• Stephen Colbert launched a YouTube channel days after the final episode of The Late Show
• His first upload was his appearance on “Only in Monroe,” a Michigan public access show he famously hosted in 2015
• The episode featured surprise appearances by Eminem, Jack White, Jeff Daniels, and Steve Buscemi
• CBS issued copyright takedown notices against fans uploading clips — then reversed course after backlash
• Veteran TV reporter Bill Carter claimed Trump was “personally involved” in getting the Late Show canceled

It took Stephen Colbert exactly 23 hours without a TV show to find a new one. It just happened to be in Monroe, Michigan.

The day after the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired on CBS, the former late-night host showed up on “Only in Monroe,” a public access show on Monroe Community Media. It was a callback — Colbert famously launched The Late Show from the same tiny program back in 2015 as a goof. This time, the joke had a sharper edge.

“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV, so I am grateful to be able to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount,” Colbert joked during the taping.

The episode was stacked. Jack White and Jeff Daniels showed up. Eminem made an appearance. Steve Buscemi — in a move that felt almost too perfect — did an ad for a local establishment actually called “Buscemi’s Pizza and Subs.” And Byron Allen, who bought Colbert’s old CBS timeslots, was there too.

Then Colbert put it all on YouTube.

CBS Came for the Clips

Over the weekend, the episode went viral. Fans started uploading bootlegged copies across YouTube. And then, in a move that managed to be both predictable and tone-deaf, Paramount’s CBS started issuing DMCA takedown notices to yank the clips.

The internet did not take it well. Critics accused CBS of censorship — pulling down content featuring a host they’d just let go. The backlash was swift enough that CBS reversed course within days.

A CBS representative told Variety: “Stephen Colbert’s return to Monroe in the ‘Only in Monroe’ episode was financed and produced by CBS Studios.” The takedown notices were apparently issued as part of standard content protection, then pulled back as the decision underwent “a more thorough review.”

Colbert’s own YouTube channel now hosts the episode directly.

The Trump of It All

The copyright dust-up arrived alongside a separate, more charged conversation about why the Late Show ended in the first place. Veteran TV reporter Bill Carter — who wrote The Late Shift, the definitive book on the Leno-Letterman wars — claimed on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that President Trump was “personally involved” in having the show canceled.

Carter pointed to an AI-generated video posted on Trump’s official X account after the finale, which depicted Trump grabbing Colbert and throwing him into a dumpster before dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”

“The government was pushing to get rid of this man because he was a critic,” Carter said. “That is so alien to our values that I think most Americans know this is not something we do. We don’t shut people up.”

Trump and Colbert’s feud has been a running thread since 2016. Whether it was a factor in the show’s end depends on who you ask — but the AI dumpster video, posted from an official presidential account, did not exactly suggest indifference.

Colbert, for his part, seems unbothered. He has a YouTube channel now. And Monroe has a new favorite son.

The post Colbert Launches YouTube Channel as CBS Copyright Drama Unfolds appeared first on Cream.

• Markiplier announced at Cannes Film Festival that Iron Lung will be available on YouTube starting May 31, 2026
• The release will be a YouTube exclusive, with the film available to purchase on the platform’s Movies & TV storefront
• The self-funded horror film grossed over $51 million worldwide against a budget of just $3–4 million
• Markiplier used the profits to pay every cast and crew member a bonus equal to their original salary
• He also revealed at Cannes that he won’t start his next project until 2027, wanting to spend time with his wife

If you missed Iron Lung in theaters, your wait is almost over. Markiplier — real name Mark Fischbach — announced during a panel at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday that his self-directed, self-funded horror film will be available to watch at home starting May 31, exclusively on YouTube.

The choice of platform wasn’t a surprise to anyone who knows Markiplier’s story. YouTube is where he built his career, where his audience of millions first found him, and where he’s stayed loyal through every evolution of his career. “I’m pretty loyal to it,” he said simply at Cannes, and that was that.

The film will be a paid purchase on YouTube’s Movies & TV storefront — no subscription required, just a one-time buy. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but new digital releases typically land in the $19.99–$29.99 range. For fans who want something physical, Fischbach previously mentioned a Blu-ray release is also in the works, though no date has been set beyond the YouTube drop.

