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Livestreaming is having a renaissance of sorts.
With more creators than ever before and social feeds dominated by recommendation algorithms, it’s getting increasingly harder for creators to stand out and reach fans. Livestreaming is helping them cut through the noise.
Going live creates a sense of FOMO and intimacy, making audiences feel like they’re physically there. A creator’s community of fans can also interact with each other in real time, building more loyalty and engagement. That can pay off big time.
Take Coachella. One of the most buzzed about parts of the annual music festival so far is Justin Bieber’s performance, which was livestreamed on YouTube. During the show, he asked viewers watching the livestream to put in song requests. The day after his performance, Bieber’s music was streamed 24.6 million times, making it his second-biggest day for streaming, according to data from Luminate.
But it isn’t just Bieber. More creators are opting to go live from Coachella this year, giving their followers a more raw behind-the-scenes look at their experiences. These livestreams are standing out from a sea of short-form clips and Coachella outfit carousels. (See our By the Numbers section below).
Then there’s MrBeast. Earlier this month, the world’s biggest YouTuber co-hosted a livestream with top streamer iShowSpeed on YouTube. At its peak, 1 million viewers tuned in at once to watch a star-studded lineup of other livestreamers compete to win $1 million to give to their followers. During Super Bowl weekend, MrBeast also hosted an hour-long live giveaway with Whatnot, a live shopping startup valued at $11.5 billion.
Still, livestreaming also has major drawbacks. The unpredictability—anything can happen live—poses major challenges for creators, livestreaming platforms and brands.
Many big advertisers have historically steered clear of livestreaming due to concerns about brand safety and a lack of control, except for a few notable cases with high-profile streamers, such as Kai Cenat’s partnership with State Farm last year.
Instead, most brands’ live video efforts have centered around shopping. But these tend to be one-off events anchored in big shopping periods like Black Friday. The higher costs and infrastructure requirements, including being prepared for a potential influx of orders, make live shopping hard for brands to replicate frequently.
Then there’s the fact that most people don’t shop live regularly. Even on TikTok Shop, most of the revenue doesn’t come from livestreams. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that QVC, the pioneer of live shopping in the US, was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Last year, QVC launched a 24/7 TikTok livestream.
For creators, there’s the issue of burnout. With fewer brands in the mix, many streamers make the bulk of their money through subscriptions and audience payments. But making a living off of those revenue streams can often mean going live daily for several hours at a time.
That can create a huge personal toll and raises questions about how sustainable livestreaming is in the long term. In May 2025, a Twitch streamer who goes by Emilycc told the Washington Post that taking a break from her daily livestream would be “career suicide.” Earlier this week, CNN profiled her, accompanying her for two days on a road trip, which involved nearly nonstop livestreaming.
But as livestreaming sees a revival, we expect more creators and brands to experiment, especially for shopping. Twitch, for example, has been focused on expanding its advertising business, including through a recent partnership with its parent company Amazon for shoppable livestreams. E.l.f Cosmetics was the first to test it out.
In this week’s podcast, we dive deeper into the reasons behind livestreaming’s recent resurgence. We also discuss why no platform has been able to make live shopping take off in the US like it has in China. Watch below or tune in wherever you get your podcasts.
The Podcasting Wars
Netflix’s aggressive push to sign exclusive podcasts appears to be slowing down. After a flurry of activity earlier this year, the streaming giant hasn’t made any announcements about new deals recently.
As that initial wave settles, new data gives us insight into how these deals have performed so far. The early winner is Charlamagne tha God’s “The Breakfast Club,” which ranked No.1 by total views and accounted for more than 40% of all Netflix podcast views during the first quarter, according to data from Samba TV. “Bridgerton,” an original Netflix podcast, and “Murder with My Husband,” an independent podcast, took second and third place, respectively.
For some of these shows, the deals have come with tradeoffs. Several podcasts have seen YouTube growth slow dramatically after they had to pull their full episodes from the platform. Barstool Sports’ hockey podcast “Spittin’ Chiclets,” for example, experienced follower growth declines of more than 50% in January and February, according to Bloomberg.
Steve McLendon, YouTube’s product lead for podcasting, told us YouTube isn’t planning to respond to Netflix with its own exclusive deals. But he did give us insight into YouTube’s ambitions for growing podcasting, including how Shorts could have a bigger role to play.
The company is working on ways for Google’s AI assistant Gemini to suggest short clips for podcasters, meaning creators will be able to “almost instantaneously create clips,” he said, adding this could especially benefit hosts without big teams.
He also gave his advice for podcasters trying to grow on YouTube. Hint: think less like MrBeast, and more niche. YouTube sees more watch time from videos with under 100,000 views than it does from videos with 100 million views.
Another strategy that can help? Going live. McLendon pointed to a Korean radio broadcaster’s podcast, which has been livestreaming on YouTube, consistently racking up more than 1 million views per episode. “That’s a really exciting space and in some ways not a way that podcasters have thought about their shows,” McLendon said.
Livestreaming every day for three hours sure helped tech podcast TBPN, which was just acquired by OpenAI, stand out.
