By Andre Christensen, Founder and CEO, Quickplay
As I outlined in my previous blog, Gen Z and Millennial audiences aren’t an “emerging audience” anymore- they are the new majority. They:
- drive nearly all digital subscription growth
- spend up to four times more on streaming, content, and eCommerce
- are accessible anywhere and anytime
- shape what becomes culturally relevant
So why does growth for broadcasters feel out of reach? Because the new majority doesn’t ‘tune in’—they flow. Their journey starts on social media short-form surfaces and moves through platforms broadcasters weren’t architected or organized to follow.
The good news? Broadcasters hold unmatched trust, IP, and sit on libraries of premium content. They can win this generation—if they adjust the operating model to match how the new majority actually consumes.
Audiences Don’t Tune In—They Flow. Follow Them.
Gen Z and Millennials discover content on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts builds engagement on Youtube and Facebook, fandom on YouTube and deepens loyalty on OTT. And it’s not siloed to commercial breaks- this journey is continuous, personalized, and algorithmically driven.
These platforms can be broadcasters’ most powerful engines for audience acquisition if leveraged strategically. Short-form platforms aren’t competitors—they’re your discovery engines.
For example, broadcasters’ have powerfully rich content libraries. Your archive is more valuable than the shows you make tomorrow. Evergreen clips from decades-old content outperform new releases because algorithms reward relevance, not recency. In fact, the majority of YouTube consumption is not recently produced content. AI now lets broadcasters turn dormant libraries into continuous discovery and engagement engines. Avoid the legacy thinking of long-form and explore ways to reimagine a catalog for shorts, social, and OTT.
Trust is broadcasters’ strongest currency — but trust only matters if audiences encounter it in the formats they consume daily. Long-form only is a legacy format, but together with short-firm it’s the future. Adapting format, workflow, and tone is how credibility becomes cultural relevance again.
The Revenue Reality: Spend Follows the New Majority
Traditional revenue models in media that stem from traditional linear ads and bundled subscriptions are shrinking. PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook projects traditional linear ad spend will decline by 3.5% CAGR through 2027, while Creator Economy marketing is growing at double-digit rates, surpassing $30 billion globally in 2024.
We’ve reached a tipping point: in 2025, social media creators will command more than 50% of all content-driven spend. But the real story is why? They are winning because they operate a completely different monetization engine. They monetize a single story across sponsorships, integrated placements, eCommerce, merch, memberships, YouTube revenue, affiliate sales, tipping, podcasts, licensing, sports books, and FAST/mid-form distribution. Broadcasters, meanwhile, still rely on just a few revenue lines, i.e., pre/mid-roll, carriage fees, and OTT subscriptions.
That mismatch is exactly why the revenue gap widened: audience behavior evolved, and monetization followed the audience.
A few truths now define the landscape:
- Creator monetization is not “ads vs. subscriptions.” It’s 12+ revenue lines per story
- Revenue grows where audiences discover, not where they finish
- Social and YouTube operate as global commerce engines
- Shorts and mid-form monetize earlier in the audience journey
- Archives often hold more monetizable surface than new productions
- Subscription-only strategies miss the majority of today’s spend
This isn’t decline —it’s a massive opportunity shift.
This is the reality. The only question left is will broadcasters adapt in time to compete?
What the New Majority Expects From Broadcasters
The new majority isn’t difficult to reach — they just have a different set of expectations. Their rules are simple:
- Show up where discovery happens.
Short-form is their entry point for everything — news, sports, entertainment. If you’re not present, they assume the story belongs to someone else. - Build a deeper connection where engagement lives.
YouTube and mid-form social video is where breadth becomes depth. Engagement will grow if your content strategy focuses on driving interactions on your branded OTT platforms in parallel with YouTube and other social platforms. - Deliver premium experiences where loyalty grows.
Owned branded OTT platforms remain the destination — where trust, ARPU, and long-form value are highest. But audiences only arrive if you meet them upstream first.
This is the audience’s playbook — not a theory. It’s how they already behave.
How broadcasters operationalize this flow — across content, formats, workflows, and monetization — is the focus of my next post, where I break down the Creator Model in detail.
Why Shorts? Because That’s What the New Majority Wants
Short-form content is the single most powerful lever in this model. It’s the preferred format for younger audiences for discovery, the fastest path to relevance and monetization, and pulls audiences into deeper experiences in your own branded OTT services.
Consider these signals from the new majority:
- 72% of their video viewing is under five minutes—short-form dominates
- Shorts drive discovery and audience flow from TikTok to YouTube, and to OTT—the gravitational force of the entire flywheel
- More than half of Gen Z say content creators shape how they follow sports, fundamentally changing what is driving fandom and engagement (source)
- Across sports, clips under two minutes now rival live games in importance for younger fans — a signal of how dramatically content hierarchy has shifted (source)
Broadcasters can use short-form to reach, attract, re-engage, and funnel audiences toward deeper engagement and retention on YouTube, Facebook, and their own OTT platforms—where the most loyal, highest ARPU audiences reside.
The scoreboard has changed: engagement quality, relevance, retention, and fandom now matter more than raw reach.
The Path Forward
The future is bright for broadcasters who embrace the reality of how the new majority consumes. With the right tools, workflows, and distribution model, trust and premium content become powerful differentiators again
The new majority already moved. Broadcasters now choose whether to follow — or be forgotten.
For an in-depth analysis on how to lead in the digital-first era, download my latest whitepaper. And stay tuned here for my next blog post where I break down the Creator Model- the operating system built for the new majority.