AMC Networks’ rebranded streaming service ALLBLK takes a jump into the original sitcom pool with Millennials.

The series, from executive producer Bentley Kyle Evans (Martin), follows four young African-American roommates in Los Angeles as they search for success in the business world and the romance department. 

In doing so, the guys — straitlaced business student Omar (Kyle Massey), personal trainer Jaheem (Keraun Harris), would-be YouTube star Travis (Philip Bolden) and college dropout Todd (Aaron Grady) — find themselves in some strange and often humorous situations that allow the actors to flex their comedic muscles. Whether it’s conspiring with neighbors (including aspiring actress Mercedes, played by Teresa Celeste) to throw a rent party to keep from getting evicted, or finding clever ways to help their roommate get even with a cheating, fame-chasing girlfriend, the guys’ antics both test and strengthen their relationships as they awkwardly but confidently stumble through life trying to make a name for themselves. 

The show’s premise isn’t exactly original: the comic exploits of roommates have been explored in shows from The Golden Girls to Friends to Living Single. But Millennials is a fun, lighthearted comedy that has the potential to grow on viewers as they become more familiar with characters over the show’s six-episode run. 

Millennials also stars Tanjareen Thomas, Buddy Lewis and Katherine Florence.

The $4.99 per month ALLBLK SVOD service — formerly known as UMC — will debut the six episodes on a weekly basis, beginning on Feb. 25. 

"Despite reasons to be wary, Quibi’s leadership knows they’ll have to pivot dramatically if subscription numbers don’t grow significantly and soon. For the service to thrive past year one, their shows must be so good that people will pay a monthly fee to watch programs they can’t find elsewhere." -Noor Naseer, senior director, media and innovations, Centro

Quibi wants to solve a problem that millennials don’t claim to have – the need to fill short breaks in their day with 8- to 10-minute segments of highly produced video content. The new app asks marketers to believe that mobile-only, short-form video will command massive viewership that won’t mind seeing ads. Now a month after launch, it’s still not clear why. That’s due to misunderstanding the role of mobile in the lives of their intended audience.

Quibi offers a library of premium, original content portioned into snack-size episodes. A-listers have signed on to star in 7,000 pieces of content planned to release this year. Attached high-profile talent includes Jennifer Lopez, Zac Efron and Chrissy Tiegen.

The service bundles celebrities, high-end production, and viewing times more common for user-generated content. What makes the programming uniquely suited for mobile devices? Quibi claims it’s the full-screen vertical and landscape viewing options. Beyond that, there is no unique mobile functionality.

The Short Break Wars

Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said he doesn’t see the platform competing in the streaming wars. Rather he sees it up against Instagram, mobile games and other apps that people turn to when taking short, daily breaks. Consumers probably won’t see it that way. After a 90-day trial period, Quibi costs either $4.99 (ad-supported) or $7.99 a month (ad-free).

The average American household is already subscribed to 3 streaming services, and a 2020 report of US subscription habits found that consumers don’t want to pay more than $30 per month to stream. And the market is only getting more crowded with the recent release of Peacock and the debut of HBO Max.

A Misguided Quest for Millennials

It’s likely that Quibi’s plan to launch as a mobile-only offering was correlated with an ongoing quest by marketers to reach millennials. Long touted as an audience tethered to their phones, Quibi may have used the trait to rationalize restricting access to a single device as opposed to what millennials really use their phones for –expanded access to more screens and democratized socialization with other users. But the service doesn’t offer those things.

This is a miss by Quibi because it isn’t the first service to attempt reaching the elusive millennial through mobile-only video. Verizon made a similar attempt in 2015 with the now defunct Go90. The streaming service was quickly marred by an inability to draw audiences. Go90 was shuttered in July 2018. The similarities put a heightened expectation on Quibi to not make the mistakes of a predecessor it draws comparisons to. Company CEO Meg Whitman has since announced the acceleration of plans to allow viewers to stream content to TVs.

Perspective for Advertisers

Upon launch, Quibi arrived prepared to share an advertising success story. The platform sold out its first year of ads totaling $150 million in revenue before the April 6th launch. It features national TV buying heavyweights including Progressive, P&G, Discover, Pepsi and Google.

Most alluring about Quibi for advertisers is the low ratio of ad loads per hour. It will run 2.5 minutes of non-skippable ads for every hour of content while traditional TV runs approximately 16 minutes of ads across the same time frame.

Despite the lack of ad availabilities this year, brands may hesitate to place ads even when given the option for numerous reasons.

• With the economy in recession, marketers want to bet on sure things. As brands pull back on ad spending, unproven investment options likely won’t make media plans.

• It’s a tall order to ask users to pay yet another subscription fee when company executives themselves describe the platform as competing with free and cheaper options like social media and mobile games.

• There’s no ad-supported free tier, a path that more streaming competitors are offering.

• The ads look like regular TV commercials that can also be viewed in a cropped vertical format.

• Unlike social apps like Snapchat and TikTok, Quibi has yet to give users the opportunity to engage or enrich their viewing experience.

Keep an Eye out for Pivots

Despite reasons to be wary, Quibi’s leadership knows they’ll have to pivot dramatically if subscription numbers don’t grow significantly and soon. For the service to thrive past year one, their shows must be so good that people will pay a monthly fee to watch programs they can’t find elsewhere. If Quibi pivots quickly enough to make their content available on every device, and also showcase distinct ways that ‘Turnstyle’ video brings life to storytelling, there may be a fighting chance to persuade Millennial viewers and the advertisers that seek to reach them.

Centro provides advertising technology to unify programmatic and direct media buying with workflow automation.

Next year GenZ and young millennials will comprise roughly 20% of the U.S. voting population which means they could have a significant impact on the outcome. These voters who are between the ages of 18 and 29 are actively shaping their candidate preferences and life-long political party affiliations. Politicians are expected to spend a record $10 billion on advertising and it’s critical for them to effectively reach young voters where they’re paying attention. Gone are the days of pouring millions into cable TV and praying for a big turn-out on election day - political advertisers need a much more granular, data-driven strategy to engage this massive audience.

Budgets Are Shifting to Where Voters are Watching

In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, politicians spent three times more on broadcast TV than digital but connected TV has grown rapidly in the last few years. Today, more than a third of U.S. households don’t have linear TV and that number will only rise as Americans opt for connected TV to watch what they want, when they want to. From shopping to dating, GenZennials are living their lives digitally. Media usage is no exception: 93% of GenZennials subscribe to at least one ad-supported connected TV platform, and spend more time with streaming TV than social media, linear TV, and audio media. Politicians who aren’t airing video ads on connected TV in 2020 will be missing out on reaching a large chunk of the electorate in a meaningful way.

Build Trust 

Social media campaigns are now a part of every politician’s advertising strategy but voters’ trust in these platforms is waning. Though Facebook is still one of the main sources of political information, fake news and the weaponization of this platform by foreign entities should give political advertisers pause. Eighty percent of GenZennials believe there is too much fake news on social media, 76% don’t think social media companies can stop fake news from appearing on their platforms, and 64% trust TV news more than social media. Mistrust of content has cascaded to advertising as well, with 63% describing social media political advertising using negative terms like “untrustworthy”, “deceitful”, and “fraudulent”. Connected TV shares the trust benefits of linear TV content and gives political advertisers more advanced targeting benefits such as being able to layer in voter registration data into their campaigns. 

Connected TV Drives Awareness That Leads To Action

Ultimately, politicians win elections when voters go to the polls, which means they have to not only know about the candidates but feel fired up and engaged. After seeing a political video ad, 80% of GenZennials took an average of two actions including conducting further research on a political issue and the candidates themselves. Furthermore, 68% of GenZennials said they found connected TV ads informative and 60% reported that they would seek out more information after watching an ad. The non-skippable, full-screen nature of connected TV ads spur audiences to take additional steps that get them that much closer to filling out a ballot. 

This young audience is hungry for information to make their decisions in 2020 and the time to act is now. Sixty percent of GenZennials said they want to learn about candidates more than six months prior to the primaries and caucuses and 70% of them will be paying more attention to political ads for this election than in 2016. The window for politicians to rally this energized cohort to their corner is getting slimmer by the day. With 52 million GenZennial votes on the line, candidates need to calibrate their advertising strategies to reach many of these first-time and undecided voters who can’t be found using the tactics of past elections.  

