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— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

Video producer Adam Faze was one of the first to bet that TikTok was the new television. Now, he thinks YouTube is—and he's making the shows to prove it.

Context: Faze built production company Gymnasium over the last four years, focused on short-form unscripted hits including Boy Room, Girl Room, and Roommate Court featuring comedic talent like Owen Thiele and Rachel Coster. 

Now, he's zeroing in on long-form, starting with Keep The Meter Running: a reboot of his TikTok show with Subway Takes host Kareem Rahma, out today on YouTube.

So why the pivot to long-form? "Short-form is like sitting in a movie theater and seeing a trailer and thinking the only way to tell the story is a trailer," Faze told us. "We've been doing a trailer, and four years later, we've got to a point that the trailer is great—but we'd love to be able to do the next version of that too."

The shift is both creative and financial. Faze said he wants to move away from chasing short-form virality toward building long-form, which can command higher prices thanks to more established (and stickier) audiences. "On the short-form side of things, there's a cap to what you can make," Faze said. "Long-form and live will always have a higher target price." 

That’s part of why Keep The Meter Running is debuting more like a TV show than a YouTube series. That includes a press tour with stops at Kimmel, Smartless, and the Tribeca Film Festival, plus two episodes screening at YouTube’s Brandcast (part of Upfronts week, when major networks and platforms pitch to brands and agencies for advertising dollars).

"There's no part of us that has this feeling of like, ‘aw, you guys made it on YouTube,’" Faze said. "It's like, ‘this is a TV show.’"

Looking ahead: Gymnasium isn't done with short-form—Boy Room and Girl Room will continue making episodes with Amazon, and Faze will continue working with brands to make original shows. But Faze is clear about where his ambitions is. "Now that we know the internet is television," he said, "it's time to make some real f**king big TV."

Next month, creator animation studio Glitch is releasing the finale of The Amazing Digital Circus (ADC) in over 5,000 theaters across 90 countries. They’ve sold $7.5M in tickets so far.

Catch up quick: 

Zoom out: Right now, the horror genre is dominating creator theatrical releases—think Markiplier’s Iron Lung (which grossed $23M), Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, and Kane Parsons’ Backrooms. 

But between ADC and AnimationEpic’s Regal Cinemas screenings, animation seems to be breaking through as the genre to watch for creators looking to hit theaters.

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…YouTube, according to the Influencer Marketing Factory’s 2026 brand deals report. The analysis company aggregated data from over 300K posts across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—finding that YouTube brand partnerships last 13.5 months on average (compared to 7.7 months on Instagram and 4.9 months on TikTok).

Here’s what else you need to know from the study: