Hollywood Executives are taking Bigger Bets on Creators

Smosh just named Cory Midgarden as its first Chief Content Officer.

Midgarden spent 14 years at Paramount, most recently as Vice President of Digital, Social, and Streaming Content at MTV Entertainment Studios.

Smosh confirmed he will oversee content strategy, talent and casting, and partnerships across its channels, roughly 27 million subscribers combined.

Legacy media executives are quietly leaving for creator companies.

For years, executives in media climbed toward prestigious titles. That path led inside networks and studios, where the budgets got projects off the ground.

Cory Midgarden spent 14 years on that path. At MTV, he led digital creative for the VMAs, Wild 'N Out, and RuPaul's Drag Race.

Leaving the traditional path is starting to look like the smarter move. The same week, Dude Perfect hired its own Chief Content Officer straight out of film and TV.

Smosh, a studio built without Hollywood, now has Hollywood asking to be let in.

A Chief title at a media conglomerate used to guarantee access to the biggest audience in the business. That doesn't hold true anymore.

YouTube generated $62 billion in revenue last year, ahead of the $60.9 billion Disney's media assets brought in. One analyst now values the platform at $560 billion, well past Netflix's market cap.

When the scale moves, A-players move with it. Smosh's channels pull in millions of views daily, without a network's budget, greenlight process, or production timeline. 

The audience and financing moved digital first. Midgarden and others are finally catching up.