Telaria is the complete software platform that optimizes yield for leading video publishers.

While networks fret that they’ve been abandoned by younger viewers, Nielsen said they’re watching linear TV content, but they’re not sitting in the living room while they're watching.

It’s true that younger viewers are among the most active video streamers, but the relatively affluent members of the millennial generation and Generation Z are also watching linear TV content in out-of-home locations, according to a new Nielsen report.

With Nielsen measuring out of home viewing more thoroughly, and more ad buyers accepting out-of-home viewing among the impressions they pay for, the finding could mean extra dollars for TV networks.

Related: Nielsen Offers Quicker Data on Out-of-Home Viewing

ESPN was one of the first networks to subscribe to Nielsen’s Out-of-Home reporting service and use those extra viewers in negotiations with advertisers. Adding viewing in bars, health clubs, offices and mass transit lifts ESPN’s viewership by 8.5%, the network said.

Turner and CBS have also signed up for Nielsen’s Out-of-Home service.

Related: ESPN Touts Effectiveness of Commercials Seen Out of Home

In its new report, Nielsen looked at all out-of-home viewing during 2017. It found that 39% of all out-of home-viewing came from Gen Z and millennials, or 14% more than their national in-home viewing.

News viewing is usually thought to be largely confined to older viewers, but when looking at out-of-home consumption, the share represented by millennials and Gen Zers nearly tripled. Gen X’s share was also higher out-of-home (23%) than in-home (18%).

Nearly half of the out-of-home viewing for sports came from Gen Z and millennials.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Sports are "holding up better than TV viewership overall," including their attraction to millennial-aged viewers, according to a report from McKinsey & Co. The analysis also cites viewing out-of-home and on digital platforms as offering valuable opportunities to reach the elusive young audience.

McKinsey's report appeared this month amid the current hand-wringing about National Football League viewership and a CNBC interview in which Comcast chair/CEO Brian Roberts said, referring to Sunday- and Thursday-night NFL games on its NBC network, "We're down about 5%" in football viewing. "That's a lot lower [decline] than people originally thought."

To the contrary, according to McKinsey.

"Sports are holding up better than TV viewership overall," said Dan Singer, who leads McKinsey's Global Sports and Gaming Practice. His report, "We Are Wrong About Millennial Sports Fans," acknowledges the challenge of reaching viewers "across so many screens" -- a factor that Roberts also noted in his CBNC interview last week.

"However, the number of millennials watching the NFL actually increased from the prior season (from 65% to 67% of all millennials)," McKinsey notes. "The ratings decline was caused by an 8% drop in the number of games watched and a 6% decline in the minutes watched per game (down to 1 hour 12 minutes per game)," the report continues -- invoking its frequently noted finding that young viewers are watching sports in a different ways than their elders in Generation X and boomers (that is, their parents).

"Overall reach for sports on TV hasn’t declined; ratings have dropped because fans are watching fewer and shorter sessions," according to Singer.

Demographic Conclusions
McKinsey's study, based in part on Nielsen viewing statistics, draws a number of demographic conclusions that suggest how to appeal to sports audiences.

"As sports executives seek to build new direct-to-consumer channels, we find that age is an ineffective way to segment and target digital sports fans," McKinsey says. "Older generations (Gen Xers in particular) are adopting digital technology almost as fast as millennials, and fans’ online behaviors are far better signals of purchase intent."

Related: OTT Players Could Change Television’s Sports Game

McKinsey acknowledges that different age groups favor various sports, although viewing of National Basketball Association, college sports and Major League Soccer games is equal or higher among millennials compared to GenXers. The report notes that other factors affect sports viewing patterns, and it challenges simple demographic segmentation. For example, at about age 27, about equal numbers of people live with their parents, live on their own, or are starting their own families. McKinsey insists that each cluster spends very different amounts of time watching sports and chooses various ways to tune in.

The analysis recommends that sportscasters "target moms." It notes that male sports fans with children watched 14% fewer live games than those without kids, but women with children watched 24% more sports events than those with no kids.

The report also cites the growing importance of streaming and social media.

Millennial sports fans use streaming websites and apps such as NBCSports.com, Twitter, and WatchESPN almost twice as much as GenXers (56% versus 29%), according to the report, which also notes that younger viewers are also far more likely to use "unauthorized sports."

Not surprisingly, millennials follow sports on social media at a far greater rate than their elders. McKinsey says that 60% of millennial sports fans check scores and sports news via social media versus 40% for GenX. Twice as many millennials use Twitter, and five times as many use Snapchat or Instagram for that purpose (see chart). YouTube dominates sports highlights for millennials, edging out ESPN.com. Overall YouTube engagement per monthly unique viewer has reached 37 minutes per day for 18–24 year olds versus just 15 minutes per day for GenX, according to the analysis.

McKinsey recommends several strategies to continue feeding America's sports appetite, starting with more targeting of mobile viewers with live streams and promoting tickets on social media, such as "one-click tune-in access from social media or search." It also suggest that "Highlights are the gateway to subscription video."

"Fans who consume over 30 minutes per day of sports highlights are three times as likely to subscribe to sports over-the-top services as fans who do not," McKinsey concludes. "Fans who follow teams and players on social media are also more than twice as likely to subscribe as those who do not. Use of sports apps and mobile sites is a leading indicator; 52% of fans in our sample who check news and articles on sports sites and apps also watch live sports streams versus only 22% of those who do not."

Among McKinsey's other "implications" for "innovating the digital sports experience": design content for "whip-around viewing and quick navigation to other games," "fast, intuitive social sharing of game highlights" and "quick navigation between fantasy sports rosters and live streams."

In comparing millennials to older sports viewers, McKinsey concludes that "millennials have a fear of missing out" but like GenXers, they are "consuming digital sports voraciously, at the expense of traditional TV viewing."

Despite the growing number of ways people can watch video content, 92% of all viewing by U.S. adults is done on a TV screen, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen’s fourth-quarter "Comparable Metrics Report" found that adults spent 509 billion minutes viewing on TVs in the quarter and another 63.6 billion minutes viewing on TV-connected devices. Viewing video on PCs accounted for 31.7 billion minutes, smartphone video for 10.9 billion minutes and tablets for 4.4 billion minutes, for a combined share of viewing of 7.6%.

TV has a weekly reach of 89% of all adults, but only 79% of millennials (adults 18-34). TV-connected devices reach 44% of all adults and 54% of those 18-34.

Those young adults spent more time on their phones — 19 hours, 39 minutes per week — than watching the tube, at 19:18, according to Nielsen. Among all adults, 34 hours, 32 minutes per week were spent watching TV, with another 4:18 on TV-connected devices. They spent 17:48 per week on their phones.

Nielsen said its "Comparable Metrics Report" is an in-depth study of users and usage — averaged across the U.S. population — designed to provide an “apples to apples” view of consumption across TV, radio, TV-connected devices, PCs, smartphones and tablets.

“The fact of the matter is that viewers use the TV screen for the bulk of their viewing and spend more time doing so than all the other platforms combined,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP Research at AMC Networks. “Sure, viewers have more options today, but when looking at platforms in a comparative fashion, it’s clear that consumers choose the television as the primary vehicle for content,” he added.

The average number of TVs in homes is on the decline, according to the Department of Energy's U.S. Energy Information Administration's most recent figures, while younger households have higher concentrations of broadband content-access devices.

According to its latest Residential Energy Consumption Survey, there are an average of 2.3 TVs per home in 2015, down from 2.6 in 2009.

In addition, a larger share of homes reported not using a TV set at all. In fact, the percentage doubled from 1.3% in 2009 to 2.6% in 2015.

The survey found that "younger households tend to have a lower concentration of televisions per person and a higher concentration of portable devices such as laptops and smart phones. Older households are more likely to have higher concentrations of desktop computers."

According to DOE, TVs, cable boxes, DVRs and video game consoles account for 6% of all residential electricity consumption in the U.S. (Editor's note: The story initially said it was 6% of all electricity consumption. We regret the error.)

The survey looked at more than 200 energy-related items from more than 5,600 households.

