Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, business editor for Variety Today. My guests are
Speaker 1: Aerial Horn and Ben Cuson, co founders and co CEOs
Speaker 1: of ven v e n N is an acronym that
Speaker 1: stands for video Game and Entertainment News Network. Then would
Speaker 1: seem to be swimming against the tide of media today.
Speaker 1: As a twenty four seven live streaming channel that is
Speaker 1: advertising supported. Horn and Cuson see a big white space
Speaker 1: for TV content that targets millennials and Gen Z, the
Speaker 1: demographics that have never known a world without gaming. They
Speaker 1: also see big opportunity for a streaming network that can
Speaker 1: syndicate content on a number of platforms such as Twitch
Speaker 1: and YouTube. The two have big plans for creating up
Speaker 1: to fifty hours a week of original content, all paid
Speaker 1: for by sponsor dollars. All of those things sound like
Speaker 1: kryptonite for the on demand generation, but Horn and Cuson
Speaker 1: see things differently, as they explain here. Ariel Horn and
Speaker 1: Ben Cusin, co founders and co CEOs of ben a
Speaker 1: new video game, entertainment and lifestyle network coming soon to
Speaker 1: a platform near you. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us today. Thank you, thanks so much for having us
Speaker 1: excited here. So I'm going to start up straight up.
Speaker 1: I'm not a gamer. I can I can probably measure
Speaker 1: the amount of time in my life that I've spent
Speaker 1: playing video games if telephone Solitaire doesn't count, probably measured
Speaker 1: in hours, not days or weeks. Um. So tell me
Speaker 1: for a lay person, tell me give me the elevator
Speaker 1: pitch for then the video Game Entertainment News Network. It
Speaker 1: is a surprise. It is a surprise to me to
Speaker 1: see that something that content like this would be launching
Speaker 1: in a live, linear fashion. That seems a little counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: Tell tell me about your venture. Sure, and by the
Speaker 1: way of telephone Solitaire accounts, my parents are the biggest
Speaker 1: gamers on Earth show. Give you the heads up there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Ariel and I are are both co founders
Speaker 1: co CEO. We we've both been in this business a
Speaker 1: long time and and kind of concurrently saw the same
Speaker 1: opportunity both across linear TV, V O D and and
Speaker 1: more about the demographics at large, So to to kind
Speaker 1: of take this from a big fifty thousand foot view
Speaker 1: down to a little bit of the micro Gaming is huge,
Speaker 1: it's been. It's bigger than arguably all sports and entertainment combined.
Speaker 1: A hundred fifty billion dollars this year, trending toward a
Speaker 1: three hundred billion dollar year industry in a few years.
Speaker 1: So by any metric, whether it's dollars or consumer engagement, um,
Speaker 1: it's a real thing. And by consumer engagement, to give
Speaker 1: you a sense, three hundred million people every single day
Speaker 1: go on YouTube to watch gaming video content and that
Speaker 1: ranges from people playing video games, to learning about video games,
Speaker 1: to entertainment properties around video games or e sports. So
Speaker 1: to say this category is is nothing short of a
Speaker 1: powerhouse would be an understatement. And really this is an
Speaker 1: elusive audience as far as television networks and marketers are concerned,
Speaker 1: it is very hard to reach Gen Z and millennial
Speaker 1: and the current TV landscape UM, and people are trying,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, there is no
Speaker 1: network that's dedicated to content for for this generation. And
Speaker 1: when you step back and look at the generation, nine
Speaker 1: out of ten Gen Z play video games regularly. So
Speaker 1: when you say, like are you a gamer? That be
Speaker 1: akin to asking, um, you know, a young gen z
Speaker 1: or a mallennial kid. We can affectionately call them to say,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, are you a music listener or you
Speaker 1: a dinner eater? The reality is is is this is
Speaker 1: something that's all they know that I should really be
Speaker 1: is like what game are you referring to? Is it
Speaker 1: Animal Crossing? Is it League of Legends? Is that call
Speaker 1: of duty? Um? So, once you recognize the scale of engagement,
Speaker 1: you really think about, Okay, we know it's big, but
Speaker 1: how can we help cater an opportunity this environment and
Speaker 1: create real engagement. So you've got the world of Twitch
Speaker 1: that's out there generating billions of hours of watched content
Speaker 1: per months in thing on YouTube, but there is they
Speaker 1: are really kind of archival and not necessarily the destination.
Speaker 1: There's no real curated way to engage in the category.
