Sabio Holdings is looking to bridge the gap between user-generated creator content and traditional TV with its new free ad-supported linear streaming channel Creator TV – and utilize its CTV ad-tech expertise to bring demand and help monetize.
StreamTV Insider sat down virtually to chat with Charlie Ibarra, co-founder and head of content at Creator Television to discuss the FAST channel, content and monetization strategies and the company’s vision for the future of media entertainment.
What's behind Creator TV's launch?
Creator TV is a new owned-and-operated, creator-led FAST channel from Sabio that launched in January and aims to meld user-generated content (UGC) and traditional TV formats and techniques. Its mission is to deliver diverse and inclusive storytelling and provide social media content creators an opportunity to reach new audiences (and bring their existing followings along) on free streaming TV.
It’s also leaning on ad-tech and audience insights from LA-based Sabio Holdings-parent, which specializes in CTV advertising, helping top brands reach, engage and validate streaming TV audiences. Through its wholly-owned App Science company, it also has a household graph that now reaches 80 million households, equating to 70% of all streaming households. Sabio’s focus is connecting major brands with diverse consumers via targeted advertising within CTV environments, enabled through its proprietary data practice. It’s a focus that Ibarra, whose background includes screenwriting and unscripted show development, said carries over into what it’s doing on Creator TV.
“My focus here is working with content creators to bring their TV show ideas to life,” Ibarra told StreamTV Insider.
What he believes the Creator TV foray into streaming signals, “is that the grip of the creator economy, or content creators on the attention economy, is strengthening,” with TV perhaps one of the few remaining areas yet to be heavily influenced by content creators.
“We think this is the beginning of a trend that we’ll see for the next few years where we’ll see more and more creator-led content on television,” Ibarra said.
Capitalizing on creator content trends
Indeed Creator TV is looking to capitalize on a few trends and also flex its CTV ad platform capabilities to help monetize. Part of the focus is bringing creator content into the CTV space in a direct way, at a time when others in the industry are also figuring out ways to leverage consumers’ high consumption of social video and affinity for creator-led content within their own streaming TV offerings.
Disney, for example, in an effort to court younger audiences reportedly intends to add some user-generated content to its forthcoming flagship ESPN product slated to debut later this year and has also considered adding UGC on Disney+. And news surfaced that SVOD giant Netflix has been exploring talk-based video podcast shows that tap creators and had been trialing the move in different formats, including longer-form content led or created by successful social media creators in an effort to expand and diversify content and boost engagement. On a larger scale, Amazon last year inked a deal to leverage the massive popularity of YouTube personality MrBeast into a full-fledged competition reality TV series with Beast Games on Prime Video, which set a record for unscripted series audience on the platform.
There have been other moves to bring creator content to streaming, such as FilmRise, which launched a Creator Partner program in 2021 and since then has curated and repackaged at least 500 videos of YouTube content into broadcast-ready episodes for CTV. Its work includes a partnership with Future Today last June to launch a new app featuring content from YouTube creator Nathan Milner and his popular Unspeakable channel. Vendor QuickPlay, meanwhile, debuted genAI-powered tools early this year to help streamers integrate short-form vertical creator content and clips into their offerings to help capitalize on consumer demand and engagement for those formats.
FAST traction for Creator TV so far
New to the FAST game, Creator TV has secured two distribution deals to-date, including initial launch partner Plex in January and last month’s announcement of distribution on Dish’s Sling TV FreeStream.
It’s also got three other deals in the pipe, but those haven’t yet been publicly disclosed as they’re still in the contract phase and likely to be announced in the coming weeks or months, per Ibarra.
In what’s become a crowded FAST space, Ibarra said interest in Creator TV has “picked up significantly” recently. The Creator TV project started two years ago with co-founder Joe Ochoa when there was less interest, but he noticed an industry shift since late last year as distribution platforms were talking in earnest about UGC and to Creator TV with interest about bringing creator content to the free linear streaming TV environment.
“Then it just sort of accelerated and it’s continued to accelerate,” he commented.
In general, he said there appears to be a desire and need for creator content.
“It serves a big purpose in the FAST space, in it’s ability to refresh and offer something new to FAST audiences who are watching repeat and library content,” he said.