A new study on the viewing habits of millennials has yielded the same results that most industry observers already know and fear: 18-to-34-year-olds are very comfortable accessing video content in a cord-free world.

Market research company GfK MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer shows that one-third of millennials either have never paid for a cable, satellite or fiber-optic TV service or have cut the cord after initially subscribing to cable, nearly twice the 16% of baby boomers who are cord-cutters or cord-nevers.

OTT services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon will most likely welcome the news that a sizable portion of millennials aren’t in the habit of paying a monthly cable bill, thinking that those eyeballs — and subscription fees — will migrate to streaming services. Indeed, the GfK MRI survey reported that untethered millennials spend 65% of their viewing time streaming content via a TV set or other device.

But as the old axiom goes, be careful what you wish for. The same millennials who don’t want to pay for cable may also find ways to not pay for the streaming SVOD services they watch.

A spring 2016 IBM Cloud Video survey reported that nearly half of millennials have used another person’s password to access an online video platform like Sling TV or Netflix, while 42% said they’ve shared their own personal password with a family member. While the numbers may not be catastrophic for the streaming services — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said during CES that he has no problems with the service’s subscribers sharing their passwords — OTT players shouldn’t ignore the behavior either.

With most streaming services providing few limits on the number of users per account, a generation that has no experience with paying for video content on any platform could be emerging — one both cable distributors and OTT services will depend on for revenue in the near future.

Sinclair is launching its second multicast network, TBD, in early 2017 on the digital subchannels of Sinclair stations, the company said Wednesday (Dec. 7).

The broadcast net will offer short films, Web series, comedy, lifestyle, eSports, music and viral content from digital companies including Legendary Digital Networks, Jukin Media and Whistle Sports.

The QYOU has been hired to program the net, which will bring digital-first content to broadcasting.

“Our recent focus has been on expanding our business with new digital multicast networks that leverage our broadcast spectrum and household reach,” said Chris Ripley, President of Sinclair. “Much of the multicast market today focuses on classic TV and movie content, with little aimed at audiences for whom fresh and relevant pop culture content is important. With the launch of TBD, we aim to pair the very best premium digital-first content with the unmatched branding power of traditional television."

The launch comes as the FCC continues to reduce the amount of spectrum it is reclaiming for wireless broadband and more broadcasters will be staying in the business and retaining their channels.

In the race to appeal to younger viewers, traditional content companies are increasingly turning toward short-form video and digital content providers, with several deals on the books over the past 12 months and more likely to come.

The latest to go short is Time Warner Inc.’s CNN, which paid about $25 million for online video company Beme, home of YouTube star Casey Neistat. As part of the deal, Beme’s 11-member staff, including Neistat — who has some 5.8 million YouTube followers — will join the news network and start a new media brand focused on millennial viewers.

Other companies have dipped their toes in the digital waters to varying degrees, ranging from NBCUniversal, which has spent about $600 million in online media sites BuzzFeed and Vox Media over the past 18 months, to 21st Century Fox, which in September paid about $6.5 million for a stake in DriveTribe, a new online motoring venture from former Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.

Earlier last month, Discovery Communications said it would invest about $100 million for a 35% stake in a new digital venture called Group Nine Media that would combine its science site, Seeker.com, and Sourcefed Studios production arm with pop culture site Thrillist, news site Now This and animal advocacy site The Dodo.

EXPERIMENT TIME

“Everyone is trying to figure out what the right format is,” Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said in an interview. “There is going to be a lot of experimentation.”

Programmers have been trying to attract young viewers since the beginning of television. But as more and more content is available on more and more devices, snagging the coveted millennial audience means the delivery mechanism is almost as important as what is being delivered.

“What has been tried is to take a regular cable or broadcast linear service and try to make it fit,” Eagan said. “That doesn’t always work, whether it’s on a mobile device or some other device. I think they realize they not only have to change the content, but the format.”

In a recent interview, Discovery chief commercial officer Paul Guyardo called the Group Nine investment part of the programmer’s three-pronged strategy, consisting of its full product bundle, its participation in skinny bundles for more price-sensitive consumers and the creation of short-form video and content partnership Group Nine, which is aimed squarely at younger viewers.

“That’s an ad-supported model that does rely primarily on short-form [video], because that’s how millennials want to consume their content — it’s all about highlights and sound bites and snippets,” Guyardo told Multichannel News. “If you look at the way we’re building it, we’re building it in a very Discovery-esque way.”

Like Discovery, each programmer seems to be forging its own path with digital investments. At NBCUniversal, the BuzzFeed and Vox Media deals seemed to be more geared to enhancing its social media and digital advertising strengths. BuzzFeed reaches more than 500 million people per day on its various platforms, more than any other pure digital media company, and has a strong presence on social media sites like Facebook. Vox Media, which has eight separate brands including news site Recode, sports site SB Nation and the food-centric Eater, has about 170 million unique monthly visitors and 800 million total monthly content views (on- and off-platform), and two of every three of its users are on mobile devices, according to the company.

Pivotal Research Group senior research analyst Brian Wieser said practically every programmer is looking to secure a digital business, and buying established providers is frequently the quickest path to success. There are many reasons to take the digital plunge, he said.

HEDGING BETS

“Some of it is hedge,” Wieser said. “In the event alternate forms of content packaging become more common, someone knows what they’re doing. Some of it is for show to Wall Street and other constituents, just to say that ‘we’re doing this too.’ And there also can be the belief that combining small entities into larger ones, and you can build an even bigger business.”

Another reason could be a desire to align with a particularly strong management team. That’s what Wieser believes was a big driver for Disney’s 2014 investment in Vice Media, then a fledgling Canadian publisher and multimedia company with a brash CEO in Shane Smith who wanted an inroad into more traditional media. With Disney’s initial $200 million investment (it invested another $200 million later that same year), Vice announced it would take over A+E Networks’ H2 channel, rebranded as Viceland. A+E Networks, which itself owns about 15% of Vice Media, is jointly controlled by Disney and Hearst.

While sluggish early ratings put a bit of a damper on the initial enthusiasm for the channel, it has been attracting young men with shows like the self-explanatory Weediquette and skateboarding reality-competition series King of the Road. In November the channel said it would launch four new shows aimed at that demographic in the next two months — Payday, which follows the lives of four 20-somethings over the course of a single pay period; Big Night Out, which showcases how millennials party around the world, and Bong Appétit, which follows cooks who create high-end, cannabis-infused foods.

“Everyone wants a piece of Shane Smith’s pixie dust,” Wieser said.

MORE MOVES SEEN

The analyst added that he expects more deals to be done, but to what extent will depend on each individual company. At Fox, which in the past has leaned more toward developing new properties internally, Wieser believes that practice will continue.

Time Warner and NBCU are expected to continue on their previous path of making small venture investments in digital companies, he added.

“Do we expect to see more [deals]? Sure. I don’t see why not,” Wieser said. “You can argue that most companies don’t need to hurry because it just doesn’t change that quickly. But the perceptions of change are often greater than the reality.”

SIDEBAR: All About the Digits

Major programmers are increasingly investing in much smaller digital companies to attract younger audiences and tap into online ad streams.

InvestorInvesteeInvestmentDate

NBCUniversal . . . . . . . . . . . BuzzFeed . . . . . . . . . . . . $400 million . . . . . . Aug. 2015/Nov. 2016

NBCUniversal . . . . . . . . . . . Vox Media . . . . . . . . . . . .$200 million . . . . . . . August 2015

Verizon . . . . . . . . . . . .. . AwesomenessTV .  . . . . . . . $159 million . . . . . . . . April 2016

Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . Group Nine Media . . .. . . . . . $100 million . . . .  . . .  November 2016

Time Warner . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beme . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 million* . . . . .  . . . .  November 2016

21st Century Fox . . . . .  . . .DriveTribe . . . . . .  . . . . . $6.5 million . . . . .  . . .September 2016

AMC Networks . . . . . .  . . Funny or Die . . . . .  . . . . . . . N/A . . . . . . . . . . .  November 2016

* Estimate

SOURCE : Individual companies and published reports

If your buddy says that he saw the most recent episode of HBO’s Westworld, there’s a good chance he’s lying, according to a new Hulu survey.

