By Mark Seavy 

While YouTube and social media have steadily made inroads in licensing for years, their rapidly growing viewership is pushing companies to adopt new strategies and fully embrace the platforms.  

That became clear earlier this year when YouTube outstripped traditional linear networks in grabbing a 12.5% share of U.S. TV viewership, according to Nielsen data. As a result, YouTube is increasingly serving as a source for content and the site—along with social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram—are key components both for content and licensing. 

YouTube, for example, took major booth space at MIPCOM in Cannes, France earlier this month in a move that placed it next to streaming services, broadcast networks, and studios. Banijay Entertainment, meanwhile, launched a program aimed at reviving back catalog content via a competition that will select five French social media creators to form Banijay Entertainment Creator Labs. The competition opened June 16 and ran through July 17. Banijay and YouTube staff will work with the five creators that are selected. 

“The old model of TV first is done, and younger consumers don’t watch it in the same way,” said Andrew Carley, Director of Global Licensing at BBC Studios, whose Bluey property is poised for a film debut in 2027 and premiered on ABC Kids in October 2018. “The streaming TV industry is still coming to terms with that and what it means for all of us. I don’t think you can get a brand off the ground without YouTube. You must have a presence on YouTube because so many people watch it and it has become, for younger consumers, the platform to go to for navigating content.” 

The shift toward YouTube and social media as priorities for content and licensing comes as many companies are adopting a “digital first” strategy for discovering and releasing new content, licensing industry executives said. Universal Products and Experiences, for example, decided to revive the Felix the Cat and Betty Boop IPs after discovering short videos of both properties were gaining views on YouTube. The discovery is prompting Universal to consider developing new Felix the Cat content, Universal President Vince Klaseus said. 

WildBrain CPLG is another example of this focus on a digital-first strategy. The company is shutting down the linear Family Channel, Family Jr., WildBrain, and Telemagino channels that were carried by Rogers Communications and Bell Canada in Canada. Rogers was slated to end service on October 22. The shutdown disrupted the planned sale of a majority stake in the channels to IoM Media Ventures. Instead, WildBrain CPLG is moving focus to its outbound licensing business on Peanuts, Teletubbies, and Strawberry Shortcake, the latter of which generates $200 million in retail sales in the fiscal year ended June 30, CFO Nick Gawne said. WildBrain’s licensing business posted a 33% increase in annual revenue ($284 million). 

“We use YouTube, AVOD, and FAST [to] deepen audience engagement and then leverage our franchise management and CPLG [licensing] teams to translate that into sizeable consumer products programs,” WildBrain CEO Josh Scherba said. “Exiting our Canadian broadcast business simplifies things and enables us to focus on higher growth, more scalable areas.” 

Other franchises have also received a lift from sharpening their focus on YouTube and social media.  

Outfit7’s Talking Tom & Friends ended a web series and mobile game in 2021, four years after the developer was sold to Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture. The franchise was revived in 2022 with a fan-made series on YouTube. But it made a formal return in January with the Talking Tom Heroes: Suddenly Super animated series on Cartoonito Italy in a joint production between Outfit7 and Epic Story Works, which took booth space at the recent Brand Licensing Europe event in London. The new series has since added distribution on BBC’s CBeebies and struck a global toy licensing agreement with Spider International. Spider has sublicensed the brand for toys to Character Options in the U.K. 

“YouTube opportunities are such a big part of everyone’s strategy, whereas before it was almost secondary,” said Mellany Welsh, SVP of Brand Partnerships and Content Marketing at Boat Rocker, whose Dino Ranch animated series is revamping its YouTube channel. “We are doubling down on existing brands and looking for digital-first opportunities with the intent of nurturing a brand on YouTube before deciding on traditional linear.”