What Iron Lung Is Actually About

Based on the indie horror game by David Szymanski — the developer behind Dusk — Iron Lung takes place in a bleak future following an event called “The Quiet Rapture,” in which every star and habitable planet in the universe simply vanishes, wiping out most of humanity. The survivors cling to whatever manmade structures remain. When a moon is discovered with what appears to be an ocean of human blood, a convict named Simon (played by Fischbach himself) is sealed inside a decaying submarine and forced to pilot it through the depths in search of answers.

It’s as unsettling as it sounds. Polygon called it frighteningly “claustrophobic” and “immersive” at the time of its theatrical release, and argued the rest of the film industry should be paying close attention to what Markiplier pulled off. Fischbach didn’t just star in the film — he wrote, directed, produced, edited, and distributed it himself after larger studios either passed or tried to take too much creative control.

The cast also includes Caroline Rose Kaplan, Troy Baker, and Elsie Lovelock.

The Box Office Story Nobody Saw Coming

Iron Lung opened in theaters on January 30 with almost no traditional marketing spend. No massive ad campaign, no billboard blitz — just Markiplier’s enormous social media presence and an audience that showed up for him. The result? Over $51 million worldwide against a budget of roughly $3 to $4 million. It famously outperformed Amazon’s Melania Trump biopic at the box office, a detail that still feels almost too good to be true.

What Fischbach did with those profits is the part that really stuck with people. He told Lemonade Stand that he used the earnings to pay every single member of the cast and crew a bonus equal to their original salary. In an industry where profit participation is notoriously murky, that kind of move lands differently.

The film’s success has already had ripple effects. Fellow YouTuber Sean “JackSepticEye” McLoughlin has since been inspired to develop an animated Bloodborne movie of his own — proof that Iron Lung‘s subversive run wasn’t just a one-off moment, but something that genuinely shifted what people think is possible for creator-led films.

What’s Next for Markiplier

At Cannes, Fischbach was candid about his timeline — and refreshingly unbothered about it. He joked that he won’t be making another feature for at least a year, saying he wants to spend time with his wife. When he does get back to it, he teased that he’ll start “working on something” in 2027.

Iron Lung arrives on YouTube on May 31. The submarine is waiting.

The post Markiplier’s ‘Iron Lung’ Hits YouTube May 31 appeared first on Cream.

• Markiplier announced at a Cannes panel that Iron Lung will be available exclusively on YouTube starting May 31, 2026
• The film cost $4 million to make and grossed over $51 million worldwide with virtually no marketing spend
• Markiplier wrote, directed, produced, edited, and distributed the film — and stars in it
• He used the profits to pay every cast and crew member a bonus equal to their original salary
• Markiplier says he won’t be making another film for at least a year, wanting to spend time with his wife

If you missed Iron Lung in theaters — or you just want to revisit that ocean of blood — Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach has your date: May 31. That’s when his self-funded indie horror debut lands on YouTube, and it’ll be a platform exclusive.

Fischbach made the announcement Sunday morning during a Cannes Film Festival panel moderated by Deadline, and the choice of platform wasn’t exactly a surprise coming from the man who built one of YouTube’s biggest channels. “I’m pretty loyal to it,” he said simply, describing YouTube as his home.

The Little Horror Movie That Absolutely Could

By any measure, Iron Lung is one of the more unlikely success stories Hollywood has seen in years. Made for somewhere between $3 and $4 million — depending on which part of production you’re counting — the film grossed over $51 million worldwide after opening in cinemas on January 30. It had no real marketing campaign to speak of. No studio machine behind it. Just Markiplier’s enormous built-in fanbase, relentless word of mouth, and a concept compelling enough that strangers were apparently delivering impromptu TED Talks about it on the street after Nine Inch Nails concerts.

Larger studios had passed on the project or tried to take creative control, so Fischbach self-funded and self-released it in the U.S., partnering with Piece of Magic Entertainment for international territories across Europe including Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries. The gamble paid off in a way that made the industry pay attention — the film famously outperformed Amazon’s Melania Trump biopic at the box office.