Speaker 1: And so, um, you know, just a little bit more
Speaker 1: on this area. And I both saw the same opportunity
Speaker 1: as that you can create a TV network that has
Speaker 1: gone out and recognize the best content creators across this
Speaker 1: universe taken this amazing production. I'm excited for Arial to
Speaker 1: tell you about his experience and where he comes from
Speaker 1: to take this wonderful TV production and hopefully elevate the
Speaker 1: craft that people are doing and what's called a user
Speaker 1: generated content manner, and create TV behind it and then
Speaker 1: string it all together, you know, create a TV network
Speaker 1: can allow a really safe space as for brands and
Speaker 1: partners to advertise and reach these communities. Um. And so
Speaker 1: that's what we've did, and that's that's where we are. Now.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you again, let me ask the basic
Speaker 1: question because I understand, I know that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of viewing of people playing video games, people playing video
Speaker 1: games in tournament fashion. Um, but this is really from
Speaker 1: your slate. This is really lifestyle and entertainment shows for
Speaker 1: the people that like to that like video gaming enough
Speaker 1: to watch other people play it on on platforms. Um.
Speaker 1: This is that's if I understand right, it is this
Speaker 1: is a TV network for the streaming generation. And then
Speaker 1: is a double on tunder it's the video Game Entertainment
Speaker 1: News Network. But it really is the intersection of gaming, entertainment, music,
Speaker 1: pop culture and really the generations. And that's the next
Speaker 1: is where we live. I'll give Arial a chance to
Speaker 1: get a word and edgewise on it. And Ariel, you
Speaker 1: are speaking to us from your play of Vista your
Speaker 1: studio in play of Vista. Uh sorry, Berril, you are
Speaker 1: speaking to us from your studio in play a Vista
Speaker 1: where you have expansive facilities, and you're rare and to go. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are. Yes. So we launched actually on August five,
Speaker 1: which if which is next Wednesday, depending on when you're
Speaker 1: when you're listening to this podcast, maybe by the time
Speaker 1: you're listening, we've already launched, and we hope to get
Speaker 1: your feedback. If you're watching, we hope you're enjoying the
Speaker 1: programs that we're putting out there. But yeah, I'm here
Speaker 1: and we are in rehearsals. We've got all of our
Speaker 1: shows are we have twenty hours plus of fresh content
Speaker 1: that we're going to be putting out each week, which
Speaker 1: against sort of the comp in the TV world, exceeds most,
Speaker 1: if not all, of the networks. You know, if you
Speaker 1: look at the amount of entertainment programming, live entertainment programming
Speaker 1: we're creating, it it stacks up really high. We've got
Speaker 1: a bunch of really interesting formats that both draw from
Speaker 1: the universes that Ben was describing of young people playing
Speaker 1: video games in a very raw, authentic way with the
Speaker 1: audience which you might see in Twitch. We're elevating that
Speaker 1: format and curating it and distributing it back to those
Speaker 1: same networks and those platforms where the young people are.
Speaker 1: And Ben hinted at it a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: way TV is currently set up, it's in a bit
Speaker 1: of a crisis because it can't follow its consumers, right,
Speaker 1: And that's a very basic concept that as demographies change, Right,
Speaker 1: young people have been consuming content in a bunch of
Speaker 1: a bunch of ways. They're not only looking for short clips,
Speaker 1: they're not only looking to play video games, they're not
Speaker 1: only looking to watch movies. But they are consuming a
Speaker 1: lot of of content. And so the the version of
Speaker 1: TV that I I see and Ben and I see
Speaker 1: is really it's it's a more I guess you'd say
Speaker 1: it's a more generous kind of definition. It's transmitting video
Speaker 1: and sound in a bunch of different platforms in a
Speaker 1: bunch of different ways. And so when you look at
Speaker 1: young people, they are really consuming a lot of content,
Speaker 1: and they play lots of video games. They might go
Speaker 1: to the movies, they might um binge watch on Netflix. Uh,
Speaker 1: they might have a second screen open on their phone
Speaker 1: or on a second monitor that's next them, and so
Speaker 1: what we want to do is create an authentic version
Speaker 1: of content that they love and that they understand. And
Speaker 1: because we are not uh sort of burdened I guess
Speaker 1: you might say by carriage fees and mfns that exists
Speaker 1: in the traditional TV world, we could think about a
Speaker 1: TV network in a very new and novel way, right.
Speaker 1: So we can create content that is akin to what
Speaker 1: you might see on traditional network, but we can distribute
Speaker 1: it to the channels where gamers and where young people are.
Speaker 1: So we will be the first ever seven channel on Twitch,
Speaker 1: on YouTube, on Twitter, right, but we'll also be on
Speaker 1: connected TVs, will be on traditional m v p d
Speaker 1: s like people like you might see on a on
Speaker 1: a cable system right that is now shifting into a
Speaker 1: more digital warm. We also will be on the v
Speaker 1: m v p d s, which are the skinny bundles, right.
