YouTube IP: Following the breakout success of Backrooms, whose wunderkid director Kane Parsons I profiled in May, Hollywood has taken to scouring YouTube for other intellectual property native to the platform that it could turn into the next surprise blockbuster. According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube creator Trevor Henderson recently sold the rights to his creation, a faceless monster called Siren Head, for north of $1 million, while the film rights for a series born on the platform, called The Mandela Catalogue, recently sold for “millions of dollars. The only problem? Parsons himself told me that such efforts are likely to fail. Hollywood loves a silver bullet, and it thinks it has found one in YouTube-native IP. But the necessary conditions for a thread of internet lore to turn into a runaway hit are still rare, regardless of the recent body of evidence pointing to the contrary.
On Lines: New York Magazine recently chronicled what has become an omnipresent sight on the streets of New York: long lines for viral foodstuffs. To its credit, the piece quickly dispenses with the appropriate caveats: Lines are nothing new, and they are the result of a constellation of factors. Bloomberg Media also joined the discourse, examining the commercial impact these queues have on the businesses involved. I cannot help but think that the phenomenon mirrors the broader embrace of events that has gripped the media industry in recent years, which is partially a byproduct of work-from-home culture and a related desire for in-person experience. The queues are just another proof point that cultural experiences that bring likeminded folks out of their homes and into the presence of their peers, especially in an intentional, specifically not serendipitous fashion, will only continue to swell in value.
Hydration Brakes Bank: At the start of the World Cup, I predicted that its new hydration breaks would be reviled by fans, tolerated by players, and adored by advertisers. The novel ad inventory is directly integrated into the game and serves as the only commercial opportunity in the otherwise unbroken halves of play. As it turns out, they have also been quite lucrative. According to some very take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt back-of-the-napkin math from The Hollywood Reporter, the breaks have likely generated at least $250 million in revenue, with some estimates reaching as high as $600 million. With the cost of sports rights only slated to rise, rights owners will be loathe to leave such money on the table going forward. For better or for worse, the greatest legacy of the 2026 World Cup might not be its winner, but the introduction of ad breaks into a sport that successfully resisted them for 138 years. RIP.
Quote/Unquote
This week in Quote/Unquote, I spoke with Mike Shehan, the chief revenue officer of the connected television company Telly and the founder of the video ad platform SpotX, which he sold to Magnite in 2021.