Nearly half of 18 to 49 year olds (46%) recently surveyed by Hulu lied about being caught up on a particular TV series, according to research released Friday by the streaming service. Men in particular tend to lie more than women – 62% of men in the demo admitted to fibbing about watching a show, while only 32% of women admit to the behavior.

Millennials in particular are major fabricators, with more than half (55%) admitted to having lied about watching a TV show, according to Hulu.

Of course, there’s no real crime in lying about watching a TV show – in fact it’s virtually impossible to stay current with the more than 400 scripted series currently on cable, broadcast television and subscription VOD channels.

What the survey does highlight is the power that television shows still hold in the pantheon of popular culture. A good number of people are willing to lie about watching a show just to a part of the conversation about TV, according to Hulu.

Not missing a chance to promote its lineup of original and off-network series, Hulu commissioned The Mindy Project star Mindy Kaling to provide some humorous advice to those who get busted lying about watching the latest episode of a popular series. Check out the clip below:

Developments this week at BuzzFeed, Vice and Spotify underscore the velocity of over-the-top activity and the race to reach young viewers. In the context of Comcast's rationale this month that millennial viewers were tuned to the Olympics via NBC's digital platforms, this week's flurry of OTT programming movement sets the stage for intense competition between new and old media as well as among the corporations that back them.

To be sure, this week's activities were largely structural and conceptual, not surprising for a languid summer week. But collectively, they are a reminder that OTT providers are aggressively going after audiences that cable and other multichannel platforms are losing.

BuzzFeed's plan to reorganize itself into Entertainment and News departments also demonstrates that new media companies are learning lessons from their predecessors. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti compared the split to Ted Turner's creation of TBS and CNN.

“Back in the day, all the big incumbents would criticize CNN and TBS and make fun of them, saying they were never going to make it and that they weren’t legitimate,” Peretti told Vanity Fair. "Ted Turner didn’t care what anyone thought, and he built a news and entertainment empire side by side.”

In his memo to staff explaining the restructuring, Peretti said the company cannot organize "around a format or technology."  He said that going forward, the BuzzFeed ventures should "take full advantage of many formats and technologies."

"Having a single 'video department' in 2016 makes about as much sense as having a 'mobile department,'" Peretti said. "As digital video becomes ubiquitous, every major initiative at BuzzFeed around the world will find an expression as video, just like everything we do works on mobile and social platforms."

Under the new structure, the newly created BuzzFeed Entertainment group, headed by current BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank, will include video, lists, quizzes and micro-content. BuzzFeed News, under editor-in-chief Ben Smith, will handle global news, health and video news.

NBCUniversal invested $200 million into BuzzFeed last year, a reminder that old media recognizes where its viewers are heading.

At Vice, the signs of change are more speculative, fueled in part by some raucous remarks this week by CEO Shane Smith and a Wall Street Journal report that The Walt Disney Co. may acquire the 82 percent of Vice that it doesn’t already own. Disney pumped $200 million into Vice last December.

Prior to delivering the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday (Aug. 24), Smith told reporters that it makes sense to sell Vice while it is at “the peak of media valuations.” But he added that Disney has not yet made an offer. The WSJ report put Vice's current valuation at nearly $4.5 billion. Smith suggested that Vice could be worth $50 billion in three or four years.

“If you look at the brands like Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars that have [sold] to Disney, they have all gotten bigger,” Shane was quoted as saying in the WSJ.

On a more mundane level, Spotify -- known for its music dominance -- last week fulfilled its May promise to move into the video realm with original programming. Its first documentary series, Metallica: The Early Years, debuted last weekend. Chapter One (about 8 minutes long) includes exclusive interviews with the band plus archival footage. It was available on YouTube; the next three Metallica segments are available only on the mobile version of Spotify’s app.

Spotify's Landmark series of video music stories will continue with a series on the Beach Boys’s iconic Pet Sounds album.

Participant Media will shut down its thre- year-old Pivot network as part of a company restructuring effort, the company said Wednesday.

The service, which launched in 2013 with a focus on targeting millennials with original scripted and realirty content, will be disbanded after struggling to gain a foothold in what is a challenging cable tv landscape for independent networks, Participant Media CEO David Linde said in a statement.

RELATED: Pivot general manager Kent Rees on Pivot's outreach to millennials

Participant launched Pivot in 2013 after buying and then combining Documentary Channel and Halogen TV to create the service. 

"As the media landscape changes, we have been evaluating how we fulfill our mission to entertain and inspire social action around the world's most pressing issues,” Linde said. “That process has led us to the decision to move away from owning and operating a cable network.

The announcement, first reported by Variety, will allow Participant to focus on developing content. "While this conclusion was not an easy one, it is ultimately in the best interest of all our stakeholders, and allows us to allocate more resources toward the production of compelling content across all platforms," said Linde in a statement. 

Underscoring The Idea that video is just one piece of the new subscription video-on-demand puzzle, Rooster Teeth has pushed ahead with a two-tiered approach that aims to appeal to its traditional base, as well as a subset of “super fans” willing to pay a handsome premium for VIP tickets to events, merchandise and other perks associated with the “digital-first” content studio.

Starting July 1, current Rooster Teeth subscribers, formerly known as “sponsors,” as well as new subscribers, became members of a new “FIRST” offering that sells for $4.99 per month or $19.99 for six months.

The ad-free FIRST offering provides early access to new videos, exclusive behind-the-scenes content and premium series, as well as access to live broadcasts and a “FIRST-only” panel at RTX, Rooster Teeth’s annual gaming and Internet culture event. (The last RTX took place July 1-3 in Austin, Texas.)

FIRST subscribers also have the option to upgrade to a higher-level tier, called “Double Gold,” for $34.99 per month, or $179.99 for a six-month subscription that includes everything in FIRST, plus a 10% discount on all Rooster Teeth merchandise, exclusive access to live event VIP passes, and a box of merchandise shipped monthly that carries a value of more than $60. Rooster Teeth also offers some ad-supported content for free to registered users.

The company’s new, rebranded approach to subscriptions draws on a broader trend among over-the-top SVOD services, which continue to pair their core video offerings with ancillary benefits.

For example, anime-focused VOD service Crunchyroll has a partnership with e-retailer Loot Crate that provides Crunchyroll subscribers with discounts on a Loot Crate box of goodies that’s tailored to anime fans and delivered every month. And cable network Turner Classic Movies recently launched TCM Backlot, a fan club that offers members exclusive content, plus the ability to become a “guest programmer” and win on-set tours.

“With our audience, we want to be more than just a video platform,” Rooster Teeth CEO and co-founder Matt Hullum said. “Our audience wants that higher level of engagement and they want more connection. We’re trying to provide more of that on an ongoing basis … But we didn’t want to do anything that would take away from the community origins of the service.”

Rooster Teeth is not new to the SVOD sphere. It got into the game almost 14 years ago with a subscription-based offering that was as much a fan club as it was a video service.

Early on, members of the Rooster Teeth community expressed they’d pay extra to gain early access to the studio’s videos, Hullum said, noting that those viewers were also the ones who tended to jump into the platform and comment, “First!” when a new video was posted.

Obviously, it was that behavior that also led to the naming of Rooster Teeth’s new FIRST offering.

Like a lot of OTT-delivered SVOD services, Rooster Teeth tends to skew to cord-cutters, cord-nevers and more generally to younger millennials. The company has developed apps for iOS and Android mobile devices, and has work underway to expand to other platforms, including set-tops and gaming consoles, this fall.

Rooster Teeth is also one of the first announced partners for VRV, a multichannel video distribution platform from Ellation that’s expected to launch later this year on devices such as the Xbox One gaming console. Ellation, a portfolio company of Otter Media (the OTT-focused joint venture of AT&T and The Chernin Group) is targeting its platform at fans of anime, animation, gaming, comedy, fantasy and technology.

SEVERAL REVENUE STREAMS

SVOD is just one of several Rooter Teeth revenue streams. According to Hullum, its revenue mix is fairly even across, SVOD, merchandising, advertising and licensing. Its original subscription offering has experienced a growth spurt of late, though, spurring on the decision to launch the two new services.

Rooster Teeth said its paid subscribrer base has doubled to more than 135,000 in the past year, and expects its new, core FIRST base to surpass 200,000 by year-end.