Speaker 1: So we aspire to create content that is contemporary and
Speaker 1: that is natively interesting for this streaming generation. Has Ben
Speaker 1: calls it, bring it, bring those creators onto our network
Speaker 1: creative virtuous cycle with them. So we helped to elevate
Speaker 1: the things that they do natively really well and where
Speaker 1: they've built audiences that quite frankly rival and exceed in
Speaker 1: some cases traditional TV hits in the demo especially, and
Speaker 1: bring them onto our network and curate a whole slate
Speaker 1: of content for this audience. It sounds to me like
Speaker 1: you want to be something of a food network or
Speaker 1: h G TV. That is the sort of a destination.
Speaker 1: It's it's a bit of comfort food. You may not
Speaker 1: go for a particular show, but you know what you're
Speaker 1: turning on when you get that channel? Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that the thinking? Yeah? That that really is so the
Speaker 1: way to look at the programming landscape. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: your audience knows this well as as readers of Variety
Speaker 1: is you've got to send really you know, young skewing TV.
Speaker 1: You've got Disney, You've got Nickelodeon, you've got Cartoon Network
Speaker 1: that really feels the you know, the young demos kind
Speaker 1: of preteen, etcetera. There's really a chasm of programming for
Speaker 1: gen Z and millennials. You kind of look at the
Speaker 1: demos from the ESPNS or the Comedy Central, they've all
Speaker 1: kind of skewed up in age. Now what you'll find
Speaker 1: is gen Z and millennial type programmings intermittently dispersed across networks. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not your Rick and Morty on Adult Swim, that's
Speaker 1: your Game of Thrones on HBO. Depending on which platform
Speaker 1: that you jump to. There are shows that tend to
Speaker 1: resonate well with therese younger demos. What there is not
Speaker 1: is a network that is essentially a cultural flag bearer
Speaker 1: for these generations. You hearken back to MTV in the nineties,
Speaker 1: right when people were gathering outside fifteen Broadway eighties nineties
Speaker 1: were out there and VJs were all the thing. It
Speaker 1: was a cultural movement with music. That's where young folks
Speaker 1: would turn in to get their news or an attainment
Speaker 1: in the pop culture information, et cetera of what they love. Right,
Speaker 1: there's just not that in today's day and age. You
Speaker 1: mean MTV readily concedes that, you know, hun or ten
Speaker 1: hours of a hundred, you know, forty or fifty possible
Speaker 1: hours of a week in programming our repeats of ridiculousness.
Speaker 1: And I actually happened to be a fan of that show. Um,
Speaker 1: But it's when you program a network with that scale
Speaker 1: of programming, it's it's very different than going head on
Speaker 1: into creating his max amount of hours of live original,
Speaker 1: unique first run programming as you can. So, to Arial's point,
Speaker 1: we have more live original programming per week than any
Speaker 1: other TV network we've We've done the math MTVS at
Speaker 1: seven Discoveries about fifteen, sixteen, A and E right there
Speaker 1: as well. We're starting with over twenty and migrating to
Speaker 1: thirty and then once we open up our New York studio,
Speaker 1: because we have to studios, one imply a Vista in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, the other one in New York at at
Speaker 1: three World Trade Center overlooking the Oculus. That is our
Speaker 1: kind of modern day homage to MTV in their studio
Speaker 1: in Times Square. We're very excited to create a bicoastal
Speaker 1: programming set which will be over fifty hours a week,
Speaker 1: so we'll kind of be in a bit of rarefied
Speaker 1: air there. That sounds amazing, but it also sounds expensive.
Speaker 1: And as you said, you're not burdened with cable carriage fees.
Speaker 1: That's a cavy lift for excuse me, that's a heavy
Speaker 1: lift for purely advertising to support. How are you funding
Speaker 1: all of this? So so I answer that kind of
Speaker 1: twofold and I'll kick it over to Arials. So it
Speaker 1: is expensive if you're programming is procedurals that are scripted,
Speaker 1: that are big budget on locations, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: And candidly, there's been so much TV invested into what
Speaker 1: is the next generation of a lawyer's show where this
Speaker 1: doctor that sees ghosts or kind of iteration on either
Speaker 1: you know, medical, legal, whatever kind of scripted programming. Younger
Speaker 1: generations have really issued that really expensive scripted kind of
Speaker 1: no been there done that type of programming in favor
Speaker 1: of live programming, UM and programming that works really well
Speaker 1: in a studio system. That's why you see such thriving
Speaker 1: content on on YouTube and and on Twitch. And so
Speaker 1: what we've recognized is there's a world where we create
Speaker 1: TV and the tens of thousands of dollars per hour,
Speaker 1: not the hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour, and
Speaker 1: so our TV on average costs about nine less on
Speaker 1: an hourly basis than what you see in traditional TV
Speaker 1: prime time. That said, it's already proven to pull massive
Speaker 1: numbers that rival what you see on the prime time
Speaker 1: I'm give you an example. We have a talent called Austin.
