vp of creator partnerships.

“In the last two months, we’re seeing a steady increase in consumption of creator content, and we’re seeing great engagement with the content,” said Tubi general manager of creator programs and evp of business development Rich Bloom, who declined to provide exact figures, but noted that Tubi’s creator program had expanded “10X” since launching in June, going from six creators and 500 videos to roughly 60 creators and 5,000 videos. “A meaningful percentage of our overall viewers have watched at least one piece of creator content.”

Tubi is far from the only CTV operator to invest in creators in 2025. Much of this activity is taking place on FAST channels — free, ad-supported television channels featuring creators’ videos.

On July 28, for example, Samsung TV Plus announced its largest-ever slate of creator-led FAST channels, expanding its creator category from two channels to 10. Between the first and second quarters of 2025, viewership of the creator-powered CTV channel Creator Television skyrocketed, with the channel experiencing a 95 percent increase in total minutes viewed and a 111 percent increase in total user sessions, according to Creator TV co-founder and head of content Charlie Ibarra, who said his company’s advertising revenue was experiencing a corresponding rise but did not share specific numbers.

CTV platforms have been testing creator-style content for years — from Pluto TV’s “People are Awesome” channel to Roku’s Originals and influencer-driven FAST offerings on Amazon Freevee, now rebranded to Free To Watch. Now, what felt exploratory is turning strategic, as streaming services push for more creator-backed content to differentiate themselves.

“In our conversations with advertisers, they’re hungry for these types of opportunities — they’re hungry to figure out how to reach audiences in a new, organic and interesting way,” said Samsung TV Plus vp of content and programming Takashi Nakano. “This is really the next evolution of what we think of as the content space.”

Value for advertisers

Asked what sets Samsung TV Plus’s creator channels apart from platforms like YouTube, Nakano framed Samsung’s content selection process as “meticulous” and as a way for advertisers to be near higher-quality creator content compared to YouTube’s feed. Other CTV operators, from Tubi to Vevo, echoed the sentiment that creator-led CTV channels offer advertisers access to creators’ highly engaged fandoms through the “premium” television screen.

“The lean-back, CTV experience is definitely a premium one, and usually the way we see co-viewing happening,” said Vevo vp of U.S. sales Melissa Sofo.

Advertisers’ appetite for CTV is growing. After all, content creators have become an increasing focus for marketers, with brands such as Unilever indicating plans to spend half of their budgets on social channels by the end of 2025. 

Dentsu Creative U.K. CEO Jessica Tamsedge told Digiday that she was “seeing real momentum in this area,” framing brands’ growing spending on CTV creator channels as an extension of their longstanding interest in creator content that shows up in ad-supported spaces. Tamsedge did not share specific numbers with regard to Dentsu Creative UK clients’ spending on CTV creators.

“When you put those two forces together, the cultural pull of creators and the lean-in, high-attention environment of CTV, you get what we call a ‘double attention hit,’ which is unsurprisingly compelling for brands,” Tamsedge said.

Although brands are increasingly interested in creator-led CTV content, this mounting interest is driven more by practical economics and measurement needs, rather than an urgent desire to show up alongside creators, according to Ogilvy executive director of connections and media Mack Leahy. 

“Most brands are treating repurposed YouTube content on smart TV channels as discount premium video where they can check the ‘we’re working with creators’ box while accessing inventory that costs 30 to 40 percent less than comparable premium CTV placements,” Leahy said. “The creator element is almost incidental — they’d probably buy the same inventory if it was generic lifestyle content if the price was right and the environment was brand safe.”

Original content on the horizon

For now, the overwhelming majority of CTV creator channels simply repurpose content that is also available on other platforms such as YouTube. FAST channel operators using pre-existing creator content as their inventory need to convince advertisers of the value of showing up alongside creators on connected TVs, rather than the already-popular social platforms that have long been part of brands’ marketing mixes.

More original creator content will soon be available on CTV. Alongside the expansion of its creator FAST channels, Samsung also announced the production of a 13-episode original series in collaboration with YouTuber Dhar Mann, which will stream exclusively on the creator’s Samsung TV Plus channel. On August 18, Netflix announced the production of an original series with YouTuber Mark Rober, which is slated to air in 2026. 

Samsung and Netflix’s announcements are only the beginning. Dentsu US and UK are “investing in creators to develop and co-create content designed specifically for CTV and other non-social channels,” per Tamsedge. As for Tubi, the company plans to fund the production of original creator content for its channels by “later this year,” according to Bloom, who said that this would be a key responsibility for Chikumbu, Tubi’s new creator vp. 

“I’m excited that he got the job; I think it was a really good move for them, based on Kudzi’s years of experience and being part of the monumental growth of TikTok and short-form,” said Victoria Bachan, president of the Whalar Group creator management firm Sixteenth, who said that she had worked with Chikumbu since his days at TikTok predecessor Musical.ly. “He’s going to play a very important role at Tubi: To see how they can open up creators’ audiences to new people in a way that can be watched on an Apple TV or on a Roku.”