Creators are media companies. Start treating them like it

Imagine a media sector bigger than Hollywood's studios by ad revenue, with no trade association, no seat on the measurement councils and no say in the rules written about it. You don't have to imagine it. It's the creator economy, and the institutions of media are still pretending it's a supplier.

In June 2025, WPP Media's mid-year This Year Next Year forecast made a call the industry had seen coming for a decade. It projected that 2025 would be the first year user-generated platforms took more than half of content-driven ad revenue, overtaking professionally produced content from studios and media companies. The forecast put creator-generated ad revenue at around $184.9 billion for the year, up 20%, and projected it to roughly double by 2030. Those are forecasts, not audited results. But the direction is not in dispute.

Now think about who actually makes the thing being sold against. On TikTok, YouTube and Instagram Reels it isn't a newsroom or a studio. It's millions of individuals and small teams. Collectively they have become advertising's biggest content producer. Individually, most are still treated like freelancers who happen to own a ring light.

Our argument is simple. The institutions that govern media (trade associations, measurement bodies, award juries, standards councils) need to give creators a seat as media owners. Booking them as "talent" through agencies and brands is no longer enough.

The money already decided

Budgets moved first. eMarketer's 2026 creator economy outlook says brands are building creators into more of their marketing and advertising plans, even as growth on the social networks themselves levels off and the market becomes more crowded. It projects that micro- and nano-influencers will take 45.5% of influencer marketing spend.

That figure matters more than the headline totals. It describes a market that isn't run by a handful of celebrity creators. It's a long tail of small media businesses, each with its own audience, editorial voice and commercial terms. Brands are already buying from them the way they once bought from local newspapers and specialist magazines.

The economics already look like media, too. Creators sell sponsorships, license usage rights, run paid amplification with brands, and increasingly launch products of their own. Those are the revenue lines of a publisher, run by people who are usually the editor, the talent, the sales team and the finance department at once.

When a media sector looks like that, it usually builds institutions. Publishers have trade associations that negotiate with platforms, push measurement standards and lobby on regulation. Broadcasters have the same. Creators mostly have their managers, a few "creator councils" run by the very platforms they depend on, and now a union committee.

What a real seat would look like

Four concrete things.

First, measurement. Creators should help write the audience and attention standards brands use to price them, rather than receive those standards from vendors and platforms. CreatorIQ's 2026 creator survey found that brands ranked follower count last among eight partnership criteria, yet follower count was the metric most strongly tied to what creators actually earn. A market whose stated values and its pay data disagree that sharply needs a neutral forum to sort out the currency.

Second, regulation. AI-labelling rules have arrived in New York and the EU, and they land directly on the content creators make. New York's synthetic performer law took effect in June; the EU AI Act's labelling duties followed in August. Creators should be stakeholders when such rules are designed, not only when they're enforced.

Third, recognition. If creator platforms now take most of content-driven ad revenue, award juries that file creator work under a single "social" category are judging the market of five years ago. Creator-led series, newsletters and channels deserve the same categories as the publishers they compete with.

Fourth, commercial norms. Standard terms for usage rights, exclusivity and payment timelines are what turn a crowd of freelancers into an industry. Publishing and broadcasting got there through their trade bodies. Creators have no equivalent.

There are early signs of movement. SAG-AFTRA's national board unanimously approved a committee for influencers and digital creators, and Inside Radio reported that the union wants to reach beyond branded content to original work on YouTube and TikTok. That's welcome. But a union represents workers. Many creators are also owners, employing editors, managing sponsors and building products. Nearly six in ten respondents to CreatorIQ's survey said they had launched, or plan to launch, their own brand. Owners need a different kind of institution as well.

The strongest objection

The best case against us is that most creators aren't media companies. They're hobbyists with a side hustle. The CreatorIQ survey of 5,055 creators, carried out with Influencers.club, found that 67% earn under $10,000 a year from content. Only about 4% clear $100,000, and roughly six in ten say content isn't their main source of income. Seating that group alongside the BBC or Condé Nast sounds absurd.

It's a fair point, and it limits the argument. A seat at the table shouldn't go to every account with a brand deal. Survey design matters too: CreatorIQ sells influencer marketing software, and its sample leans heavily toward the US, the UK and Canada.

But publishing has exactly the same shape. Most publications are tiny, and many are run by one or two people. The trade bodies that represent them still exist and still matter, because they set norms for the whole field and give the professional middle a voice. The answer for creators is the same: tiered membership built around that professional middle, not exclusion because the base of the pyramid is wide.

There's a practical argument too. Without a representative body, decisions about creators get made by whoever is in the room. Today that's platforms, agencies and software vendors, each with its own commercial interest. A creator institution wouldn't be perfect. It would at least be on the creators' side.

The ad market has already voted with its budget. The institutions are behind. They can make room on purpose, or watch creators build their own and stop asking for a seat at all.