Speaker 1: He's amazing. He's essentially the Mark Burnett of what you
Speaker 1: see on Twitch, he creates game shows, he you know,
Speaker 1: he pulls in wonderful engaged audiences and and you know,
Speaker 1: we're just such big fans. It is so Austin will
Speaker 1: have a concurrent audience of seventy five thousand at one
Speaker 1: time on Twitch. So let's say you part some of
Speaker 1: that out globally and say there's Spilitch outside of the
Speaker 1: demo he's pulling let's say thirty to forty thou in
Speaker 1: the demo. If you take a network that's a very big,
Speaker 1: you know, nationally syndicated network, let's go with with Discovery.
Speaker 1: Discovery Network across all platforms, every single bit of pay
Speaker 1: TV does about sixties sixty five thousand people in the
Speaker 1: demo in prime time. So on one platform, you've got
Speaker 1: a single individual who's pulling comparable numbers to what you
Speaker 1: know a Discovery network is is pulling within the demo.
Speaker 1: And Discovery obviously generate hundreds of millions of dollars a
Speaker 1: year in revenue and and aims at a at a
Speaker 1: different demo. But but to your your anti still valid, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess to the point is it aims to
Speaker 1: the higher demo as well as all the other networks
Speaker 1: aiming to the higher demos. I shouldn't say the older demo.
Speaker 1: I misspoke older demo that will make sure to get
Speaker 1: our nomenclaits are right. But yeah, I mean to the
Speaker 1: point if we can show what one platform someone can do,
Speaker 1: and if we can help elevate that art make it
Speaker 1: look like television. And by the way, my wife, she
Speaker 1: doesn't watch Twitch, she doesn't watch YouTube. She's assuredly not
Speaker 1: a gamer except animal crossing every now and then, but
Speaker 1: that will definitely qualify it as a gamer in today's
Speaker 1: day and age. But you know, she watched previews of
Speaker 1: these shows. She goes, oh my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like MTVS Challenge meets Fear Factor
Speaker 1: with a kind of new twist for streamers. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's what we're doing. She's like, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: this before. And that's the reaction we're trying to get
Speaker 1: to is this is a new breed of programming that
Speaker 1: people will understand and recognize and watch. Is familiar premium
Speaker 1: produce entertainment, but it will feel new and novel, and
Speaker 1: that may cover video games, that may cover music. We
Speaker 1: have a partnership with Proximity is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: E d M distribution channels on Tube to have almost
Speaker 1: ten million subs. We're gonna be creating a unique and
Speaker 1: engaging music content. We've got pop culture celebrities coming in
Speaker 1: with movies, TV shows, et cetera. This is going to
Speaker 1: feel like premium TV for the younger generation and that
Speaker 1: is our bat that it will draw the kinds of
Speaker 1: eyeballs across all platforms that advertisers are looking for in
Speaker 1: a brand safe manner and again with less costs on
Speaker 1: the production side, and we think comparable revenue on that side.
Speaker 1: We think that's a not only a survivable business model,
Speaker 1: but what we think ultimately a very profitable And you
Speaker 1: have a f understand right you have distribution deals with Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, gaming?
Speaker 1: Is that a rev share or an ad inventory share?
Speaker 1: How do those deals work? So so it will vary,
Speaker 1: so it varies, so it obviously varies. We have built
Speaker 1: an amalgam of TV, TV experience, game experience, entertain experience
Speaker 1: at our company and that's something that I think was
Speaker 1: part of the answer for the last question too. We
Speaker 1: realize that there are certain core competencies that that you
Speaker 1: need to bring to the table to create a TV network.
Speaker 1: So our CEO is the former Discovery Channel c CEO
Speaker 1: and CFO name is Neil Kirsch. We've brought his entire
Speaker 1: pricing and planning team to the table. Our head of
Speaker 1: sales is from Facebook. Guy named Dave eckenstein uh is
Speaker 1: who's the head of our head of sales now. But
Speaker 1: he was with Facebook, he was at um Bleacher Report
Speaker 1: in BuzzFeed, and even before that he was he was
Speaker 1: in sales and at Fox and NBC. So we have
Speaker 1: an incredibly refined, purposeful team that understands how to build,
Speaker 1: build media plans and how to actually sell TV. Now
Speaker 1: you look at what we're making, and we're making something
Speaker 1: that's in it's elusive in a lot of ways for advertisers.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk it through for a second. It's elusive
Speaker 1: because the demo is usually pretty pretty like fragmented and
Speaker 1: hard to find. It's delusive because of some issues with
Speaker 1: brand safety, right. It's elusive because the digital platforms where
Speaker 1: the traditional TV networks can they cannot go there because
Speaker 1: the shackles that they have with their mfns and their
Speaker 1: carriage fees, they're they're they're kind of like not able
Speaker 1: to be there, and so what is left there in
Speaker 1: that space is something that's a little bit hard to
Speaker 1: understand for most brands, and they're not sure that they
Speaker 1: want to wade into the water and figure out like
Speaker 1: do I want to invest in a specific U g
Speaker 1: C creator? Do I want to invest in a team
Speaker 1: in E sports? Where do you want to invest? So
Speaker 1: as we're looking at our business model, it's built very
Speaker 1: much on the back of natively understanding what the market likes,
Speaker 1: how do they like it like that, you know, little
Speaker 1: things like let the let the pacing be a little
Speaker 1: bit more more casual, Like you don't have to overformat,
Speaker 1: you don't have to overproduce things. Because this audience that's
Speaker 1: built they're sort of like taste buds on streaming content.
