In 2025, CTV channel operators are widening their portfolios of creator content in a bid to capture more ad dollars.
CTV companies such as Tubi, Samsung TV Plus and Netflix are leaning into creators, with all three expanding their creator offerings or announcing the production of original creator content in recent months as brands continue to raise their spending on the channel and on creators. By 2027, U.S. brands are projected to spend $13.7 billion annually on influencer marketing, according to eMarketer.
On August 14, Tubi became the latest CTV company to announce the expansion of its creator business, adding thousands of videos to its creator portfolio and hiring Kudzi Chikumbu, TikTok’s former global head of creator marketing, as a vp of creator partnerships.
“In the last two months, we’re seeing a steady increase in consumption of creator content, and we’re seeing great engagement with the content,” said Tubi general manager of creator programs and evp of business development Rich Bloom, who declined to provide exact figures, but noted that Tubi’s creator program had expanded “10X” since launching in June, going from six creators and 500 videos to roughly 60 creators and 5,000 videos. “A meaningful percentage of our overall viewers have watched at least one piece of creator content.”
Tubi is far from the only CTV operator to invest in creators in 2025. Much of this activity is taking place on FAST channels — free, ad-supported television channels featuring creators’ videos.
On July 28, for example, Samsung TV Plus announced its largest-ever slate of creator-led FAST channels, expanding its creator category from two channels to 10. Between the first and second quarters of 2025, viewership of the creator-powered CTV channel Creator Television skyrocketed, with the channel experiencing a 95 percent increase in total minutes viewed and a 111 percent increase in total user sessions, according to Creator TV co-founder and head of content Charlie Ibarra, who said his company’s advertising revenue was experiencing a corresponding rise but did not share specific numbers.
CTV platforms have been testing creator-style content for years — from Pluto TV’s “People are Awesome” channel to Roku’s Originals and influencer-driven FAST offerings on Amazon Freevee, now rebranded to Free To Watch. Now, what felt exploratory is turning strategic, as streaming services push for more creator-backed content to differentiate themselves.
“In our conversations with advertisers, they’re hungry for these types of opportunities — they’re hungry to figure out how to reach audiences in a new, organic and interesting way,” said Samsung TV Plus vp of content and programming Takashi Nakano. “This is really the next evolution of what we think of as the content space.”
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