Netflix and Spotify Split Shetty's Pod & Penske Circles Vox

The Digital Dealflow

Author

Quartermast Advisors
May 28, 2026

Good Morning,

Netflix and Spotify jointly bought exclusive video rights to Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast for a reported $100M multi-year deal, with full episodes leaving YouTube July 13. Busy week for podcasts, as Piers Morgan's Uncensored is closing a $30M round at a $130M valuation led by The Raine Group, targeting $1B in five years.

James Murdoch's Lupa Systems closed the $300M deal for New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and Vox.com, with CEO Jim Bankoff staying on. Penske Media, already a 20% Vox shareholder, is in advanced talks to take the Remain Co. brands (Eater, The Verge, SB Nation, PopSugar, The Dodo) as a block, with PopSugar likely landing in She Media.

On the creator-AI infrastructure layer, ex-YouTube exec Ben Relles launched Make Believe, an AI lab building videos that talk back to viewers, with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman among the investors.

On the funding side, Clouted, an a16z Speedrun clipping-and-distribution startup, raised a $7M seed led by Slow Ventures, tapping 100,000-plus gig creators to clip and route short videos via AI.

Piers Morgan has spent the week telling anyone who'd listen that he is "not a podcaster" while raising $30M off his podcast. When did "podcaster" become the broadcaster's biggest insult to himself?

Quartermast Creator Economy Index:

Layoff Watch:

  • Vox Media: CRO Geoff Schiller departs June 5 as part of the executive reshuffle around the Murdoch sale, with more senior departures expected as Remain Co. preps for the Penske transaction.

  • NPR: Opened 30 newsroom buyouts to close an $8M shortfall after Congress clawed back $1.1B in public-media funding, with targeted layoffs if voluntary acceptances fell short by May 26.

The Weekly Roundup

  1. YouTube's Top 1% Toggle: YouTube is testing a creator-set distribution toggle that limits videos to the top 1% of a channel's most loyal viewers, opening a fan-only content tier without forcing creators onto a separate paywall product (Tubefilter).

  2. CapCut Lands in Gemini: ByteDance's CapCut is being integrated into Google's Gemini app for in-chat AI video and image editing, the second high-profile CapCut x Google tie-in after the 2024 Google Photos button (9to5Google).

  3. UMG's AI License Pact: Universal Music signed multi-year deals with TikTok and Spotify codifying a "human artistry" generative-AI framework, including a Spotify-Premium AI cover/remix tool keyed off UMG songs with revenue share to participating artists (TechCrunch).

  4. Big Tech Settles School Suit: Meta, Snap, and YouTube settled the Kentucky school district social-media-addiction lawsuit, the first major resolution of the multi-state class action and a precedent setter for school-district plaintiffs in 22 other states (Bloomberg).

  5. Hollywood and Creators Trade Seats: Forbes laid out the studios-court-creators-while-creators-step-into-financing macro frame, a useful read for any operator watching the Murdoch, Wang, and Make Believe deals stack up (Forbes).

  6. The Creator Economy Recession: Mashable made the operator-budget case for a creator-economy recession, citing softer mid-tier creator revenues, brand-budget tightening, and platform consolidation pressure heading into H2 (Mashable).

  7. VidCon or Cannes Lions: Net Influencer polled 18 creator-economy leaders on the VidCon-vs-Cannes Lions festival trade-off, useful weather-vane piece on where the operator dollar is flowing as both events approach (Net Influencer).

  8. WTF Is Viewbotting: Digiday published a mechanics-and-economics explainer on bot-driven view fraud, a useful primer for any brand-side reader budgeting around influencer-marketing fraud risk (Digiday).

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