On the content side, Rooster Teeth said it will launch two new premium narrative shows this year — Day 5, an apocalyptic drama series in which sleep becomes fatal and four survivors seek a cure before encroaching insomnia and madness take hold. Also on tap is Crunch Time, a half hour sci-fi action comedy starring Nick Rutherford (Good Neighbor) and Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks, Inglorious Basterds).

Rooster Teeth is also set to debut a live broadcast series (Theater Mode and Heroes & Halfwits), and an irreverent animated series called Camp Camp. It’s also prepping the launch of four feature-length documentaries as part of its “RT Docs” initiative, including World’s Greatest Head Massage, which premiered July 1.

Rooster Teeth said it’s also creating fresh far for existing series such as RWBY, Immersion, Red vs. Blue, Million Dollars, But … , RT Shorts and The Rooster Teeth Podcast.

About 23% of Millennial heads of household are OTT-only homes, higher than the national average of 15% of all U.S. broadband homes, Parks Associates said in a new study released Wednesday.

But the silver lining for the pay TV industry is this -- the data also showed that 61% of Millennials subscribe to both pay TV and OTT services, also higher than the national average of 52%.

 “Younger consumers are willing to subscribe to pay-TV service, provided the offerings align with their expectations," Ruby-Ren Bond, research analyst at Parks Associates said, in a statement. "In particular, Millennials show higher-than-average affinity for popular culture and premium movie channels as well as programming for younger children.”

Among other findings in the study, Parks Associates said 60% of OTT video services in the North American market are subscription based, and that 64% of U.S. homes now subscribe to an OTT video service, up from 59% in 2015.

Additionally, the average monthly spend on an OTT SVOD service among U.S. broadband homes rose from $3.17 per month in 2012, to $6.19 per month in 2015.

OTT services also must stay on top of churn, as about 20% of U.S. broadband homes cancelled at least one OTT video service in 2015.

Among individual services, 5% of U.S. broadband homes cancelled Netflix in 2015.

Roughly 14% of U.S. broadband homes subscribe to Hulu, with 7% cancelling service during 2015, about the same churn rate from the research firm’s Q2 2015 data analysis.

Almost a quarter (24%) of U.S. broadband homes get a video subscription service via Amazon.

Parks Associates based its latest quarterly findings on a survey of 10,000 broadband households fielded in March 2016. 

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association's rebranding of its annual show to "Internet" and "television" was clearly the right way to go if a new survey has it right.

According to just-released findings, 80% of video streamers subscribe to at least one streaming service in addition to, or instead of, a pay TV service from a cable, satellite or IPTV company.

The survey, commissioned by CSG International, which helps companies set up and cash in on online distribution, also found that 79% of streamers primarily stream to their TV sets.

Among millennials, more than half spend more time watching Internet video on their TVs than traditional TV programming.

Almost three-quarters (72%) said sports programming is the most important to stream.

"[S]treaming services with the highest subscription rates offer original content and sports content," the study found. "To align with these trends, the ability to offer new skinny bundles and innovative OTT-like services will become increasingly important for pay TV providers."

Streamers said they are watching more than 26 hours of online television each week, with half of that on services including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

The report concludes the way to get a bigger piece of that online video action is "not by an intensifying price war, but by offering more options for packaging and pricing the specific content that streamers want."

"Personalize the bundle," CSG said. "Provide a user experience on par with the most popular competitors, making content transportable across devices and providing enhanced features like recommendations and search, not only for a single service but across as many distinct services through partnerships wherever possible.

"Offer aggregated billing, discounting and payment options to the all-important subscribers of more than one service or type of content," the report advised.

Millennials see decreasing value in traditional pay services, the survey found, and 20% said they planned to switch, downgrade or disconnect their pay services in the next six months.

They also are the biggest commercial skippers (via bathroom breaks and snack runs in particular). "Among those 18-24, 43% always or often avoid commercials, compared to 35% of the general population," the study said

In a finding that could buoy, at least slightly, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's push for uniting video services in a single access device, 48% said they would "greatly value" centralized search across all their paid subscriptions, regardless of provider. (But cable operators note they are already launching apps that can reside side-by-side with other online services on, say, a Roku platform, just not disaggregated program streams and data, as the chairman has proposed.)

The survey was conducted in January among 1,900 randomly chosen adult broadband users who stream video -- short- or long-form, free or paid service -- on one or more connected devices.

CSG clients include Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Dish Network, ESPN and Verizon.

When Vince Gilligan, the creator of AMC’s crime drama Breaking Bad, beat Netflix’s House of Cards for the Emmy Award, he made a surprising observation. Netflix, he told reporters, kept his show on the air.

Breaking Bad’s audience started small, but ultimately reached 10 million viewers for the series finale. Gilligan theorized that his show grew in popularity because as word of mouth spread, new audiences were able to find old episodes on Netflix, then join the growing realtime audience when it was back in season.

A few years later, the data has proven Gilligan correct. Viewers haven’t abandoned linear viewing in favor of non-linear, VOD and streaming options, as previously thought. Instead, the viewer path between the two distribution models points to a more complex ecosystem.

Some view cord-cutting as the trend that will kill television. The trouble with that assertion is that it runs contrary to the data. Millennials are the ones leading the cord-cutting charge, and yet millennials are watching more television than ever. So what’s really going on?

Put simply, we’re at the dawn of a new paradigm that reflects both a technological revolution in the way we distribute content as well as an equally powerful shift in consumer behavior. For now, it’s clear that cord-cutting is a nuanced and evolving phenomenon.

Consumers are already beginning to understand that networks typically reserve a show’s current season for linear broadcast, while at the same time making previous seasons available on streaming platforms like Netflix so that new audiences can catch up. Meanwhile, data shows that streaming originals have only added to a typical viewer’s queue, rather than replace network fare.

Historically, TV has been a zero-sum contest. Because programming was linear, a network won or lost the night; a show was a hit or it flopped. But that’s no longer true today because technology and consumer behavior are changing.

As we expand access to content through a variety of platforms, and consumers adapt to a new viewing paradigm, the nature of competition changes dramatically. Data shows that audiences find shows long after their initial release. Just as telling, shows like Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on ABC both brought in big audiences (4.8 million viewers and 6.8 million viewers, respectively) though they were released at the same time. In a linear TV world, two superhero shows would most likely split the audience. The data shows that new distribution methods enable viewing patterns that allow both shows to succeed.

These changes are good for content companies because they mean quality shows are more likely to find an audience sooner or later. What remains to be seen are the strategies content companies will develop to gather those audiences. In the meantime, the television industry must use data to tune in to the viewer path.

Charlie Buchwalter is president and CEO of crossmedia measurement firm Symphony AM.

Can you make an old hit new again?

Several cable networks and OTT providers are hoping to appeal to the mature end of the millennial demographic — that is 25-to-34-year-olds — by rebooting or remaking classic 1980s and 1990s TV shows.

Cartoon Network has reanimated The Powerpuff Girls, returning the characters to its schedule with a new series some 11 years after the original ended. Netflix’s Fuller House updated the 1990s ABC sitcom Full House, with the Tanner kids now grown up and raising children themselves. MTV has reimagined Scream, the 1990s horror-movie franchise that put Courteney Cox of Friends on the big screen in its first iteration.

And Disney Channel is remixing a rendition of Girl Meets World — featuring the now-grown kid stars of 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World.

All of these shows aim to appeal to busy millennials who are increasingly viewing content on nontraditional television platforms.

Today’s millennial viewers are often defined as cable cord-cutting, binge-watching viewers who devour the latest eclectic short-form content via digital platforms. Older members of the massive 16-to-34-year-old demo, though, still watch a lot of their TV the way baby boomers and Generation Xers do, gravitating to the long-form, classic content they grew up with back when cable was still cool.

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL

The trend reflects a realization that all millennials are not the same, and not every YouTube video or short-form show will appeal to all consumers in the demo.

“All of these networks are looking at the millennial audience, and some are recognizing that [older millennials] really like reminiscing about their childhood,” David Quinn, senior brand lead for digital marketing firm Beamly, said. “It was a wonderful time and some millennials embrace that.”

Like boomers and Gen Xers, older millennials are finding that the responsibilities that come with work and family leave less time for entertainment. And, like those older demos, they’re often drawn to familiar content that resonates.

