A new report from Deloitte issues yet another warning to the legacy media industry: If traditional channels don’t find ways to keep up with creators, they might see their market share decline among younger generations. Deloitte’s latest Digital Media Trends report found that 56% of Gen Z respondents find creator content “more relevant” than premium movies and TV shows.
43% of Millennials agreed with their Gen Z juniors. Deloitte also found that Gen Z spends much more time on social media platforms compared to traditional media channels.
“With Gen Z, they spend 54 percent more time — think of it as about 50 minutes a day, on average — more on their social platforms, and they spend about 43 minutes a day less in traditional TV and media,” Deloitte exec China Widener told The Hollywood Reporter. “So when you just think about it in the context of where they’re spending their time, are they using both service types? Yes. But they are spending more time in the social media platforms than they are on the traditional platforms.”
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One data point underscoring Gen Z’s shift is an old chestnut that has been repeated many times since the dawn of the creator era: Consumers of a certain age trust influencers more than traditional stars. Deloitte found that 52% of Gen Z prefers to take advice from creators over other sources in the entertainment industry. That preference drives advertiser interest which in turn begets more creator content.
That segues nicely into a second factor driving creator supremacy: volume. On platforms like YouTube, users simply have more options to choose from than they do on streaming subscription services.
The appealing qualities of creator hubs are easy to see, but perhaps legacy media players — and streaming hubs like Netflix in particular — dug a hole for themselves with shortsighted content development decisions. When Netflix first started airing originals more than a decade ago, it produced buzzy, award-winning fare like Orange is the New Black. These days, Netflix is still scoring Emmy nods, but its homepage is filled with pablum like Love Is Blind to go along with more high-minded fare.
As streaming hubs cater to the lowest common denominator, they are raising their prices, so it’s no wonder that Gen Z has “a level of frustration” with the whole industry, as Widener puts it. There’s a reason why TV reruns and creator-led events rank among Netflix’s most-watched offerings. Originals have been dumbed down to the point that free, on-demand creator uploads offer a more appealing proposition.
In 2025, creators are capitalizing on their momentum with large-scale happenings that position bootstrapping shows as premium offerings to rival the best of Netflix, Hulu, or Max. It may be too late for legacy media to reclaim its hold on Gen Z, but a focus on quality of quantity would be a good start. Streamers are never going to be able to offer as much content as YouTube’s bottomless pit, but with an array of polished programming, they can regain trust.
