MIPCOM 2026 Part 2: Creator Hollywood and the YouTube-First Studio, with Made By Us Studios and Underknown

In the second part of our MIPCOM 2026 special, Justin Crosby talks to two studio leaders who come to the creator economy from opposite directions. Tanya Cohen spent her career representing film stars and directors at WME and Range Media Partners. In April she left that business to become co-CEO of Made By Us Studios, the LA studio she runs with creator-economy pioneer Leanne Perice. She explains why she made the move, how Dentsu came to back the studio’s slate, and why she thinks advertisers are returning to the old model of underwriting content.  Steve Hulford is founder and CEO of Toronto’s Underknown, which is marking its tenth anniversary. Its channels include What If, How to Survive, Aperture and Animal Logic, with 22 million YouTube subscribers between them. Steve explains why the studio’s creators are full-time staff, and what it was like to lose half its revenue overnight when Facebook shut down Watch pages. He describes the timing that kept What If off Discovery and National Geographic, and why YouTube is now the first stop.  In this episode: Creator Hollywood: putting legacy resources behind creator-led IP Why brand-funded content is coming back Creator ownership, live events and the IP flywheel How creator deals put pressure on the SVOD model Platform risk and spreading revenue across many sources AI-assisted ideation, dubbing and generative VFX in a working studio The Digital Content Forum takes place in London on 5 November. Entries for the Digital Video Awards open the same day. Sign up for The Drop newsletter Enrol on the TellyCast Digital Bootcamp Buy tickets for the Digital Content Forum Subscribe to the TellyCast YouTube channel for exclusive TV industry videos Follow us on LinkedIn Connect with Justin on LinkedIN TellyCast videos on YouTube TellyCast website TellyCast insta TellyCast Twitter TellyCast TikTok