That speaks to comments StreamTV Insider has heard from other players in the FAST space directly, where new FAST channels looking to secure distribution must meet minimum thresholds for content hours needed and be able to refresh content at regular rates. That ability to continually bring fresh content, as well as potentially new and engaged audiences, is a differentiator in the FAST space that, as Ibarra noted, currently relies on a lot of library or older TV content. (For a deep dive on what it takes to create and operate a FAST channel, and how content owners can stand out to platforms to secure distribution, read here.)
“It’s difficult to introduce new platforms into FAST. It’s cost prohibitive,” he said regarding original content, adding that there’s a need for creator content but that distribution platforms don’t seem to really understand yet how to do it.
We’ll get into Creator TV’s content and creator strategy in a minute, but Ibarra emphasized it’s taking a different approach than some who have done single-IP or single-creator channels, which he described as simply serving a feed on FAST of the creator’s YouTube channels.
“We’re not just popping over feeds, we’re creating TV shows” he emphasized. Programming on Creator TV is either original materials the company produces with its creator partners, or it adapts the creator’s existing YouTube catalog into TV shows, producing 20-to-30-minute episodic series that are focused on story.
“This focus on story and storytelling is what we’re seeing is a big differentiator and a big sort of draw for the platforms that we’re partnering with,” he said.
And while creator-led, the company is building the FAST comedy entertainment channel similar to a traditional cable or TV network, including branding and programmed with multiple creator-led comedy titles.
“But there’s a vibe and an identity and a voice that comes through” including through slates and promos Ibarra noted, adding it’s very different from a YouTube algorithm-driven experience.
Initially focused on the U.S. and English-speaking countries, the co-founder did note there’s always the factor of parent-Sabio being a global CTV ad tech company, meaning groundwork and monetization channels have been laid with potential to expand to other markets at some point.
Creator and content strategy
There’s no guarantee that porting social creators to a more traditional TV environment will mean talent translates to the bigger screen or that large online followings will also come along for the ride. But picking social creators that already specialize in the long-form, horizontal format space and whose content is in popular video entertainment genres is part of Creator TV’s approach to try and hit the mark.
From a content perspective, Ibarra said the mission is “to increase representation in the streaming space by surfacing unique creator content that better reflects today’s diverse world.”
He’s seen others put a lot of focus on follower counts, but for Creator TV “it’s not exactly that easy.” That’s not to say social following it isn’t part of the equation, as he affirmed “we definitely want a substantial following” and some popularity in a community that’s already been built. But for Creator TV that’s just the starting point.
In evaluating what creators to partner with and feature, after ensuring there’s a large enough following, Creator TV next looks at the strength of storytelling and “pure sort of talent evaluation.” Then, similar but separate, the production style and quality. And finally, ideally creators that bring an inclusive and diverse audience. It mainly looks for creators that are already popular and have a presence on YouTube and who already have longer-form, horizontal format video content.
In theory, this approach makes the shift to CTV a more natural fit. And as seen by YouTube’s own recent disclosure that TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for watching YouTube in the U.S.– it’s not a stretch to think that viewers too, if comfortable with watching a creator’s YouTube videos on their TV screen, will feel somewhat comfortable with serialized, creator-focused episodes formatted for linear free streaming on FAST.
And while focusing on those with roots in YouTube, for Creator TV, it also helps if creators have a short-form video presence can aid as additional promotional vehicles.
“The ones we’re seeing a lot of success with are those that maybe have a foundation as YouTubers and then have expanded into short-form vertical” Ibarra noted of creator partners.
An obvious strength of creator-led titles, he said, is the built-in promotional value of working with someone that already has a following and platforms to share and drum up interest – where the short-form presence helps make a better partner.
So having a creator who has a background in YouTube and got “their sea legs in longer-form content, horizontal, and then have expanded into TikTok and Instagram and built communities there…that’s an ideal profile,” he explained.
The intent is to deliver creator-led TV formats that blend user-generated content with traditional TV narrative techniques. According to Ibarra, the programming on Creator TV is a pure collaboration with the creator, where the company works together on story structure, production assistance and so on.