Based on David Szymanski’s dread-inducing indie horror game of the same name, Iron Lung is set in a post-apocalyptic future after “The Quiet Rapture” — an event that causes every star and habitable planet in the universe to simply vanish, wiping out most of humanity. The survivors are left clinging to manmade structures in space. When a moon is discovered with an ocean apparently made of human blood, a convict named Simon (Fischbach) is sealed inside a decaying submarine called the Iron Lung and sent down into it to look for answers. It’s as psychological as it is physical, and Fischbach didn’t just star in it — he wrote, produced, edited, and distributed it too. Co-starring alongside him are Caroline Rose Kaplan, Troy Baker, and Elsie Lovelock.

What Markiplier Did With the Money

Perhaps the detail that’s resonated most with fans since the film’s release: Fischbach used the profits to give every single member of the cast and crew a bonus equal to their original salary. For a first-time filmmaker who self-funded the whole thing, that’s a statement.

The film’s success has also had ripple effects in the creator-to-filmmaker pipeline. Fellow YouTuber Sean “JackSepticEye” McLoughlin has since been inspired to develop an animated Bloodborne movie of his own — proof that Iron Lung‘s impact goes beyond just its box office numbers.

What’s Next for Markiplier

Don’t expect a quick follow-up. At the Cannes panel, Fischbach joked that he has no plans to make another feature for at least a year — he wants to spend time with his wife. After writing, directing, producing, editing, distributing, and starring in a film that he also personally bankrolled, that seems more than fair.

A Blu-ray release is also in the works — Fischbach confirmed back in February that a physical edition is coming, so fans who want it on the shelf shouldn’t have to wait too long after the YouTube drop.

As for pricing on YouTube, that hasn’t been announced yet. But if you’re ready to climb into the submarine, May 31 is your date.

The post Markiplier’s ‘Iron Lung’ Hits YouTube on May 31 appeared first on Cream.

• YouTube’s 2026 Brandcast at Lincoln Center unveiled a major slate of creator-led shows, pitching itself directly as a TV network replacement
• Trevor Noah, Alex Cooper, Kareem Rahma, and Erling Haaland are among the names attached to new YouTube-exclusive series
• YouTube now accounts for 12.7% of all TV viewing per Nielsen, up from 10.8% a year ago — Netflix grew from 8.6% to just 8.8% in the same period
• The platform has paid out over $100 billion to creators in the past four years, and is rolling out new AI tools and a two-click checkout feature for connected TVs
• Creators like Kareem Rahma walked away from traditional TV deals to bet on YouTube — and the platform is betting right back on them

“Welcome to the YouTube era.” That’s how YouTube CEO Neal Mohan opened the company’s annual Brandcast upfront at Lincoln Center on Wednesday night, and he wasn’t being modest. With Zara Larsson kicking off the evening and Chappell Roan closing it out, YouTube didn’t just show up to upfront week — it showed up to win.

The message to the room full of media buyers was blunt: YouTube is no longer a platform where TV content goes to be clipped and repurposed. It is TV. And it’s time for advertising dollars to reflect that.

Per Nielsen’s The Gauge report, YouTube commanded 12.7% of all TV viewing as of January 2026 — up from 10.8% during the same period in 2025. Netflix, by comparison, inched from 8.6% to 8.8%. YouTube has been the No. 1 platform in watch time for three consecutive years, and the company says it reached 244 million viewers ages 18 and up in November alone — roughly 91% of the U.S. adult population. Those aren’t streaming numbers. Those are broadcast numbers.

A Slate That Looks a Lot Like a Network’s Pitch Deck

The centerpiece of Brandcast was YouTube’s expanded Creator Shows slate — a programming lineup that, in both format and ambition, resembles exactly what legacy TV networks present during upfront week. Only instead of showrunners and studio executives, the stars of this pitch deck are creators.

Trevor Noah, hosting the evening, set the tone early. “Some of you may recognize me from stand-up comedy. Some of you may recognize me from my podcast. Some of you might recognize me from The Daily Show,” he told the crowd. “But there is one place where you definitely see me, and that’s on YouTube. These days, everything is on YouTube, everything. Sports, entertainment, interviews, podcasts, you name it.” Noah is now putting that conviction into action with Trevor Noah’s World Tour, a travel series exclusive to the platform.