Nostalgia can be a big driver for remakes of movie and TV hits that have built-in audiences but may be sitting unused in the crowded soup of subscription VOD platforms. The challenge, of course, is to parlay that nostalgia and bring in the old crowd, as well as new viewers, without it all seeming tacky.

It’s a tricky challenge for TV’s demographic marketers, who parse the world in groups of boomers, Gen Xers and millennials.

And older millennials, particularly those with families, also watch more traditional television than their younger demographic cohorts. Millennials starting a family watch more than three hours a day of live TV — that’s over an hour more than single millenials consume, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for fourth-quarter 2015.

That boosts the value of franchises that date back to older millennials’ childhoods, such as Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls and Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold!. Nick has set a Hey Arnold! special that picks up where the final episode of the animated series in 2002 left off .

Nickelodeon Franchise Properties senior vice president of content development Chris Viscardi said that franchises like Hey Arnold! and 1990s game show Legends of the Hidden Temple — which the network is turning into a live-action TV movie — give Nickelodeon a leg up on other entertainment networks trying to reach the elusive audience group.

Millennials with families are also more likely than not to introduce their kids to their childhood TV favorites, Viscardi said. That helps Nick reach out to a new generation of viewers.

“There is a huge millennial love for those series, so we know that millennial fans who grew up on them will come back,” Viscardi said. “There are some things inherent in our properties that we know a new generation of fans would love also.”

Nick is exploring several other older titles that it might resurrect and develop new episodes for, although Viscardi would not provide specific details.

Shows such as Girl Meets World — less a reboot than a 2014 spinoff of the 1993-2000 ABC series Boy Meets World, featuring grownup characters from the first series with children of their own — allows Disney Channel to reach a wide audience of both adults and kids, Sean Coccia, executive vice president of business operations and general manager for Disney Channels Worldwide, said.

To further encourage co-viewing, Disney will resurrect DuckTales, a 1987-1990 syndicated animated series built around Donald Duck’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and his Uncle Scrooge, for its Disney XD network in 2017. And Disney Channel later this will year premiere Adventures in Babysitting, an original movie based loosely on the 1987 theatrical fi lm of the same name.

FAMILY AFFAIR

“For Disney Channel, it is not hard to reach these millennials if we deliver content that provides them with the opportunity to share an experience and time with their families,” Cocchia said. “Social media has also helped us by giving these millennial families platforms to talk about what they love and what they are seeing in the new storylines and characters.”

Classic entertainment franchises don’t always initially appeal to the older end of the millennial audience. MTV’s Scream series — based on the horror movie franchise of the same name launched 20 years ago — had its biggest audience among younger 16-to-24-year-olds during its freshman season last summer, according to MTV senior vice president of scripted programming Mina Lefevre.

Scream will return for its sophomore season in May.

“[Younger millennials] knew about Scream — some of them watched it and some of them didn’t — but they all knew about the value and iconic nature of Scream,” Lefevre said. “For us to reinvent it for them is where we stood. We thought we could make it as appealing and iconic to them as it was to [older millennials].”

Cartoon Network’s Miller said that networks looking to reach the full swath of millennials will ultimately have to market and promote differently to the younger and older segments of the demo. “There is absolutely a difference in how we create content for different audience segments because they all consume content differently,” Miller said. “We’ve devoted a lot of time and resources to really understanding all of our audiences and how they consume media — including millennials of all different life stages, not just ages — and we develop our strategies accordingly.”

For the older end of millennials, Beamly’s Quinn said the trend toward revitalizing 1990s classic programming is only beginning as distributors look for ways to reach an elusive audience that is looking for some familiarity to go alongside all the new content offered to them.

“I definitely think this is a trend that we’ll see continue going forward,” he said. “I think it makes perfect sense because if a network is looking to create entertainment in a crowded marketplace it’s nice to create entertainment that has a built-in audience.”

Looking to expand its reach to millennial audiences, The E.W. Scripps Company said it has put up $39 million to acquire Cracked, the multiplatform satire specialist that operates a Web site, mobile apps, creates original digital video and a podcast.

Scripps, which is buying Cracked from Demand Media, noted that Cracked, an ad-supported offering, pulled in revenues of about $11 million in 2015, and that the business was profitable.

Cracked, launched in 1958 as a humor magazine, was acquired by Demand Media in 2007.  The Santa Monica, Calif.-based Cracked team will remain there and will be led by Mandy Ng Rusin, general manager and vice president, and Jack O’Brien, vice president and editor-in-chief.

The acquisition follows other OTT-facing and millennials-focused deals for Scripps, which last year bought podcast company Midroll Media and, in 2013, acquired Newsy, an online video news service that reaches several streaming platforms, such as Apple TV, Roku players, Amazon Fire TV devices, smart TVs from Samsung and LG, and is  also distributed by Sling TV, Pluto TV, and Watchable (Comcast’s new curated OTT service for mobile devices and its X1 set-top box platform)

“Cracked is the expert in using clever humor to engage a younger audience that is very loyal to its brand,” said Rich Boehne, chairman, president and CEO of Scripps, in a statement. “Its editorial vision brings a fresh perspective to the way the next generation creates and consumes news, information and entertainment.”

“Cracked is a natural extension of the Scripps strategy to take a leadership position in high-growth content marketplaces,” added Adam Symson, Scripps’s chief digital officer. “Scripps will help Cracked reach new and larger audiences as it continues to build its brand on the web, in over-the-top video and audio and on other emerging platforms.”

comScore, moving into the TV market, said that the amount of time viewers spent watching was up 7% in fourth-quarter 2015.

comScore’s 2015 Cross-Platform Future in Focus report said that in viewing households, 1,004 hours were spent watching live TV, up from 936 hours a year ago. Time spent watching programs on DVRs up to 15 days after they originally aired also rose, to 356 hours from 332 hours.

“The availability of more viewing options appealing to a wider array of tastes, in addition to the continued expansion of premium, original, scripted programming on cable networks, has likely contributed to this effect,” the comScore report said.

Earlier this year, comScore, which specialized in measuring Web usage, acquired Rentrak, which uses set-top box data to gauge TV viewing.

Among millennials, time spent viewing live TV has been eclipsed by use of desktop computers and mobile devices. Live TV still accounts for 47% of time spent.

“It’s possible that digital share of time spent among 25-54 year-olds might also soon surpass live TV," the report said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

As coverage of the cantankerous and unpredictable 2016 political election season draws big TV ratings for traditional cable-news networks, upstart channels targeting young millennials with political-themed content are campaigning online to reach one of the largest voting blocks in U.S. history.

Networks like Fusion, Revolt TV, Pivot and Fuse are looking to secure the votes of a politically engaged group of 18-to-34-year-olds looking for content that speaks to issues important to them — topics that aren’t always addressed by the cable news channels.

From online voter registration campaigns to millennial-focused reports from the major political party conventions to social-media initiatives on key issues such as immigration, police brutality and LGBT rights, network executives said it’s critical to provide content to millennials when and where they want it.

“We have seen from our audience that they are an active, socially relevant group, and they care about issues that can affect not only them but society at large, from Black Lives Matter to [the drinking-water crisis in] Flint to immigration issues and LGBT issues — this audience is vocal and they care about these issues,” Revolt TV CEO Keith Clinkscales said. “We wanted to make sure that we were uniquely positioned to impact the political conversation, and give the young people who consume our media an opportunity to amplify their voices.”

CROSSING PLATFORMS

To accomplish that, networks are taking a multiplatform approach to disseminating political news to an audience that watches less TV and spends more time online, executives said.

Millennials aged 18-34 may watch less live TV than any other demographic group, but they’re the most likely to use a connected-TV device such as Apple TV or Roku, according to a new Nielsen Total Audience Report for fourth-quarter 2015.

That age group also spent more than 11 hours per week using smartphones to access the Web and apps during fourth-quarter 2015, up from eight hours during the same period in 2014, according to Nielsen.

Millennials have followed the 2016 presidential campaign closely because the candidates have been so active on social media, David Quinn, senior brand lead for digital marketing firm Beamly, said.

“All the candidates are active on Twitter and using video on YouTube and have remained active in the political conversation with millennials,” Quinn said.

