It's Monday and Khaby Lame is taking on a new gig as an ambassador for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games. The Games are being held in Dakar, Senegal, where Lame—aka the most-followed personality on TikTok—was born.

Today’s News

🖥️ YouTube debuts new TV tools
📚 HarperCollins embraces AI
👀 HYBE looks to the West
👋 The Scalable Summit approaches
🎙️ This week on the podcast…

TV TALK

Netflix knows you’re looking at other stuff on your phone while watching TV. YouTube wants to make the TV more engaging.

YouTube is making lean-back TV a more interactive experience

The TV features: Ahead of Brandcast, YouTube is doubling down on its position as the #1 most-watched distributor of content on TVs in the United States.

As in recent years, YouTube will host the 2026 edition of its annual advertiser presentation during the TV-focused Upfronts. There, the platform will likely woo marketers by promoting a flurry of newly announced products, including..

“Stations,” a feature that serves as YouTube’s answer to 24/7 FAST TV channels. The video hub will introduce Stations as part of its upcoming Coachella festival coverage.
“TV Companion,” a pairing system through which a user’s phone “automatically recognizes what’s playing on your TV, allowing you to interact with comments, control playback, or dive deeper into content ” (per Kurt Wilms, YouTube’s Senior Director of Product Management).
And “Ask,” a video-specific chatbot designed to help viewers “engage more deeply” by doing things like “break[ing] down specific moments while watching podcasts, learn[ing] about a city’s landmarks in travel vlogs, and more—all without having to hit pause on their video.” The bot was already available on YouTube desktop and mobile, and is now coming to TVs with added abilities.

The strategy: The introduction of Ask and TV Companion suggests that YouTube is staying far, far away from Netflix’s now infamous “second screen” strategy.

Netflix’s decision to actively dumb down its productions (based on the assumption that viewers will be looking at other content on their phones while ‘watching’ its movies and shows) has produced decidedly not great results.

YouTube’s latest features, by contrast, encourage viewers to stay locked in and engaged with the platform’s content (and only its content) across both their TV and phone screens. As Wilms put it, “YouTube on the big screen is no longer just a passive experience—it’s an interactive one.”

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

Your favorite book soon may your new favorite cartoon on YouTube.

HarperCollins has signed a multiyear deal with AI studio Toonstar to turn some of its top-selling titles into animated franchises intended specifically for release on YouTube. (Tubefilter)
Netflix could owe millions of Italian subscribers up to €500 each after a court ruled that the streaming service had “imposed repeated and unjustified price increases” over the last decade. (TheNextWeb)
Meta has suspended its collaboration with AI data company Mercor following a cyberattack that allegedly exposed sensitive information about the company’s model training methodologies. (TheNextWeb)
OpenAI has confirmed that COO Brad Lightcap will “transition into a new role focused on special projects.” (TechCrunch)

INDUSTRY BUZZ

Kevin Mayer, presumably smiling about all the corporate boards he’s on.

BTS agency HYBE has tapped Disney & TikTok vet Kevin Mayer to advise its westward push

The board member: After working with Disney stars and briefly serving as the CEO of TikTok, Candle Media Co-Founder/Co-CEO Kevin Mayer has joined the Board of Directors for the South Korean entertainment company HYBE.

HYBE, which adopted its current name in 2021, was originally known as Big Hit Entertainment and is best known for creating BTS—aka the most successful K-pop act of all time. The Seoul-based septet recently returned from a four-year hiatus with a buzzy comeback album called ARIRANG. In only two weeks, the music video for one of the record’s tracks, “Swim,” has tallied over 86 million YouTube hits.

The context: There’s no question that BTS is still huge, but the K-pop landscape has changed shape since the Bangtan Boys began their hiatus. The popularity of KATSEYE (a U.S.-based group also created by HYBE) and the shocking success of KPop Demon Hunters show that K-pop is no longer just a Korean phenomenon. In addition to smashing viewership records, Netflix’s animated original film brought its characters to the forefront of Western culture.

Enter Mayer. As the Co-CEO of Blackstone-backed Candle Media, the Disney/TikTok vet has led acquisitions of several notable properties, including CoComelon producer Moonbug. Now, he’ll help guide HYBE’s strategy as it looks westward.

“Kevin Mayer’s macro-level insights for managing strategic risks in global platform businesses will greatly contribute to HYBE achieving sustainable growth in the global market.”

- HYBE

2025 was a banner year for the firm, which hit approximately $1.86 billion in annual revenue. In 2026, BTS is heading out on tour, and one of the legs will be a spring and summer swing through the United States. That presents a key opportunity for HYBE to reach the K-pop fans who have supported U.S.-based projects like KATSEYE and Kpop Demon Hunters.

EVENTS & HAPPENINGS

Kaya Yurieff (left) and Jasmine Enberg (right) are turning their Scalable brand into a summit

You can dive into the “future of the creator economy” at the Scalable Summit

The summit: Five months ago, Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg launched Scalable to dissect the ins and outs of social media platforms. Now, the two creator economy insiders are adding another facet to their fledgling media company: on May 6, industry professionals will gather at The Lighthouse in Venice, California for the Scalable Summit.

The Scalable Summit website describes the conference as a gathering of “founders, creators, marketers, investors, tech executives, and other industry leaders,” who will show attendees how “the future of the creator economy is now.” Agenda items include “fireside chats, panel conversations, and intimate breakout sessions,” which will cover topics ranging from AI to live shopping, influencer marketing, and sports.

Whalar Group, which has been partnered with Scalable from the jump, will provide the venue for those conversations. The Lighthouse initiative, first established in 2023, is Whalar’s way of fostering in-person dialogues in cities like Los Angeles, New York, and London.

The plan: Yurieff and Enberg’s plan to make the Scalable Summit stand out from other creator economy events—a category that includes VidCon, VidSummit, BRIDGE Summit, and Colin and Samir’s Press Publish LA—involves a streamlined focus and an interdisciplinary approach. As the Scalable co-founders wrote in a recent email, their summit will transcend business-oriented conferences thanks to its “curated and intimate experience with a high-quality group of attendees.”

By bringing together “leaders from different parts of the industry who normally don’t talk to each other,” Yurieff and Enberg hope to spark conversations that otherwise might not happen. Scalable Summit speakers will include Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, TikTok business exec Khartoon Weiss, Tubi creator programming czar Rich Bloom, and Slow Creator Fund partner Megan Lightcap.

Check out the summit website here for tickets, or keep up with Yurieff and Enberg through biweekly Scalable newsletters and weekly podcast episodes.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

The episode: On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Lauren Schnipper and Joshua Cohen break down YouTube's unprecedented NewFronts presentation, where executives directly called out competitors like TikTok and Meta by name.

Also on the discussion list is TikTok’s brilliant in-app integration with Cameo, Instagram’s new premium subscription, and the rising wave of branded web series. Tune into the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for all the details.