Speaker 1: They really they're used to watching really long form content
Speaker 1: where they're engaging directly with the audience. You have to
Speaker 1: also really think about what does engagement look like on
Speaker 1: our network. And so when we building our studio here,
Speaker 1: we invested almost exclusively in digital signage because we want
Speaker 1: to create um interactive formats with the audience rather than
Speaker 1: building lots of scenic structures. I mean, there's there are
Speaker 1: just so many ways that you can you can build
Speaker 1: affinity with with gamers, but but also distributed in a
Speaker 1: very mature way that is comforting for for advertisers. Right
Speaker 1: that are that are so that are so focused on
Speaker 1: on targeting gamers now, especially with COVID, where there's there's
Speaker 1: been this like a massive mainstream light shining down on gaming,
Speaker 1: right when everyone's sort of inside gaming numbers are up, right,
Speaker 1: everyone's playing games. This is not really news to Bend
Speaker 1: and me, but it has been further validation for our
Speaker 1: business model, which is which is like great authentic content
Speaker 1: for this market, make it in a way that's palatable
Speaker 1: for them and really easy for for investing. I want
Speaker 1: to yeah, I want to get specifically to your question
Speaker 1: about distribution because this is a very big component and
Speaker 1: it's the way that we've gone into structuring our business
Speaker 1: with any TV network. With ABC, for instance, go take
Speaker 1: your phone out, go to ABC dot com. The first
Speaker 1: question you're going to be asked is please authenticate with
Speaker 1: your TV provider. Right. That is a fundamental roadblock to
Speaker 1: access and that is the unfortunate downside of the way
Speaker 1: that the TV business models were constructed, which are twofold.
Speaker 1: It is an ad inventory share model. So it's what's
Speaker 1: called national airtime, right, and the network sell those national
Speaker 1: airtime on their own, you know, every day, week, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's what upfronts are. There is then platform or local
Speaker 1: or affiliate time to where regional broadcasters, whether it's your Comcast,
Speaker 1: whether it's a Samsung Smart TV, etcetera, will take a
Speaker 1: share of inventory and they will turn around and sell
Speaker 1: that inventory on their own. So you could be watching
Speaker 1: a feed on a platform like Video or Samsung, and
Speaker 1: you would see an AD that comes from a national AirPod.
Speaker 1: The next AirPod, the next commercial pod, you may see
Speaker 1: an AD that Samsung sold specifically for that platform. So
Speaker 1: we understand and accept that model, and that is the
Speaker 1: backbone of what we're doing. However, TV is also set
Speaker 1: up with what what's called a sub feme model, to
Speaker 1: where essentially it's like, okay, you know, Spectrum or Comcast, etcetera,
Speaker 1: pay us for you know, per sub to be able
Speaker 1: to the right to carry our content. The problem that's
Speaker 1: happened in television is these distributors say, hey, we don't
Speaker 1: have the money to pay your ever increasing sub fees,
Speaker 1: and so this is highly problematic and TV networks are
Speaker 1: going fine, well, don't carry us, and that essentially is
Speaker 1: mutually assured destruction. So what happened is with those deals
Speaker 1: they have what are called MFN or most Favored Nation clauses. Right,
Speaker 1: that means is if I charge spectrum ex send per
Speaker 1: and I charge Comcast less spectrum then drops down to
Speaker 1: the Comcast level. Right, creates all kinds of havoc, and
Speaker 1: all kinds of havoc. But what you assuredly cannot do
Speaker 1: is take your feet and then make it free. And
Speaker 1: that is that is the crux of the issue now
Speaker 1: with television is younger demographics. Consumption patterns have migrated across
Speaker 1: different platforms with any industry, whether you're in fossil fuels
Speaker 1: and you're we're seeing the largest entertainment players have to
Speaker 1: plow billions into read engineering their operations to to reach
Speaker 1: that demo. And and still that you know, the death
Speaker 1: screen of authentication is still for you know in many
Speaker 1: cases that you know is that first thing that you
Speaker 1: have to get through, and it's the it's a big
Speaker 1: turn off. I love the screen of death. Analogy, So
Speaker 1: what's happening, just to kind of round out this point,
Speaker 1: is from a bottoms up perspective. In any business, if
Speaker 1: it's fossil fuels, you're thinking, Wow, I'm seeing the world
Speaker 1: of electric cars pick up. I'm going to diversify my
Speaker 1: acquisitions into electricity and renewable energy because that is needs
Speaker 1: to ensure the survivability of our business. We whips maybe
Speaker 1: falling out of fashion. What we realized is that because
Speaker 1: consumption patterns are migrating platforms like you know, a Pluto
Speaker 1: or or Zoom or mixer, Samsung or Video or wherever,
Speaker 1: we need to be flexible in our business model architecture
Speaker 1: to be able to live on those platforms. And the
Speaker 1: way you do that is by keeping the good stuff,
Speaker 1: which is the inventory share for her platform, giving up
Speaker 1: the sub fees, but making up for it ultimately in
Speaker 1: a higher CPM, which is the rate at which you
Speaker 1: charge advertising, and frankly more scale and so ultimately we
Speaker 1: believe that we will be carried on more platforms than
Speaker 1: any TV network. Like Ario mentioned, we are the first
Speaker 1: TV network to be broadcast live on Twitter. That's entertainment.