Alex Cooper unveiled an entire programming slate for her Unwell Network, including Before the Steps, a Met Gala docuseries; Pot Stirrer, a competition series; and Holiday Hard Launch, a microdrama. “Legacy media spent decades deciding who we should watch,” Cooper told the crowd. “Their problem is this generation stopped asking for permission. Networks didn’t lose this audience. They never had her. And she doesn’t just watch — she shows up, not because of an algorithm. It’s her choice. Her loyalty is not bought. It’s earned.”

Former NBA star Dwyane Wade announced a new season of Fly on the Wall. Soccer superstar Erling Haaland is planning both a World Cup docuseries and a fall competition series called Erling’s Gauntlet. Cleo Abram, Johnny Harris, Quen Blackwell (Feeding Starving Celebrities 2.0), and Dude Perfect (Squad Games) rounded out the roster. Julian Shapiro-Barnum — the creator behind Recess Therapy and Celebrity Substitute, which has cleared 500 million views — is launching Outside Tonight in June, a weekly late-night variety show he describes as the first of its kind built specifically for YouTube.

“I feel like YouTube has gotten to this amazing place where we are just making the TV ourselves,” Shapiro-Barnum said. “We’re not waiting on anybody to open any door for us or unlock any budget. We’re going to brands with an idea, getting it funded ourselves and are in production within less than a year of coming up with it.”

Kareem Rahma’s Road to YouTube — Through CNN’s Dead End

Perhaps no story at Brandcast captured the platform’s moment better than Kareem Rahma’s. The creator behind Subway Takes — the viral series that has put Cate Blanchett, Lil Nas X, and Ramy Youssef on a New York City train for hot takes — was supposed to be celebrating a television win. CNN had picked up his other show, Keep the Meter Running, in which Rahma rides along with yellow cab drivers to their favorite spots around the city. Then they sat on it. For three years.

“I did the whole rigmarole with television, and it was a disaster,” Rahma said. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I walked away from the deal and decided to do it independently on YouTube.”

At Brandcast, he announced Keep the Meter Running as a YouTube exclusive — nine episodes shot around New York and one international. CNN had required a rigid 45-minute runtime per episode. On YouTube, that constraint is gone. “Some episodes are 45 minutes, and some episodes are 12 minutes — we’re not really concerned with having an exact runtime. It’s more about the story and what is the best we can do for the audience. I was literally fishing with a Korean man in the forest yesterday,” he said.

Rahma’s pivot was well-timed. On the morning of Brandcast, a coordinated wave of coverage about him broke across the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Deadline, and others — a campaign that, as YouTube exec Adam Faze quietly acknowledged, had some help from Google’s own PR apparatus. That YouTube’s parent company now sees fit to lend its promotional muscle to individual creators marks a meaningful shift in how the platform thinks about talent retention.

The Retention Problem — and How YouTube Is Solving It

For all its dominance, YouTube has always had a version of the same problem: it builds careers that everyone else wants to buy. Justin Bieber was discovered here. So was Marques Brownlee. The platform’s algorithm, its monetization tools, and its sheer scale have made it the most powerful incubator for creators on the planet — which also makes it a prime target for poaching.

Netflix has been the most aggressive. In December, iHeartRadio brought 15 shows to the streaming giant — including The Breakfast Club and My Favorite Murder — on the condition that they stop distributing on YouTube. Netflix has also signed Pete Davidson and former NFL player Michael Irvin for original podcast-style shows. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has called YouTube “a little bit of a farm league” for creators to “cut their teeth on.”

YouTube’s answer to all of this is Creator Partnerships, a newly reimagined product (previously called BrandConnect) that connects top creators directly with brand sponsorships, provides white-glove support across press, marketing, and technical needs, and now packages creator output into formal seasonal series with premiere dates and press kits. YouTube doesn’t fund or finance these projects directly — but it does everything else it can to keep creators happy enough to stay.

“All big creators today are multi-platform by default, but we definitely see YouTube as the crown jewel of the media portfolio,” said Taylor Kelly, chief strategy officer at Night Media, which manages talent including Kai Cenat, Hasan Piker, the Kalogeras Sisters, and MrBeast (from 2018 to 2024). “YouTube brand deals are usually bigger on a per-deal basis.”

