NEW FRONTS NEWS
Brand safety was front and center at the New Fronts, with few execs missing the opportunity to tour their company’s closely vetted environment. Heard in the field: Matthew Derella, Twitter global VP of revenue and content partnerships: “Here’s what I can commit to you. Tonight, we are going to address the biggest issues facing our industry so that you all can focus on what really matters: growing your businesses. Because tonight, we say goodbye to unsafe brand environments.” John DeVine, chief revenue officer, Oath: “This is an uprising at a time when high quality, brand safe content matters more than ever.” Rita Ferro, president, ad sales and marketing, Disney-ABC: “We know that our clients and advertisers are looking for unique, compelling, brand-safe, and diverse ways to reach audiences at scale.”
Meredith is going strong across its digital properties. Among new content unveiled at its New Front presentation are Meredith Stories, through which brands can follow readers from print to mobile devices and onto social media platforms. Also upcoming is short form program Chatter, delivered live to Twitter from PeopleTV’s Hollywood studio with the latest trending topics in entertainment and pop culture. Emmy award-winning television host Rocsi Diaz breaks down the biggest moments of the day, with interactive viewer tweets and in-studio celebrity guests. Series airs weeknights at 8p on Twitter. Also new: Badass Women, a complement to InStyle’s feature about women who are breaking barriers in their fields; Search History, hosted by stand-up comic Michelle Collins and set to debut June 5 on PeopleTV.com and on the PeopleTV app; and Food with Purpose, which profiles change-makers in the food industry, from Better Homes and Gardens, Food & Wine and Eating Well.
New content from Verizon subsidiary Oath includes 10 original video series, docs and live programs with brands including HuffPost, Makers, Build Series, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports; and featuring talent including LeBron James, Abby Wambach, Jared Quay and Larry Fitzgerald. At its Jamie Foxx-hosted Newfront gig on Tuesday (May 1), Oath detailed snackable short form projects including Yahoo Sports’ The Rush, featuring must-see moments in sports; expanded HuffPost’s Storm the Gates, a look at eight female political candidates; and the Build Up, hosted daily interstitial programming from the Build Brunch interview show.
Twitter’s friend circle is growing. The social service trotted out 30 new collaborations across pretty much every category. New partners include NBCUniversal and Viacom for videoclips and shorts; Live Nation for a concert series; Hearst Magazines; Vice and BuzzFeed for news; and gamers Gamespot, Call of Duty World League and IGN. Twitter also touted new communities including Black Twitter and programs dedicated to women’s empowerment to complement existing conversations on the platform. On a related note, Twitter, which recently said its daily video views nearly doubled during the past year, bested analyst expectations in earnings in Q1, where it said the number of daily active users grew 10 percent and monthly active users increased to 336 million, up 3 percent over the same time a year ago.
Announced just hours before the New Front, Twitter and Disney are in a new broad-ranging advertising and content deal that includes ABC, Disney Channel and Freeform, Disney Digital Network, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Radio Disney and Marvel. Look for live content and more to launch on the platform from these brands.
At its New Front, Disney Digital Network showed how the company is making a strong digital play for millennials who grew up with its brands. Upcoming are Disney Eats, a culinary experience inspired by Disney characters and theme parks in partnership with online foodie net Tastemade. Through the partnership, new Disney-themed eps will pop up in series including Tiny Kitchen and Kitchen Little. A new Oh My Disney App will launch this summer, featuring the Disney social content and short form videos from Oh My Disney.
Ellen DeGeneres’ Ellen Digital Network renewed shorts series Momsplaining starring Kristen Bell; inaugural season counts more than 100 million views. EDN also announced a #BeeKind, a new series starring actress and animal advocate Beth Behrs that will debut on Instagram; a digital series with NYT best-selling author, TV and podcast host Hart; an animated series with ATTN:, the issues-driven news organization and 2018 Cynopsis Social Good Impact Award honoree; and FANtastic, a digiseries connecting DeGeneres’ A-list friends with their idols.
Dawn Ostroff, Conde Nast Entertainment president, said the first three episodes of CNE’s fully sponsored Snapchat show True Crime/Uncovered have drawn 10 million viewers. Three more eps will be produced in the first season and Snapchat has renewed the series for season 2. Conde Nast also is expanding its OTT slate with dedicated channels for its brands Wired, GQ and Bon Appetit. The Wired service will launch later this year on Amazon Fire, AppleTV and Roku; the other two are slated to drop in 2019.
ESPN debuted on the New Fronts circuit flanked by execs from Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook. It announced a new daily edition of SportsCenter for its newly designed mobile app, to be hosted by Scott Van Pelt and other SC anchors, plus a bunch of shows for Twitter as part of parent Disney’s new broad-ranging agreement with Twitter. Those include: Fantasy Focus Live will now be live-streamed daily on Twitter, and The College Football Show will provide Twitter recaps. Ryan Spoon, ESPN SVP, social content, talked up the company’s short-form digital power, noting said during one week in April, ESPN scored 2 billion impressions across social media.
Digital outfit Studio71 unleashed original programming in collaboration with Lilly Singh, Dwayne Johnson’s Seven Bucks Digital Studios and Fine Brothers Entertainment, the studio behind the React YouTube shorts series. Singh is developing additional short form videos that showcase comic scenarios and characters featuring celeb guests. She currently has more than 13 million subscribers to her YouTube channel Superwoman. Seven Bucks will bring content tied to Johnson’s movie campaigns, and Fine Brothers Entertainment will create three new shows. Studio71 content is available on platforms including Amazon Prime, Facebook Watch, Instagram and YouTube.
Ad-supported streaming net Sony Crackle greenlit a series of shorts in anticipation of this year’s World Cup. The shorts will launch with 15 episodes, with a new ep releasing each day for the first two weeks of June. Title of the series is TBD. Additionally, the network is working with NRG to create content for the its console-first audience, including an untitled esports competition series, anticipated to be produced by Embassy Row.
