Wurl TV, a company that curates and develops OTT-based “channels” that can be woven into the set-top guides of MVPDs, has hired Mike Woods as SVP and head of product.

Woods, who starts at Wurl TV on May 1, most recently was VP of product management at Maker Studios, the Disney-owned digital programmer. He is also late of Edmunds.com and Ernst & Young.

RELATED: Disney Agrees to Buy Maker Studios for $500M

Wurl TV has completed integrations with “Elevate,” a platform from Espial that was derived from Espial’s acquisition last year of Arris’s Whole Home Solutions business, as well as TiVo-powered devices.

RELATED: TiVo Tacks On Wurl TV’s OTT Channels

Wurl TV’s co-produced channels include Newsy, IGN TV, Baeble Music TV, and FNL Network. A Wurl TV-produced offering, the ALT Channel, features content from partners such as Busca TV, Sportskool, ZoominTV, Splash News, Obsev, Foody TV, Comedy Time, and Bonnier, among others.

“Mike is an experienced executive who will lead Wurl’s efforts to revolutionize TV programming delivery,” said Sean Doherty, Wurl’s CEO and founder, said in a statement. “Mike brings Wurl the digital DNA that will drive product innovation for our digital studio partners.”

New York – Content for digital short-form and long-form shows is increasingly coming from the gaming and social communities, with a growing list of content creators emerging from online sources like Instagram, Vine and similar sources, a panel of experts said at a Next TV Summit panel session Wednesday.

While online video sites like You Tube are still a major source to find talent, Maker Studios vice president of distribution and strategic partnership Kendra Johnson said during the Next TV session “The New Studios,” that her company is increasingly finding content creators trough other sources.

“Across our creative community we are active in discovering voices as they arise,” Johnson said during the discussion moderated by B&C deputy editor Mike Malone.

She added that Maker, which was purchased by the Walt Disney Co. last year, also casts from traditional sources – Maker is working with actor James Franco’s production company on a project as well as with alumni from Saturday Night Live and ABC sitcom Modern Family.

“Consumers are not consuming one type of content,” Johnson said.

New Form Digital, which recently signed a deal to provide six short-form digital series to Verizon Communications’ go90 mobile video service, also taps talent from several different sources, including You Tube. Senior vice president of development JC Cangilla said that typically New Form signs talent that already has a following on social media.

“We tend to respond to things people have put up and that have been tested,” Cangilla said.

The types of content being produced runs the gamut from horror and drama to comedy and reality shows, but another emerging genre and one that lends itself well to the digital platform is interactive content. At Interlude, a company that specializes in interactive digital content, president and chief operating officer Jim Spare said distributors are learning a lot from the gaming community.

Interlude adds interactive capabilities to programming allowing viewers to directly engage with shows, whether it is by answering questions or choosing specific camera shots and angles to actually determining which direction a particular story will go. Spare said the inclusion of interactivity drives deeper engagement with viewers – in one two-and-a-half minute short that allows the viewer to direct how the main character reacts to a potential home invasion, viewers spend an average of 7 minutes clicking on different outcomes.

“We’re finding that young audiences love the idea of being able to talk to a video and interact with a video,” Spare said. “It’s truly personal and it’s driving retention and engagement rates.”

While the interactive element seems to take some of the creative control out of the content creators’ hands, the panelists said that isn’t the case because the creator defines each scenario. And it provides them with information regarding what their viewers like to see.

“We’re finding a class of creator that loves the notion of enabling the experience,” Spare said.

That mountain of data also is valuable to advertisers.  

“This is very valuable to advertisers and brands trying to deliver a message,” Spare added. “There are incredible applications in testing and being able to test consumer reaction to different choices for talent and story lines.”

Content creators also are becoming increasingly savvy regarding finances, especially since larger companies like AT&T, Verizon, Disney and AOL have begun to invest in the space. But the new breed of content creator isn’t just biding their time before they strike a big network deal.

Johnson said it depends on the creators – some are looking to a network or feature film deal as the ultimate goal, while others would rather keep control of their content and maintain a more personal connection to their audience.

Cangilla agreed.

“The talent class we tend to work with are entertainers and entrepreneurs; they understand the economics of the business of the business,” Cangilla said. “In some cases the TV deal would be most lucrative, but in other cases it would be the digital one.”

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT pay TV service tailored for cord-cutters, said has expanded its core, $20 per month package, as well as its $5 per month “Hollywood Extra” pack.

Sling TV said it has added Polaris+, an exclusive linear offering for the OTT provider from Maker Studios that features long-form original programming on topics such as gaming, pop culture, comic and live-event programming. Polaris+ is an extension of Maker’s Polaris brand, which attracts more than 3 billion monthly views. Sling TV also offers the Maker channel in its baseline $20 per month package.

Sling TV has also added Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to its Hollywood Extra pack, which is available to subs for $5 per month on top of the core $20 package. Launched in March, Hollywood Extra also features the live feeds of EPIX, EPIX2, EPIX3, EPIX Drive-In, and Sundance TV. 

