Why publishers are building their own creator networks

But this latest pivot involves news publishers trying to take more control into their own hands. They’re curating groups of creators to form networks and membership programs that they can use to collaborate on personality-led video, and written content.

It’s a strategy that entertainment-focused publishers like BuzzFeed have had for a while. But now a wider range of publishers like CNN, Yahoo, The Washington Post, Future and Bustle Digital Group are formalizing these relationships on a larger scale than they have previously.

Faced with collapsing referral traffic, platform algorithm changes, waning relevance among younger audiences and the growing dominance of individual creators, publishers are running out of options. The strategy also mirrors a shift in audience loyalty: people are increasingly following people, not mastheads.

“Publishers are leaning into what they do best — curation, credibility, and audience trust  — while tapping creators for personality, loyalty and built-in reach,” said Alexandra Press, chief marketing officer at talent management group Mana Talent Group.

Recurrent CEO Andrew Perlman called this the “creatorification” of the media industry.

“Anybody that’s in the legacy publishing business, but particularly inside the news businesses, you are now competing with individual creators,” Perlman said.

Earlier attempts to ride the video wave were driven more by platform-dependent algorithms than long-term strategy. This time, the urgency is real. The strategy has to scale and stick.

“Traditional news outlets are facing a threat from independent creators. Adapting isn’t just about staying relevant — it’s about survival,” said Becky Owen, CMO of influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy.

The business motivation is also clear: advertisers increasingly favor user-generated content from influencers and so-called “creator journalists,” which offer low production costs, direct audience engagement and align with platform algorithms, according to WARC’s Global Ad Trends report published last April.

User-generated content is set to overtake professional media in ad spend by 2026, per the WARC report.

The numbers are telling: a Pew Research Center study found that about one-in-five Americans — including a much higher share of adults under 30 (38%) — say they regularly get news from influencers on social media. Of popular personalities who summarize the news, Dylan Page, AKA “News Daddy,” has 15.1 million TikTok followers. Aaron Parnas has 4.6 million TikTok followers. By comparison, The New York Times has 2.9 million TikTok followers; The Washington Post has 1.9 million followers; The Wall Street Journal has 941,000 TikTok followers.

“The reality is that creators have built the kind of direct audience trust that publishers are now trying to regain,” said Nicholas Spiro, chief commercial officer of influencer marketing agency Viral Nation Talent. “Creator-first formats can move faster, adapt more natively to platforms and drive deeper engagement.”

This shift is already impacting how budgets are being allocated, at least according to Alex Dahan, CEO and founder of creator marketing company Open Influence. 

“We’re seeing agencies and brands prioritize partnerships that leverage creator amplification alongside traditional media buys. It’s no longer a question of ‘should we spend with creators’ — it’s how strategically, can we partner with creators to supercharge distribution, engagement and trust at scale,” Dahan said.

U.S. creator ad spend is projected to reach $37 billion in 2025, up 26% year over year and nearly four-times faster than the media industry’s overall growth, according to a report from the IAB.

BuzzFeed was among the first to launch a standalone creator program in 2018, aimed at incubating individual talent to grow the publisher’s brand, produce content for social platforms like Instagram, YouTube and eventually TikTok — and to snag larger brand deals with advertisers. 

And yet, seven years later, a BuzzFeed spokesperson declined to comment on the status of the creator program — including whether it even still exists. BuzzFeed’s CEO Jonah Peretti has pivoted the company to focus on AI opportunities and building a new social media platform. The former head of the creator program, Andrea Mazey, left the company in June 2024. She is now head of creator marketing at Apple TV.

Media companies have to position themselves as “factories of emerging talent” in a continuous process of finding, investing in and growing new talent, rather than focusing on retaining individual creators indefinitely, said Thomas Markland, CEO and founder of creator company HYDP. BuzzFeed’s creator program, as an example, would find and incubate talent, but creators would ultimately leave BuzzFeed to pursue their own independent businesses.

But there are considerations publishers should keep in mind, Spiro said. Creators need room to lead editorially, because too much control over their content can dampen the quality. Creators want to be treated like partners, not just contributors, and are looking for IP ownership and real revenue sharing over flat fees, Spiro added. And teams working with creators need to support speed, experimentation and iteration when creating content, he noted.

“Done right, this shift is more than a content strategy; it’s a rethinking of how editorial authority is defined. And it’s opening up real opportunities for publishers to modernize audience engagement, monetization and brand identity, with creators at the center,” Spiro said.

