YouTube reportedly offering creators millions to keep content off Netflix

YouTube is reportedly offering some of its biggest creators millions of dollars to keep their content off Netflix, as competition between the two platforms intensifies.

The Google-owned platform has discussed directly funding creator shows and sharing revenue from major brand partnerships in exchange for periods of exclusivity, according to Bloomberg. Creators who release the same content simultaneously on Netflix risk losing access to that revenue share, as well as YouTube's marketing campaigns and events.

No agreements have yet been finalised, though YouTube is said to be close to reaching deals with several partners.

Netflix, meanwhile, increasingly looks to YouTube talent for programming, offering another distribution channel and an additional payday without necessarily requiring creators to leave YouTube altogether. Creators including Alan Chikin Chow and Nick DiGiovanni have signed non-exclusive agreements allowing their content to appear simultaneously on both platforms.

Others have gone further: full-length episodes of Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast left YouTube for Netflix earlier this year under his wider partnership with Spotify. Netflix is also said to be in discussions with dozens of other creators and programmes.

The manoeuvring reflects how the boundaries between creator platforms and traditional streaming services continue to blur. Just as Netflix, which has more than 325 million paid memberships globally, has brought a growing number of creator-led shows onto its service, YouTube has expanded further into traditional entertainment, most recently through its partnership to bundle NBCUniversal's Peacock into YouTube Premium.

It isn't the first time YouTube has paid to protect creator loyalty: it previously compensated creators for not signing priority distribution agreements with the now-defunct video platform Vessel.