Speaker 1: I know, Cheddar kind of did it in a post
Speaker 1: cable model their millennial financial news. We believe that we're
Speaker 1: tacking into a much bigger audience with gaming and pop culture.
Speaker 1: UM will be the first network on YouTube, will be
Speaker 1: the first TV network on Twitch that carries the exact
Speaker 1: same feed everywhere real time. You just go to ven
Speaker 1: dot tv and you're watching our network. And ultimately, when
Speaker 1: brands want to hit scale and they want to hit
Speaker 1: as much of the NEMO as possible, will be how
Speaker 1: many platforms are you carried on? It will be We're
Speaker 1: carried everywhere. Let's not now talk about viewership. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you, are there any instances in which you are
Speaker 1: paying for carriage? No, no, that's not in the business model.
Speaker 1: But it's not I mean not in business model nor
Speaker 1: in any single deal that we have struck today that
Speaker 1: the models are all inventory share and they all vary
Speaker 1: on a per platform basis. But we have our national inventory,
Speaker 1: so when you're watching, you'll see our our commercials that
Speaker 1: we sell internally, and then you'll have local inventory that's
Speaker 1: sold on a per platform basis. I know you have
Speaker 1: a few deals, you have some deals with connected TVs,
Speaker 1: you know, to be directly on their on their home hubs.
Speaker 1: What would you say is harder working at a deal
Speaker 1: with a Twitch or a Twitter or YouTube or working
Speaker 1: at a deal with a Samsung or a TV set manufacturer.
Speaker 1: I mean personally, Yeah, this has been an amazing process
Speaker 1: with the TV manufacturers, and it's been a wonderful process
Speaker 1: with all the different platforms. There is a rush to
Speaker 1: grab quality content. We're filling a hole that's needed. Um.
Speaker 1: Everyone has been equally we'd say, willing and an awesome partner.
Speaker 1: Some bigger organizations take a little bit longer. That's why
Speaker 1: we'll be announcing some of the bigger platforms that will
Speaker 1: be on here in the coming months because it's a
Speaker 1: little harder to close as deals by launch, but they're there. Um.
Speaker 1: And when you hear about him, I said, okay, well
Speaker 1: that that's exciting and big news. And I understand why
Speaker 1: that deal would take longer than you know, a more
Speaker 1: nimble platform, but I would I would just put it
Speaker 1: this way too, and it and it gets down to
Speaker 1: a little bit of a segmentation discussion. But when you
Speaker 1: look at game and gaming is massive, right, it's this
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty billion dollar industry. Right when when we
Speaker 1: think about gamers traditionally we're really it's really shorthand for
Speaker 1: like competitive gamers kind of like that black liquorice loving
Speaker 1: kind of you know, you might say, like League of Legends,
Speaker 1: they're deep into the cosplay world. They're like maybe Internet trolls,
Speaker 1: so to speak, etcetera. That's that's kind of like an
Speaker 1: old school version of what gaming actually is, right, So
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot of what you might see on
Speaker 1: on Twitch and the streaming platforms right now. But if
Speaker 1: you look at the demography actually, and we did a
Speaker 1: segmentation study with Colinice, who is our our head of insights,
Speaker 1: who came from Twitch, he found that that's actually only
Speaker 1: about a third of the audience. So another third is
Speaker 1: really what we call it casual gamers that are playing
Speaker 1: this animal crossing there into Marvel. They are super into
Speaker 1: like the k pop and using social media and TikTok,
Speaker 1: and they are more maybe on on YouTube. Then there's
Speaker 1: a whole other group that's about that are elder millennials,
Speaker 1: which are a little bit older. They have jobs, they
Speaker 1: have kids now, they have you know, responsibilities and air quotes,
Speaker 1: but they still really identify with the console wars. Right
Speaker 1: They've been there from the beginning. They have a deep
Speaker 1: pride in a sense of kind of like I've completed,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred hour games. You know, X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z. When you say Zelda, they could have like
Speaker 1: a ted talk about it, right, you know? And so
Speaker 1: that is yeah, you know what I mean. So, so
Speaker 1: what what we are hoping to do with our distribution
Speaker 1: is not just acquire more eyes. I mean, that's only
Speaker 1: a small part of the reason to do this, right,
Speaker 1: it's to be where all of the potential consumers are.