One of the major challenges for publishers is brand safety. Publishers risk working with creators that may have unsavory backgrounds (such as past social posts that exhibit sexism or racism) — and with the spotlight on the media right now around trust and accuracy, “you really want to be buttoned up with who you are partnering with and affiliated with,” Spiro said. 

Jessica Inskip, a finance creator who has worked with publishers like 1440, said credibility is vital for relationships like these to work — as well as value alignment. In her deals, she pushes for creative freedom. She’s charged some media companies with smaller budgets just $100 for a video when usually she charges $1,000 — simply because she believed in their “mission” and wanted to foster a longer term relationship.

“Through capital investment, large media companies … have a strong sell — they can leverage their existing channels [and] grow talent while providing immediate capital to sustain the creators via a salary,” HYDP’s Markland said. “The question is, will it help media companies survive in the long run? When the talent is large enough and out of contract, they almost always leave.”

Here’s what publishers are doing:

In October, CNN’s international division announced a unit called CNN Creators, based out of its new Middle East hub in Qatar, with a 30-minute weekly show aimed at younger audiences, focused on topics like AI, tech, art, culture, sport and social trends.

In September, Future introduced a creator network called Collab. Editor-in-chiefs hire creators to develop social posts, newsletters and short and long form video across its home, style and finance brands. Future’s fashion publication Who What Wear has partnered with 50 creators since launch. A Future spokesperson said content from this program is driving three-times higher traffic on social compared to traditional content. 

“This isn’t a pivot or necessarily even something wildly new, but truly an organic, strategic expansion to continue to build a more resilient media ecosystem,” said Hillary Kerr, svp of women & luxury at Future. “It makes for better content for our audiences.”

The program also helps Future diversify its revenue model, and be more resilient to changes in the media landscape, according to Jason Orme, managing director of lifestyle at Future.

“In the long run, we’re able to monetize [the creator program] through a combination of things like audience growth, engagement metrics, and obviously direct revenue from ad and affiliate programs,” Orme said.

In August, The Washington Post hired former Axios editor-in-chief Sara Kehaulani Goo to build a creator network for the publication, focused on creating personality-driven content and franchises. It’s part of the Post’s larger ambitions to get its journalists to create more social video. In December, The Washington Post opened a new job posting for a “creator host” to help lead these efforts.

Since launching a creator publishing platform in March 2024, Yahoo has spotlighted more creator-led content on its homepage. Engagement is up 200% year over year, according to a Yahoo spokesperson. Yahoo now has over 200 lifestyle creators part of the program and sees it as a way to expand its role as an aggregation platform. The program allows creators to publish original content directly on Yahoo’s site and access tools like ad monetization — with a 50/50 revenue split — affiliate commerce opportunities and audience analytics. Yahoo added features recently, such as a way for users to follow creators to get more of their content in their Yahoo feed and a weekly newsletter highlighting recent stories. Yahoo also added a hub for creator content on its site, and brand pages for creators to house all of their content across the internet on a Yahoo page.

Bustle Digital Group’s Nylon publication took a different approach, launching an invite-only membership program for creators this summer, with the idea being that advertisers will pay BDG to reach the curated group of members at different activations and events. 

The Independent, Fast Company Inc and Morning Brew intensified their efforts around creator-led video this year, bundling credibility with charisma in a bid to stay visible — and viable.

Business publisher Inc. and email service provider Beehiiv teamed up to publish a week of content on Inc.com from celebrities and creators in January. Inc. plans to launch new content series aimed at helping creators grow their businesses, and will add more creators into live programming and events, according to a company spokesperson.

“It’s an opportunity to cross-pollinate,” said Inc. editor in chief Mike Hofman, noting that this provides additional content to promote Inc. on social. “Creators have active fan bases… This gives us greater exposure to all kinds of potential new readers.” No money changed hands between Inc and Beehiiv – instead, the currency was “mutual promotion,” Hofman said.

U.K.-based news org The Independent signed YouTube creator Adam Clery as creative director in April to kick off the launch of Independent Studio, a unit that will produce individual talent-led videos, newsletters and podcasts.

“Vertical video is just the format. The real shift is that publishers are realizing their future hinges on recognizable on-screen talent. If they don’t develop those voices now, the algorithms will decide who audiences listen to, and it might not be them,” Spiro said.