As mentioned, another focus for content on Creator TV is a mix of diverse and inclusive storytellers, and it’s first building the FAST network with genre-focused channels and creators. Initially that genre is comedy and humor-based entertainment, which Ibarra think represents the best talent in the creator economy.
Some featured creator partners so far include Uncle Roger, a comedian with take on food culture who has 20 million followers worldwide and Jenny Lorenzo, a comedy creator that brings authentic portrayals of Latin culture to the channel. Creator TV also works with Trey Kennedy, a comedian who has a standup special that debuted on Hulu in January and became known for videos on YouTube and TikTok, boasting more than 1 billion views across social platforms.
The first and current focus was to build something akin to a Comedy Central or Adult Swim focused on content creators, (efforts which he said is “looking really well”), but Ibarra noted it’s now getting asked where else Creator TV can expand into. Some obvious genres of interest for expansion include food and travel, and it’s also curious about culture and lifestyle categories.
“There’s opportunities there for stamping and creating an identity and a voice, which we’re very much into,” he commented.
CTV ad-tech relationships and expertise that bring demand, monetization
Thanks to its parent company Sabio, which also has an ad-serving technology platform that partners with top ad-supported streaming platforms and apps, Ibarra said it’s able to bring demand and strategic partnerships.
This can be useful in the FAST space, which while filled with channel options hasn’t seen robust monetization for all.
Having Sabio as a parent helps make Creator TV unique as a content partner to FAST platforms because of “our ability to bring our own demand and our own monetization,” as he noted the core business is to connect brands with diverse audiences, which is a specialization that has made Sabio a successful player in CTV advertising.
Having strategic partnerships with big brands for this specialized type of relationship isn’t always easy to execute on but has created “this ridiculously high repeat business that we get from our brand partners,” Ibarra said.
It’s also come to learn that in the FAST space there’s a lot of reliance on programmatic buying, which according to the co-founder “means that CPMs are a bit deflated” when in a bidding system.
In contrast, Sabio (and as a result Creator TV) business – while it has programmatic – mainly comes from direct partnerships and deals, like direct IO, direct-to-brand, direct-to-agency deals, that carry a higher CPM threshold and involve media plans that are a bit more built out with custom executions.
“We offer just a different sort of revenue source and monetization opportunity for our platform partners,” he said.
And while not driving the content strategy, he acknowledged that having an emphasis on diversity and inclusion is aligning with a lot of brand strategies and is “creating loads of [brand] integration opportunities.”
Some FAST platforms themselves have created branded content studios (such as Vizio’s WatchFree+), and with creators somewhat more naturally in a position to integrate brands into content, there’s potential down the road. Ibarra acknowledged creators can bring brands into content in a way that doesn’t disrupt the story and said while Creator TV isn’t doing any of that as of now “we’re being asked for it by our brand partners.”
Where brand partners are currently jumping in is at the sponsor level, such as “Creator Television presented by brand A”.
And they’re very happy to align with a diverse and mission-driven startup network, according to Ibarra, who said “it’s a heartwarming message to get” as it speaks to and helps validate what he and co-founder Ochoa are trying to create.
Envisions a media future with creators at the center
As for the future, Ibarra believes it’s only the very beginning stages of creator content making its way into the broader streaming TV ecosystem.
“In the next few years you’ll see more and more creator-led TV titles hitting streaming,” he said. “It’s similar to the way that unscripted formats came into play” years ago.
In likening it to unscripted content, the content head noted these are stories based on people’s real lives, but also produced differently in a way that changed the economics for how shows were made for TV.
“This is very similar to what we’re going to see with creator-led TV, is these creator-led titles that present a different production economics model, that come with a different promotional model, but that also resonate at deep, deep levels,” he said.
Ibarra believes Creator TV itself resonates with the long-term vision he sees for the media industry. One where he expects the creator economy to be at the center of the attention economy and TV will serve as one of several pillars or channels.
“We can see how the creator-led TV title will then feed a creator’s community and vice versa… in these sort of mini-media ecosystems,” Ibarra commented. “But it’s going to be the creator that’s going to be at the focal, at the center of it all.”