Marketplaces and Commerce Enablers Are Building Their Own MCNs in Indonesia

In Indonesia, the multi-channel network is no longer just a YouTube business. Commerce companies now run MCNs or formally recognise them, and their pages show how the model has shifted from audience and rights towards sales.

SIRCLO StreamLab

On 16 July 2025 e-commerce enabler SIRCLO announced an MCN service under SIRCLO StreamLab. According to its press release, the service draws on a network of more than 20,000 content creators across categories including beauty and personal care, fashion, food and beverage, health, home living, and mom and baby. SIRCLO says it curates creators to fit each brand's audience, monitors campaigns continuously and links the MCN service to SIRCLO Commerce, so brands can distribute product samples and manage creator-specific promotions. The release cites Philips as an example of a brand that expanded reach on TikTok through the service; that account comes from SIRCLO and Philips rather than an independent review.

How Shopee describes an MCN

Shopee's Indonesian help centre defines an MCN agency as a company that connects affiliates with sellers for promotion on Shopee Live and Shopee Video. For affiliates, it lists professional training, technical support, higher earnings through campaigns and career development. For sellers, it lists access to many affiliates with their performance data, recommendations on the most suitable affiliate, coordination and monitoring of promotional content, and performance analysis with reports.

How Tokopedia and TikTok Shop describe one

The TikTok Shop by Tokopedia Seller Center, in a guide dated 18 March 2024, describes an MCN as a company or team that works across multiple channels with content creators. It lists scalable creator sourcing, consistent cooperation and professional execution as the benefits to sellers, who can browse a Find MCN list with operating metrics. The guide says the ranking considers the number of creators an MCN serves and the revenue those creators generate, and that an MCN with only one creator is not listed.

The older model

The YouTube-era network looks different. DRM Network, whose own website says it has been Indonesia's first certified YouTube MCN since 2013, describes helping music and entertainment creators optimise, monetise and protect their assets, with training and copyright guidance. The emphasis is on channels, catalogues and rights.

What the shift means

This section is MCN Indonesia's reading. In commerce-led networks the unit of value is sales: creators are matched to sellers and measured on performance, and on Tokopedia's list MCNs are ranked by how many creators they serve and how much revenue those creators generate. That rewards volume and conversion, and it puts marketplaces and enablers in the role of gatekeeper. Creators weighing such a network can ask whether it earns from sales commission, brand fees or both, whether it restricts working with other sellers, and how it treats a creator whose sales are modest but whose audience is loyal. The classic questions about revenue share and exclusivity apply here too.