Speaker 1: And because the media landscape is shifting so quickly, we
Speaker 1: want to be as fastile and as integrated with a
Speaker 1: TikTok or snap as we are with Twitter or or
Speaker 1: Facebook right, or as we are with connected TVs. And
Speaker 1: we're gonna find and I think we'll see after we launch.
Speaker 1: I hope our our suspicions are correct that we're actually
Speaker 1: hitting these different segments in a very unique and novel
Speaker 1: way that satisfies an audience that maybe didn't even understand
Speaker 1: or didn't follow the movement and streaming right, didn't follow
Speaker 1: kind of twitch and and how that that whole thing
Speaker 1: had had sort of progressed. And that's okay, because we're
Speaker 1: trying to destigmatize gaming at large, right, We're trying to
Speaker 1: We're trying to you know, sort of like push off
Speaker 1: the notion of this like mono type type of persona
Speaker 1: that that is perceived by some about gamers. Right, it's
Speaker 1: all about celebrating things that you love. For us, it's
Speaker 1: about shining light onto in some cases niche passion and
Speaker 1: really bringing it out in our content. And it's giving
Speaker 1: a platform to to really be civically minded in certain
Speaker 1: respects without proxy virtue proxy and saying like the world
Speaker 1: needs to change. Young people are is where that change
Speaker 1: is going to happen. And we have the ability with
Speaker 1: our platform, even in COVID, even in strange times, to
Speaker 1: make a big difference. And so we feel like by
Speaker 1: putting together the right type of content creators, building the
Speaker 1: right type of authentic trust with them, and then distributing
Speaker 1: in a novel way where we can move with the
Speaker 1: consumers on like you know, the more aged industries, that
Speaker 1: we stand a real chance of of building, you know,
Speaker 1: something to last. And that's that's exciting, that's deeply exciting
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: are probably listening to this, and I just want to
Speaker 1: speak speak to that that you know that that you
Speaker 1: can you can go out there and make make something
Speaker 1: from scratch that that can hopefully make a difference. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you about the content operation. How are you
Speaker 1: going to balance the user gen nature of this that
Speaker 1: is going to appeal to the audience of the target
Speaker 1: audience with the concerns about brand safety and the need
Speaker 1: to presented, you know, to present to present pro programming
Speaker 1: rather than people just kind of ripping. So I can
Speaker 1: hit that one, and then you probably have some thoughts
Speaker 1: on this clearly, but I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: partially about understanding what your brand stands for in any
Speaker 1: any sense, right, you need to know what does my
Speaker 1: brand stand for? And for us, we are trying to
Speaker 1: actively push back on bullying internet sort of internet bullying, um,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the stereotypes that that exist in
Speaker 1: gaming that um, you know, and hiding behind an anonymous
Speaker 1: sort of shield or wall while you're playing games and
Speaker 1: you start to act out and all this. We're trying
Speaker 1: to push back on that. So it starts with us
Speaker 1: knowing that about our brand, and then when we select
Speaker 1: those partners that we want to work with, whether it's
Speaker 1: creators or or partner brands you select for the telegenics.
