Murdoch’s Fox Bets on Creators to Replace Franchises in Post-Disney Strategy
Famously or infamously, 20th Century Fox sold its entertainment assets to The Walt Disney Company in 2019 to focus on news and sports. With a stripped-down operation, industry observers would be forgiven for believing it was the last time Fox would be a relevant media force. But to paraphrase the same studio’s iconic Independence Day, they opted not to go quietly into the night.
While legacy media fights over franchises, New Fox has been betting on the creator economy. January’s deal between Fox Entertainment and YouTuber Dhar Mann Studios (163 million followers, 20 billion views across platforms for his scripted long-form content) to create a video slate of microdramas is a microcosm of the company’s strategy. Acquisitions of free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST) Tubi in 2020 and one-stop-shop digital media company Red Seat Ventures last year make it clear where Fox is aiming. The question is whether or not the target is worth hitting.
Betting on creators to drive the future of entertainment
As Observer previously reported, early versions of Superman (2034), Batman (2035), Joker (2036) and Wonder Woman (2037) are entering the public domain in the next 15 years. They’re not the only examples. It’s a reminder that studio reliance on major franchise IP must contend with mounting external competition, including from creators gaining access to famous faces. Fox, having sold its IP library, is trying to build something different, especially with NFL rights siphoning off more than 25 percent of Fox’s annual content spend.
Tubi accounts for 2.1 percent of U.S. TV time, more than Peacock (1.8 percent) and WBD’s streaming operations (1.4 percent), per Nielsen. The service earned chest-pounding moments when it became profitable in Q3 2025, surpassed 100 million-plus monthly active users (MAUs), and reached $1 billion in annual revenue. While its impressive catalog of Hollywood content is a driving force, the FAST library also consists of 16,000 episodes of creator content. This ranges from non-exclusive licensed feeds of MrBeast to scripted original entertainment featuring popular creators such as TikToker Noah Beck’s Sidelined, which became the platform’s most-watched title.
“Viewers want long-form entertainment that is built more on authenticity and cultural relevance than big stars,” Tubi CEO Anjali Sud said at an event hosted by Paley Media Council in New York in March.
Working in the service’s favor: most FASTs prioritize pre-scheduled linear-like channel surfing, while Tubi has emphasized its on-demand element. In that way, it’s become a notable free ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) service behind YouTube. Creator-driven content hasn’t exactly become must-see for the mainstream outside of kids media (even Amazon’s Beast Games is more of a ratings base hit than a home run), but passionate niches can help justify properly budgeted programming here.
“It’s not always about the size of their reach. It’s about the depth and passion of the fandom,” Sud said of creators without legions of followers still driving solid viewership on Tubi.
The potential of the creator-activated audience
There does exist an audience for creator content across mediums. YouTube boasts 202 million U.S. adult users that are 7 percent more likely than the average consumer to be streaming viewers, according to Greenlight Analytics, where I work as Director of Insights & Content Strategy. Nearly 98 percent of Gen Z TikTokers also use YouTube. The platforms don’t compete; they share, making it easier to target for businesses.
These are monetizable audiences (with a caveat, which we’ll get to). Around 38 percent of consumers say they sometimes or often make purchases based on influencer recommendations. There are 6.6 million young social media-driven moviegoers who are significantly more likely to be influenced by creators and subscribe to multiple streamers. Creator recommendations function as cultural currency for this group. It is the cordless audience Fox is going after.
The second side of the company’s influencer push is Red Seat Ventures, which helps creators build direct-to-consumer media businesses. Both conservative-leaning public figures who have left traditional media and standard creators have opted to launch efforts with Red Seat. The company was acquired by Fox in 2025.
Red Seat has engineers who will build home studios for creators to be coordinated by remote control rooms. They provide editing and marketing services, an ad sales team, and general talent development and management. The company emphasizes “creator monetization” above all else, CEO Chris Balfe said on the same panel with Sud last month. That’s video and audio podcast revenue, short-form content, branded content, subscriptions, off-platform ventures, etc. Balfe argues that the benefit of the D2C model vs standard Hollywood is that it empowers the talent themselves to “control the destiny long-term. You own it.”
Red Seat cultivates relationships and business foundations, while Tubi provides an incremental audience.
Where’s the real money in the creator economy?
But is there enough money to be made in the creator economy to justify such deliberate attention? There are arguments to be made both ways.
Linear TV still generates more than $120 billion in annual U.S. revenue, while FAST revenue is projected to hit “just” $17 billion by 2029. It’s growing, but streaming is not expected to replicate the generous economics of pay-TV. Migrating audiences from creator-led platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to these expanding corporate destinations is another headache entirely. A consistent conversion funnel has yet to be built.
Creators themselves are not spared from the universal law that shapes traditional entertainment: content is a historically top-heavy game. Only 4 percent of creators earn at least $100,000 annually, while half of all creators make less than $500 per month. Media analyst Doug Shapiro argues that fewer than 1 percent of creator content accounts account for 99 percent of revenue.
“It’s still early among Fortune 100 companies,” Sud said of creator economy advertising among top brands. “Madison Avenue is pretty traditional.” Red Seat serves top-tier creators only, as long-tail revenue democratization hasn’t materialized for lower-tier creators.
One clear hurdle is attribution. Advertisers understandably want to know their campaigns are reaching and activating the right audiences before shifting big dollars. While streaming offers more personalization opportunities than linear, formally tracking this sort of cause-and-effect remains tricky outside of affiliate links. Media spending on internet-connected TVs can be infamously inefficient.
Then there’s the audience wealth gap. Yes, social media consumers are willing to spend. But 52 percent of adult TikTok users in the U.S. have a household annual income under $50,000, per Greenlight. This speaks to its younger-skewing audience. Until a more direct throughline to higher-earning audiences can be established, upper-echelon advertisers may remain wary.
There’s a logic behind opting out of the battle between the 37th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and the 12th Fast & Furious franchise installment. After failing to acquire Warner Bros. in the 2010s, Fox patriarch Lachlan Murdoch took stock of the deep-pocketed tech companies sniffing around Hollywood and decided enough was enough.
Now, Fox’s bet is smaller-scale differentiation—swapping in creator-connected content for the blockbuster-IP model. The audience does exist, and is growing. But ad dollars are volatile, as the infrastructure is still developing, and we don’t yet know how scalable passionate niches can be. Can my favorite pop culture sketch comic or NFL analyst TikTokers support dedicated channels on different mediums? Time will tell if the monetary opportunity will catch up to the ambition. Fox is betting the gap between the audience and business model will continue to shrink. I’m betting it’ll be fun to watch either way.