That leaves an opening for millennial-targeted networks to provide political content to an already engaged audience.

For Fuse, that means teaming with Hispanic-targeted, non-profit political organization Voto Latino to create a multiplatform initiative dubbed “Crash the Parties,” Fuse Media CEO Michael Schwimmer said. Millennial Latinos can vie for a chance to become Fuse reporters at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Would-be reporters can submit a video to Fuse.tv for network viewers to vote on. Two winners will be chosen to represent the network at the conventions, providing frequent video updates both online and on he linear channel.

The network (then called Sí TV) ran a similar campaign with Voto Latino in 2008. “With the social media tools that are available in 2016 that were not available in 2008, it’s going to be even easier and more effective in getting out the word and getting people engaged in the process,” Schwimmer said.

Revolt’s “Revolt 2 Vote” initiative will include a weekly digital series on the revolt.tv website, featuring interviews with political leaders and insights from millennial thought leaders and influencers, Clinkscales said.

The music channel’s primarily digital political content will be headed by millennial journalist Amrit Singh as well as a “kitchen cabinet” of young political voices who will discuss the campaign on Revolt.tv and social-media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

“The main thing is we have digital coverage because that’s where millennials are aggregating political content, and then we’ll do some linear programming as well,” he said.

As some 93 million millennials will be of voting age going into this year’s election, Clinkscales said it’s imperative to provide them information to make informed decisions.

“More than 30 million young people stayed home in 2012,” he said. “[Turnout] was very low — one of the lowest numbers on record. The frustration that young people have with the American political system is an opportunity to make sure we provide them with the engagement they need.”

The emerging networks are also hoping to reach millennial viewers in a way the bigger, more mainstream news networks haven’t so far. While both Fox News Channel and CNN ranked among the top 10 most-watched cable networks among total viewers during the first quarter 2016 among total viewers, neither is among the top 15 networks within the 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen.

“Millennials are not turning on the TV and watching the cable news networks,” Quinn said. “The shows that are speaking to the group are from external video Web shows.”

“They have their hands full,” Clinkscales said. “We have the luxury of going after one of America’s largest generations ever — 93 million strong and 40% from communities of color. This is the time to understand what’s going on with this 18-to-34-year-old audience.”

GOING TO THE MOVIES

Pivot will take a different tack to inform millennials about the political process, relying on politically-themed movies throughout the summer to keep politics on the minds of its younger viewers, Pivot general manager Kent Rees said.

The network will feature such films as All the President’s Men, Wag the Dog and The Fog of War.

“We’re more contextualizing the political process through these films that we’ve identified,” Rees said. “Millennials crave context and they crave it in all different directions, and having them sit down and watch a fi lm that comments on the process in general as well as documentaries like Caucus that touch on how the process works.”

The network will feature around the #justvote public-awareness campaign, which encourages young people to register and vote. Rees said there often isn’t a lot of information in the marketplace as to how to vote, so the eff ort will explain the process to help get millennials to the voting booth.

“Their involvement is clear, and it’s a great way to galvanize them,” Rees said. “It’s the largest generation in American history, and they’ve only just begun to understand their power and the opportunities to affect change in the country at large.”

Millennials, the 18-to-34 year old demographic chased relentlessly by every advertiser, don’t have an common set of media behaviors, but instead change the way they consume media as they move through various stages of life, according to Nielsen’s fourth quarter Total Audience report.

In the report, released today for the first time, Nielsen confirms what some network executives have been saying for years – younger viewers watch and consume content differently whether they live at home with their parents, alone or are starting a family.

The report splits millennials into three groups: Dependent Adults (those who live in someone else’s home, usually with one or both parents); On Their Own (living in a home without children) and Starting a Family (living in their own home with children).

The report stated that about 97% of 18-year-olds fit into the first category. About 90% of 34-year-olds live in their own home, with 60% of that age demographic living with children.

Not surprisingly, On Their Own millennials are most likely to subscribe to a subscription video on demand service like Netflix or Hulu (78%), followed by Dependent Adults at 64%. While only 58% of Starting a Family millennials subscribe to SVOD, they are more likely to own a digital video recorder (47%), a DVD player (69%) and a tablet (65%) than the other groups, mostly due to the presence of children in the home.

Tablet ownership was lowest among On Their Own millennials, but that group used PCs, tablets and smartphones more than the other groups during the month of November, Nielsen said. On Their Own millennials spent more than 94 hours with those devices in November—about 10 more hours than all 18-34 year olds and about 18 more hours than Dependent Adults.

Overall, the average person aged18-34 spent about 2:45 each day watching live TV in the fourth quarter, 1:23 using TV-connected devices and 4:08 using a TV set for any purpose, according to the report. But again, life stage played a factor -- Dependent Adults watched live TV a little less (2:32), On Their Own millennials watched the least (2:06), but they also were out of the home the most. The latter group also had the lowest penetration of traditional multichannel video (72%), but the highest penetration of multimedia devices and access to SVOD.

As expected, millennials Starting a Family had the highest penetration of multichannel video services (79%), but also spent the most time at home of the three groups. These factors mean that the Starting a Family group watches the most live TV (3:16) and make the greatest total use of TV screen (4:40).

Whistle Sports, a digital sports content aggregator focused on millennial audiences, said it has landed a $20 million “C” round of funding from TEGNA, NBC Sports Ventures, Sky and Emil Capital.

Whistle Sports, which announced a $28 million “B” round in January 2015 from a group that included  Sky and Liberty Global, has raised a total of about $60 million.

Launched in 2014, Whistle  Sports, which counts go90 among its digital distribution partners, said it reach recently reached an aggregate of 170 million across all its social channels, and that the service’s user base has been growing by more than 2 million each week.  

Whistle Sports’s core audience is age 14-30, though the service sees “a lot of movement on both sides of those numbers,” company exec Brian Selander told Multichannel News in an interview last fall (subscription required).

“Whistle Sports has activated and inspired a new generation of sports fans and followers. Our strength in distribution coupled with their innovative content, will create numerous opportunities for both companies to grow across platforms,” said Gracia Martore, president and CEO of TEGNA, in a statement. “This investment and strategic partnership will not only enable both of our companies to reach valuable new audiences, it will also combine our respective expertise to create more innovative content and advertising solutions.”

“Whistle Sports has successfully captured the imaginations, attention and engagement of millennial sports fans, and consistently delivers compelling content and options to brands and agencies eager to connect with that critical and growing demographic,” added Rick Cordella, SVP and GM, digital media, at NBC Sports Group. “Whistle Sports has proven to be a reliable source of original and creative content, and their data-driven approach to developing new audience insights sets them up for an even stronger future”

Perhaps viewing MeTV as overly “me-too,” Cox Communications confirmed that it has put the launch of the emerging OTT service on the backburner.

“[W]e’ve decided not to launch MeTV as originally intended and we’ll continue to explore the digital entertainment space,” a Cox official said in a statement, confirming a report by Light Reading.

Word of Cox’s OTT offering, originally called Flare MeTV and initially targeted to iPads, emerged late last year. Designed to appeal to millennial audiences, MeTV was an aggregated, ad-free service with personalized playlists that also cross-searched sources such as HBO, Showtime and Hulu. It was also coming on the heels of new ad-supported OTT offerings from Verizon (go90) and Comcast (Watchable).  

Notably, Cox is gearing up for the national launch of a next-gen platform that’s based on Comcast’s X1 platform, which provides access to Watchable content at the set-top, complementing distribution on mobile apps and Web browsers.

Cox continues to run other Flare-branded streaming services, including FlareKids, an ad-free OTT app for the iPad, and flarePlay, an OTT subscription gaming service. Cox also marketsmyflare, a personal media management service that lets customers store digital pictures, video, music and documents in the cloud

Coxshut down its short-lived flareWatch IPTV trial in 2013.

Rumors about Apple’s flirtation with an OTT-TV offering has been well documented…for years. One can count on a new rumor that pushes the ball forward a yard or two to emerge about once a quarter.

The latest round of scuttlebutt claims that Apple’s plans to offer a national service, with access to the major broadcast TV networks, continued to be bogged down in discussions with the networks and programmers.