Speaker 1: You select for their audience, of course, and their affinity
Speaker 1: with the market, but you you select them knowing what
Speaker 1: you're getting, right, And so there's a wide spectrum of
Speaker 1: different types of eats out there. Some of them are yeah,
Speaker 1: quite toxic, and we we are not interested in working
Speaker 1: with them. Some of them are legitimately you know, um,
Speaker 1: making content that that is uh, you know, it is
Speaker 1: really authentic and and there, and we see them that
Speaker 1: they're on the come up, and we want to mutually
Speaker 1: invest in creating content together and we support the thing
Speaker 1: they do. So just to kind of make sure that
Speaker 1: that everyone's listening to this understands it. You might say, well,
Speaker 1: are you competitors with Twitch? No, not at all, right,
Speaker 1: we work with Twitch. Creators were distributed on Twitch. They
Speaker 1: sell our inventory, by the way, and when they have
Speaker 1: content that they create on their platform, we say, give us,
Speaker 1: give us one day of your content a week, we
Speaker 1: will cross promote you. You will still be with your
Speaker 1: current audience. Because of the way that Twitch has their
Speaker 1: distribution and it's kind of like a modern version of syndication,
Speaker 1: they can actually stream to their audience and then project
Speaker 1: it over to to our channel through through the way
Speaker 1: that it works on Twitch, and we can then take
Speaker 1: their content and distribute it more widely. So if they
Speaker 1: are feeling like they're hitting a glass ceiling, or they're
Speaker 1: feeling like they're getting tired of creating the same type
Speaker 1: of gameplay content every day, we can work with them
Speaker 1: and give them producers and and modern graphics tools and
Speaker 1: a studio in some cases to create some new stuff
Speaker 1: that will make them excited and feel like they're growing
Speaker 1: as creators. So again to get back to your question,
Speaker 1: you know, are we worried about brand safety? I think
Speaker 1: we we are going to succeed in being authentic and
Speaker 1: resonant for the audience. So we want to and we
Speaker 1: do have an SMP person by the way, I just
Speaker 1: talked to them today, So we're creating rules. Of course,
Speaker 1: then there's some like strictly very very dark red lines,
Speaker 1: right like you know, human rights and like hate speech
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff. We also want to
Speaker 1: be natively natural for the audience, and so that's going
Speaker 1: to be a line. But I think actually we might
Speaker 1: be slightly more open to you know, the speaking frankly
Speaker 1: or whatever. But at the same time, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: so by and far, the most brand safe product that's
Speaker 1: ever existed in this in this vernacular that I think
Speaker 1: our partners are going to be super happy that we're
Speaker 1: being up it. Do you have any launch partners sponsor
Speaker 1: advertising launch partners lined up yet that you can disclose? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the reason you're hearing arials phone go off
Speaker 1: is we've got our ad sales team. We just closed
Speaker 1: back to back deals. They would have put it on mute,
Speaker 1: because I think that's a good thing and a bad
Speaker 1: thing for an interview to congratulations, Thank you, thank you. UM.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in variety, we signed a very large
Speaker 1: category exclusive deal will be announcing in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: It was actually just shy ten million dollars a year. UM.
Speaker 1: It's a very exciting partnership and we've signed many, many
Speaker 1: individual deals. All of those deals are gonna be revealed
Speaker 1: on on both kind of a rolling basis and as
Speaker 1: per our our mutual announcements. What has become unbelievably clear
Speaker 1: is that this is a white space that advertisers are
Speaker 1: looking to put their money into UM and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of brands who need this very pivotal U
Speaker 1: gen Z and literal audience and don't have means to
Speaker 1: access them. UM we have got national QUSR brands, global
Speaker 1: tech brands, UM lifestyle brands, you name it, across category, Telco,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth, and so you'll see some
Speaker 1: of those that launch, will see some of those rolling
Speaker 1: out throughout the year. UM big opportunity here and we're
Speaker 1: starting to see that reflecting the marketplace. It's very exciting
Speaker 1: for us. How much to date have you raised uh
Speaker 1: to to launch van Our Our seed series raise was
Speaker 1: seventeen million dollars. As we talk here today, you are
Speaker 1: six days out from launch. By the time this airs,
Speaker 1: you'll probably be six days or more past launch. But
Speaker 1: as we talk today six days out, what is keeping
Speaker 1: you both up at night? What is what is the
Speaker 1: thing that you're angsting about most as you get as
Speaker 1: you get close to launch. I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: one thing. I think it's all the things. Right. If
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur isn't up worrying or looking over their shoulder,
Speaker 1: you know, checking at crossing every tea and dot every eye,
Speaker 1: then you're not you're doing something wrong. So I think
Speaker 1: ultimately arial and my goal is are we creating resonant entertainment?
Speaker 1: That people enjoy watching. I think if that is your
Speaker 1: first goal, it's really the content. It's not the business economics.
Speaker 1: It's you know, revenue is a byproduct, you know, doing
Speaker 1: the right thing on a way that engages with an
Speaker 1: audience and all that we're we're really worried about making
Speaker 1: sure this TV is is good TV um and you
Speaker 1: know that's what we hope the day one people can
Speaker 1: see that. I hope people are patient with us. Launching
Speaker 1: a network is not easy, especially in the timeframe we
Speaker 1: did it. So for us, it's really listening to the
Speaker 1: feedback when it goes live, being out there on Twitter,
Speaker 1: being out there on Twitch, engaging and chat, hearing the
Speaker 1: feedback and doing our best incorporate uh that back into
Speaker 1: our program and to give ultimately the best product to
Speaker 1: the audience. Well, it will be interesting to see what
Speaker 1: the then diagram looks like in six months, twelve months time.
Speaker 1: Good luck to you, admire anybody that that is putting
Speaker 1: this much into chasing a big dream. Thank you both
Speaker 1: for your time, Thank you, thank you give with you,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear from listeners and
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in next week for another episode
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business.