Tune into the full conversation with McLendon on YouTube, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
The Round Up
Snap is laying off about 1,000 employees, or 16% of its global workforce as CEO Evan Spiegel looks to reduce costs and achieve profitability. Activist investor Irenic Capital Management recently took a minority stake in the company.
YouTube now lets users turn off Shorts by setting their time limit for watching the short-form clips to 0 minutes. Doing so also removes Shorts from a user’s homescreen. We’re interested to see how many people actually opt in to this feature and whether it impacts creators’ views.
ShopMy, an affiliate and influencer marketing platform, is launching a personal shopping service for top spenders. The service, called Noir, matches these customers with an influencer for personalized recommendations.
BeReal is still trying to reclaim relevance! The once-buzzy photo app is recruiting US creators to get verified and post regularly, Business Insider reported. The company, which was acquired in 2024 by a French mobile apps and games publisher, is also dangling the opportunity of brand partnerships with its roster of clients, which include Amazon, Apple and L'Oréal.
Vylit, a new social media and monetization platform for creators who are 18 and older, launched this week, co-founded by former OnlyFans CEO Ami Gan.
Deals, Deals, Deals
Vox Media may agree to multiple deals to sell different parts of its company, including its podcast network and New York magazine, Puck reported. A Vox Media spokesperson declined to comment on the story
Bluefish, a New York-based marketing startup that helps brands including American Express and Ulta Beauty show up in ChatGPT and other AI chatbot results, raised $43 million in Series B funding led by Threshold Ventures and NEA.
Codie Sanchez’s new platform BizScout, which helps individuals find, buy and sell small businesses, raised $5 million in seed funding. Investors included private equity firm Valor Equity, Tinder founder Sean Rad and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. Sanchez helps people invest in what she calls “boring businesses,” such as laundromats and car washes, and has amassed a large following on social media in the process.
MrBeast Land
• MrBeast is looking to hire his first chief marketing officer. Last month, we wrote it would only be a matter of time before creators started hiring CMOs as they professionalize their businesses. See our timeline of creators’ executive hires.
• MrBeast appears to be the only creator named in Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people. “Survivor” host Jeff Probst authored the entry, writing that “being around him, even briefly, you get the sense we’re only at the beginning of what he’s capable of.” The most recent season of “Beast Games” featured a crossover episode with “Survivor.”
• Michael Miller is now MrBeast’s head of production. The veteran TV producer most recently was an EP on “Beast Games.”
A Message from Agentio
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Creator Moves
The New York Stock Exchange hosted a creator summit with nearly two dozen finance and tech creators on Wednesday. The event included a roundtable discussion about the state of business media and the creator economy, hosted by Akash Pasricha, a reporter who hosts The Information’s daily YouTube show. The creators also took a selfie on the trading floor.
Maria Sharapova is launching a podcast with Vox Media called “Pretty Tough” where she’ll interview powerful women.
Source Media Group launched Source Golf, a daily golf network on YouTube tailored for TV screens, which includes videos from top golf creators Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat and the Bryan Bros. The network, with over 100 million hours of annual viewing, lets brands reach the combined audiences of these golf channels through a single buy, similar to traditional TV.
By the Numbers: Coachella Edition
Coachella has turned into the “Influencer Olympics.” But it’s also a big competition for brands. Creators often determine the success of their activations.
Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Skin was the first weekend’s winner in terms of post volume. From April 9 to 11, more than 500 creators posted 818 times about the company, which held a popup activation at the festival, according to data from CreatorIQ shared with Scalable.
But Revolve, which returned to the festival for the ninth time this year, beat Rhode in impressions and engagements. Revolve garnered over 74 million estimated impressions from 279 creators, compared with roughly 48 million for Rhode. Engagements with Revolve-related posts hit 6.5 million vs. roughly 3.5 million for Rhode.
Another notable mention is Agua de Kefir, which generated close to 11 million impressions and 1.4 million engagements from just 20 creator posts. The beverage brand has recently had several high-profile partnerships with “Love Island” reality TV stars, which helped it to stand out and remain culturally relevant.
An Event You Won’t Want to Miss
Our Scalable Summit is just a few weeks away!
Join us in Los Angeles on May 6 as we explore how to build long-lasting businesses in the creator economy with founders, creators and executives from Instagram, TikTok, OpenAI, YouTube, Twitch and more.
Talent Tracker
Nikila Srinivasan, the vice president of product for business messaging at Meta, announced she left the company. Srinivasan didn’t announce next steps, but said she’ll stay on in an advisory role through the summer.
Paul Coggiola, a long-time UTA agent, is now the new president of LIFT Creators, a new creator-focused division of athlete representation firm LIFT Management.
Eric Wise is the new president of Bucketsquad, the lifestyle and apparel brand from top sports creator Jesser. Last week, Jesser announced a holding company, JesserCo, for his business. The previous Bucketsquad president Zach Miller will now serve as president of the holding company.
Matthew Massina was promoted to director of YouTube and content strategy at Jomboy Media, a sports media company founded by baseball creator Jimmy O’Brien. The company was recently profiled by The New Yorker.
Ashley Woods was hired as social media producer for “The Viall Files,” the dating and reality TV-focused podcast hosted by former “Bachelor” star Nick Viall and his wife Natalie Joy Viall.
