And Pandora to digital video and BuzzFeed to Snapchat. A new study from the VAB claims to make these cross-platform comparisons buyers have been craving for years.
The network is celebrating Leap Day partnering with American Express to create custom show content to add to the broadcasts of Blindspot, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Voice and Today. In addition, BuzzFeed will create social content around the shows to drive tune-in.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that companies like BuzzFeed, Vice Media and Huffington Post are known as “new media” specialists. Now, they’re venturing aggressively into a decidedly old-media stronghold: television. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
BuzzFeed is bring native political video ads into its mix, and Rena Shapiro has been tapped as VP, politics and advocacy, to oversee the venture. BuzzFeed Motion Pictures will collaborate in the venture, and the ads will — no surprise — be labeled as such.
Media giant NBCUniversal has an Achilles’s heel, according to its top executive. And it hopes it has come up with a cure for the ailment. CEO Steve Burke said the company took a look at four different outlets: BuzzFeed, Vox, Vice and Huffington Post. NBCU recently announced it would invest $200 million in each of the first two companies, in deals that will allow for content sharing, joint advertising pacts, and said Burke, education. “We like their businesses, but the real deal is we are going to get smarter” about reaching consumers with content through digital outlets.
As part of the deal, the parties will also explore strategic partnerships across both organizations in the coming months.”We look forward to collaborating on television content, movies, the Olympics and joint partnerships with ad agencies and brands,” said Buzzfeed Executive Chairman Kenneth Lerer.
Exclusives
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal is scouting out several companies in the world of new media for potential deals as the cable giant tries to court young consumers who are watching less traditional television. The company has engaged in preliminary discussions with several online publishers including Vice Media, BuzzFeed and Business Insider, and has discussed increasing its roughly 14% stake in Vox Media, according to people familiar with the matter. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising festival on Wednesday, BuzzFeed Chief Executive Jonah Peretti said the company is now actively exploring ways to bring the BuzzFeed brand to television sets. The challenge, according to Peretti, is in figuring out how to adapt BuzzFeed’s approach and digital strengths for the analog world.
The growth of Buzzfeed‘s investigative unit to 17 staffers — with two more on the way — reflects the increasing emphasis on serious journalism by the site that has made its name and makes its money from its uncanny sense of what will blow up on social media, for its endless supply of sometimes silly, sometimes transcendent listicles, offbeat tales and wacky photos.
At least three posts out of more than 1,000 were erased after employees from the company’s business side complained about their content, according to a memo from BuzzFeed’s editor.
Jon Steinberg, BuzzFeed’s president and chief operating officer, claims the site is an increasingly important source of hard news for young people, in an appearance at the MIPCOM conference in Cannes today. “We feel strongly that traditional media have given up on young people, and have not made a commitment to tell stories that are interesting for people under 40 or 50 years old,” Steinberg says.