MrBeast — Jimmy Donaldson, the world’s most-watched creator — is perhaps the clearest proof of concept. He has a sign in his North Carolina studio that reads “Rule #1: YouTube First,” even after producing Beast Games, the biggest unscripted series in Amazon’s history. Making that show, he admits, temporarily changed how he thought about his YouTube content — and not entirely for the better. “After the first season of Beast Games, we might have made our YouTube content a little too overproduced, where it felt inauthentic, which we’re curving back and fixing,” Donaldson said.

Mohan’s framing of all this is deliberate. “MrBeast can do a deal for a TV show, but he knows his brand, his business, and his community are built on YouTube,” he said. “They want to be entrepreneurs, own their work, and have a direct relationship with an audience. We give them that freedom.”

Brands Are Already Following the Audience

The brand side of the equation is catching up fast. Coach’s “Explore Your Story” creator-led campaign — which included episodic “Story Sessions” with Olympic gymnast Sunisa Lee and track and field athlete Tara Davis-Woodhall — drove a 60% jump in Gen Z brand awareness and a six-fold increase in consideration in a single quarter. Chanel has leaned into behind-the-scenes documentary-style content from its handbag campaigns and runway productions. Nike has used YouTube to distribute long-form athlete storytelling, including Grant Fisher’s first NYC half marathon and Keely Hodgkinson’s post-injury comeback, with engagement ranging from 50,000 to two million views per video.

Research by social and influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy found that 70% of marketers planned to increase production of long-form creator content heading into 2024 — and the trend has only accelerated since. “Brands simply follow where consumer attention is,” said Thomas Walters, chief innovation officer at Billion Dollar Boy. “A rise in YouTube consumption on TV and a rejection of passive scrolling habits in favor of more intentional media consumption has helped prompt rising brand investment in long-form.”

That audience is broader than it’s ever been. YouTube’s 2.7 billion monthly users skew younger — research from Vogue Business and youth culture agency Archrival found that 88% of Gen Zs and millennials use YouTube to discover new products — but the aging of millennials is quietly becoming one of the platform’s biggest selling points with advertisers. “The older millennials will turn 45 this year, and they really are the first generation to grow up with a supercomputer in their pocket,” said Brian Albert, managing director of YouTube Media Partnerships and Creative Works. “As they grow older, we just don’t expect them to consume media the way their parents did. They are filling in that 18 to 49 demo that really was at the heart of TV buying for decades.”

Up to 78% of Gen Alphas also use YouTube regularly, making it the dominant video platform in their media diet, according to research from GWI.

The Ad Tech to Back It All Up

Beyond the programming slate, Brandcast introduced a suite of new ad products aimed at closing the gap between attention and commerce. Buy with Google Pay enables a two-click checkout flow directly on connected TVs — and YouTube says conversions from CTV ads grew more than 200% year over year in Q1 2026. AI-powered Custom Sponsorships can dynamically build thematic content packages at scale, while new generative AI creative tools powered by Gemini, Veo, and Nano Banana take advertisers from brief to finished ad in a single workflow.

The platform also introduced a Masthead with Custom Content Shelf, letting advertisers pair hero creative with a curated video lineup, and an Affiliate Partnerships Boost to amplify affiliate-linked creator content directly on the platform. The message, as YouTube chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe framed it, is that YouTube wants to handle the full funnel — from the first impression to the checkout — without the buyer ever leaving Google’s ecosystem.

Over the past four years, YouTube has paid out more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies — a number Mohan cited not just as a flex, but as a defensive moat. “There’s no platform on planet Earth that has invested in the creator economy to the same extent that we have,” he said.

Brittany Broski, whose Royal Court show has featured Harry Styles and Charli XCX, summed up the cultural moment as plainly as anyone. “We’re in a new, exciting era of talk shows right now,” she said. “We’re watching the demise of Hollywood and the influx of new Hollywood.”

Mohan, for his part, isn’t trying to predict which creator or format will define that new Hollywood. “My job isn’t to predict what content will be front and center in three years,” he said. “It’s to make sure that when the next creator has a brilliant idea, they have the tools to share it with the world.”

Chappell Roan — who was creating on YouTube years before she became a superstar — closed out the night. It was the kind of full-circle moment YouTube couldn’t have scripted better if it tried.

The post YouTube Is TV Now — and Madison Avenue Is Listening appeared first on Cream.