Sling TV was launched nationally on February 9. Dish hasn’t revealed subscriber figures, but Re/code reported in June that it had about 250,000.

Maker Studios is set to launch short-form comedy series Crashpad on YouTube, Maker.tv and Music Choice TV on Dec. 5.

Starring comedian Bart Baker, the series -- a dozen, 11-minute episodes -- will run on Fridays at 9 p.m. and feature clips, games and talk show bits across Maker.tv, Music Choice Play and Music Choice On Demand. Four-minutes segments are set to run on Baker's YouTube channel.

The show is co-produced by Maker and Drama 3/4.

There will be appearances by digital notables Amy Pham, Iman “AlphaCat” Crosson, Ed Bassmaster, Sam Macaroni, Timothy DeLaGhetto, Shane Dawson, Lisa Shwartz, DeStorm, King Bach and Jesse Wellens of Prank vs. Prank.

“Teaming up with both Music Choice and Jukin for a cross-platform program is hugely exciting,” said Bonnie Pan, executive vice president of programming at Maker Studios. “We are thrilled to collaborate on a innovative new comedy format that features some of the biggest digital stars today—we can’t wait to see what audiences both new and old will think.”

Noted Damon Williams, vice president of programming at Music Choice: ''Securing the U.S. TV distribution rights for CrashPad continues to demonstrate Music Choice’s commitment to bringing the best programming to our network for millennials. Maker has been a great partner for us this year and we are very excited to extend it with this deal.”

Earlier this year, Maker and Music Choice announced a distribution partnership bringing a number of digital stars across all Music Choice platforms, including Music Choice Play, Music Choice Music Channels and Music Choice On Demand. In 2014 Music Choice featured a month-long takeover of Bart Baker’s comedic music parodies and began access to over 500 hours of Maker fare.

Erin McPherson, chief content officer of Maker Studios, described the outfit as a “next-generation media company that “wants to be the world’s doorstep for creators and creativity.”

Speaking at the B&C and Multichannel News' Next TV Summit San Francisco in a keynote Q&A with B&C Editor-in-Chief Melissa Grego, McPherson said that while Maker, following its $950 million acquisition by The Walt Disney Co., operates as an autonomous entity, the unit is already aggressively collaborating with the entertainment giant. She said she’s spending about half of a typical day working with various Disney/ABC colleagues or brands and that the Star Wars-related project hinted at during Maker’s NewFront presentation continues to make progress.

As a core of its programming strategy, Maker has identified 23 verticals in four major categories, McPherson said: gaming and sports; life and style; family; and entertainment. McPherson shared a graphic that lines up various Disney brands with those verticals, illustrating just how naturally Maker and Disney fit given many of Maker’s 55,000 creators are already making content that synchs up with various Disney brands.

McPherson underscored that Maker continues to collaborate with partners outside of Disney, however the collaboration within the company clearly also is a priority and a pillar of the company’s programming strategy.

“We see an opportunity to take premium Disney content from Pixar, ABC, ESPN etc. and create new short form content,” she said, adding that she sees potential for Maker and colleagues within the Disney/ABC TV operation to share best practices and even some development efforts.

 “We shot a whole season [for a new series of kids shorts] in a week and that really surprised my Disney/ABC colleagues,” McPherson says. “We think there is a lot of opportunity to be found in best practice of digital and TV.”

Maker indeed turns content around quickly and could even serve as a testing ground for characters, such as a Marvel character, for example; or they could test characters or personalities by having them vlog on Youtube. The feedback and data Youtubers naturally gather is another important aspect of Maker.

Naturally, the discussion of OTT is a big topic at Next TV and McPherson said it is one within Maker as well. She said the company does aspire to have presence on OTT services but declined to offer a timeline of when we might see any of the 23 Maker verticals or individual shows make an OTT or VOD debut. Different programs are suited to different platforms and McPherson says Maker endeavors to identify the best fit.

Earlier this year, Disney acquired Maker in a deal that has been reported to involve as much as $950 million with incentives. However, Maker’s management hadn’t been intending to sell the company, McPherson said. But as talks progressed about content partnerships, they realized that the two companies had so much crossover in the 23 verticals that it made sense to expand the talks to the point where Disney eventually decided to acquire the company.

As the growth potential of Maker apparently drew Disney’s interest, it likewise caught the attention of McPherson, who joined the company in late November 2013. She noted that when she joined the company late last year from Yahoo, Maker had an average 5.5 billion monthly views, and it is now up to 8.5 billion and on track to hit 10 billion.

Other highlights from the panel:

*Maker now has 550 million subscribers and 55,000 creators. About 70% of audience is international and 60% is aged 13 to 34.

*About 50% of Maker’s audience comes from mobile, with an even higher percentage internationally. “It is as much about mobile as video,” she said. 

* Maker differs significantly from traditional media, McPherson said, because they have “sourced” content creation for its targeted 23 verticals out “to audience demand,” drawing on a network of over 55,000 creators.