Netflix signs up YouTuber chef Nick DiGiovanni on eve of Q2 earnings

Netflix has signed an agreement with YouTube culinary star Nick DiGiovanni, the latest in a string of creator-focused licensing deals that have arrived thick and fast on the eve of its second-quarter earnings.

Nick DiGiovanni

Aaron Idelson

The pact, which is due to begin later this year, will see new episodes of Nick’s Kitchen and Nick DiGiovanni launching on Netflix on the same day they debut on YouTube. Netflix has also licensed DiGiovanni’s culinary library, with episodes featuring the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Gordon Ramsay, Selena Gomez, Tom Brady and Paris Hilton.

The Nick’s Kitchen YouTube channel has more than five million subscribers and over 875 million combined views, while the Chef Nick channel has 1.87 million subscribers and 4.3 billion views.

Across social platforms, DiGiovanni has more than 75 million followers. He also has a presence in the traditional television space, where he is the official chef for Fox Sports’ coverage of the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

Netflix has been dabbling in the creator space for the past 18 months, with its Ms Rachel deal, agreed in early 2025, followed by pacts with Mark Rober and The Sidemen and an expansion into vodcasts through deals with Spotify and iHeartMedia. The latter partnership includes a video version of the weekday morning radio show The Breakfast Club hosted by Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy and Jess Hilarious.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has frequently pointed out that, while Netflix competes with YouTube for consumer attention, it is nothing like the Google-owned video platform. In March 2025, he distinguished the platforms by saying that Netflix was in the “spending time business” while YouTube is in the “killing time business.”

However, the flurry of deals announced over the past month indicate Netflix is looking to change the business narrative ahead of Thursday’s second-quarter earnings report.

In the last week alone, Netflix has announced licensing deals with a range of digital publishers, including BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast and Penske Media, to carry some of their video programming on its platform, as well as a multi-faceted deal with YouTube stars Alex and Alan Stokes, better known as the Stokes Twins.

The flurry of deals comes as Netflix’s share price continues to languish, with its stock down more than 40% compared with a year ago.

The stock crash was triggered by Netflix’s pursuit of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). However, its share price has failed to recover after Netflix ultimately bowed out of that deal, despite the fact it pocketed a US$2.8bn break-up fee.

At the same time, Netflix’s interest in WBD has fuelled investor concern that the streaming giant may be facing growth issues – particularly when it comes to engagement, which increased by around 2% in 2025. It stopped reporting subscriber numbers at the start of 2025 but did disclose in January 2026 that it had climbed to 325 million subs globally.

The deluge of creator-focused deals, including several involving episodes that launch day-and-date with YouTube, mean this could be one of the more compelling Netflix earnings reports in recent years.