While the rumors about what Apple intends to do persist, it’s quite clear that the company does want to get into the pay TV business in a much bigger way. The latest evidence comes way of ESPN president John Skipper’s recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“We’ve had discussions with Apple,” Skipper (pictured) told the publication when asked about the emergence of streaming services from Sony (PlayStation Vue) and Sling TV. “I believe in 2016 there will be further announcements on other kinds of packages….that will get younger subscribers into the market.”

Skipper heaped some praise on the new apps-friendly Apple TV platform, which already supports the authenticated WatchESPN app. But Skipper also hinted at the potential to use Apple’s platform for more.

“We are big proponents of believing it would be a fabulous place to sell some subscriptions. We have ongoing conversations. They have been frustrated by their ability to construct something which works for them with programmers. We continue to try to work with them,” he said.

Even as ESPN struggles with subscriber declines, it is already getting a taste of how new OTT distribution models might lend a hand.

PlayStation Vue notched an important distribution deal with Disney and ESPN in November 2015, and ESPN has been a key part of Sling TV’s core package ever since its launch about a year ago.

“We see Sling TV numbers, which are significant,” Skipper said. He also would not contradict the understanding that ESPN can back out if Sling TV is cannibalizing the Worldwide Leader's core business, but was satisfied so far that the consumers that Sling TV is bringing to the table are additive.

Skipper also acknowledged that ESPN’s subscriber issues are tied to consumers “trading down to lighter cable packages,” but stopped short of saying ESPN plans to offer a full, direct-to-consumer basis and follow in the footsteps of CBS, HBO and Showtime, but does like the idea of offering smaller packages direct, such as ESPN’s test run with the Cricket World Cup.

“We are still engaged in the most successful business model in the history of media, and see no reason to abandon it,” he said. 

It’s been more than a decade since the first YouTube video was posted in April of 2005, and the impact of over-the-top video remains hotly debated.

Some look at the increase in multichannel-video subscriber losses in the first nine months of last year as confirmation of a generational shift, with millennials coming of age as cord-cutting OTT consumers. Based on those trends, Magna Global is now predicting that multichannelvideo subscribers will decline by more than 6 million homes between the end of 2015 and the end of 2020.

Others dispute those projections and go even further, contending that terms such as cord-cutting make it di_ cult to truly understand how the market is changing by reducing the behavior of younger consumers to headline-grabbing stereotypes. Yes, pay TV subscribers are declining, these researchers have said. The losses remain small, though — roughly 1% of the market — and the oft-predicted dramatic collapse has yet to occur. In fact, cable companies in 2015 had their best year since 2006.

This “glass half full”vs. ”glass half empty” debate, as researcher Howard Horowitz has called it, won’t be settled anytime soon. Nonetheless, “the market changes aren’t trivial,” Horowitz said. “Complacency is out. You have to take the market seriously and pay attention to millennials by providing them with the kind of services they want.”

We hope that imperative will make Multichannel News’s annual Viewer Watch report, with its focus on the impact of the changing use of video, more valuable than ever.

As usual, this report is based on interviews with a wide array of senior TV executives and a number of top researchers. The features based on those interviews are then followed by eight pages of data, covering virtually every aspect of the industry, from trends in traditional pay TV subscribers to subscription video-on-demand customers and the use of new consumer-electronics devices.

Taken together, the features and data are designed to help readers to dig deep into the trends that are transforming their businesses, and to better understand the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

Like previous versions of this annual report, the 2016 Viewer Watch was made possible with the help of a number of researchers. Among the organizations that were particularly helpful in providing data, we’d like to thank Horowitz Associates, Magna Global, PwC, Nielsen and SNL Kagan.

Contributing writer George Winslow compiled the data, conducted the interviews and wrote the articles.

To access the full report, including charts, please click here.

RELATED:Viewing Shifts: Hype and Reality | Embracing the Enemy: OTT Services Pose Big Risks, Bigger Opportunities

Multiscreen video distribution specialist Vubiquity said it has struck an international SVOD Deal with AwesomenessTV that will enable the millennials-focused service to extend its reach to regions such as the Middle East, Africa, South Eastern Europe and Latin America (excluding Brazil).

Financial terms were not disclosed, but the agreement covers  AwesomenessTV series such as Fifth Harmony Takeover, DIY or DI-Don't!, Hey Guys, It's Meg!, Makeup Mythbusters, Amanda Steele’s The Social Life, Cheerhab, My Dream Quinceañera, and IMO. In all, Vubiquity will distribute about 130 hours of content from AwesomenessTV to its international distribution partners.

"We’re excited to bring a fantastic brand to some of the largest territories in the world,” Vubiquity chief content officer Rob Jacobson, said in a statement. “Non-traditional programming is extremely popular in emerging markets amongst young audiences and AwesomenessTV has created terrific, popular shows and is shaping the type of content that the next generation expects. This deal gives our clients the opportunity not only to meet customer demands but also to get ahead of their competition. We’re delighted to be partnering with them in this SVOD initiative."

AwesomenessTV, which also distributes content via Verizon’s new go90 service and Comcast’s Watchable curated OTT video offering, is owned by DreamWorks Animation and Hearst Corporation, which has a 25% interest in AwesomenessTV. 

RELATED:Viceland Network Preview Video

Now that Vice Media finally has a cable channel, the question is whether it can successfully transition from a Web-based distributor of short- and long-form content to a full-fledged linear programmer.

Vice, which is known for its news and documentary content targeted to educated, 18-to-34-year-old millennials, will take over A+E Networks outlet H2 in January with its new, tentatively titled Viceland network. Viceland promises to provide a new outlet for younger viewers seeking quality programming and for advertisers seeking new opportunities to reach that very elusive audience, which is viewing less and less linear content.

Original shows that already have been earmarked for the new network include such titles as Gaycation, with actress Ellen Page; Huang’s World, featuring comedian Eddie Huang; Noisey; Vice World of Sports; Black Market; and Weediquette.

Vice’s established ability to monetize its video programming factored into the A+E transaction. While A+E — which invested $250 million in Vice Media in August 2014 — will oversee technical operations and distribution for Viceland, it will work with Vice on ad sales and sponsorships for the 70 million-plus-subscriber channel. A+E Networks, a joint venture of The Walt Disney Co. and Hearst, also owns A&E, History, Lifetime, LMN and FYI.

“We will test new and innovative monetization strategies placing Viceland at the pointy tip of the spear of the rapidly changing terrain of TV advertising,” Vice CEO and co-founder Shane Smith said in a release about the channel deal.

The strategy may sound good in theory, but the industry may not be ready for such a radical change in operations.

“There’s always resistance to different approaches, particularly by established advertisers,” Bill Carroll, senior vice president and director of content strategy for Katz Media Group, said. “But over time, all of them come to the realization — especially if they’re trying to reach a certain segment of the market — that they have to go where those consumers are. There are advertisers that are targeting this younger, more educated demographic and are more willing to experiment in that way.”

Vice will almost certainly bring a younger viewer to H2, which during the third quarter had a median average age of 57. (For more on H2’s performance, see the Ratings Intelligence breakdown.)

HBO certainly has benefited from having the Vice brand on its network. The premium service’s Vice on HBO news and documentary program has averaged 897,000 viewers this year, up from 747,000 viewers in 2014 and 821,000 in its debut season, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day ratings.

“Vice has a bold voice and a distinctive model in the marketplace,” Nancy Dubuc, CEO of A+E Networks, said in the deal release. “This channel represents a strategic fit and a new direction for the future of our portfolio of media assets.”

The buzz about TV Everywhere is all around us. It has been hailed as a potential savior against cord-cutting and a possible magnet for millennials.

That would be great news if TV Everywhere were, indeed, everywhere. But in fact, it isn’t, and may never be, in my opinion. In spite of the dedicated investments of the industry’s most forward-looking companies, let’s face it: The free, fast, fat Internet access that you need to stream the latest Walking Dead, to binge on Game of Thrones, to watch live sports, will never reach every corner of the telecommunications universe.

Here are some facts: An estimated 60% of tablet owners don’t have a data plan. That means the minute you leave the house most of us have to rely on hotspots.

I don’t know about you, but I hate having to pay again for WiFi access at the airport, in hotels, even on the train. And just try logging in — chances are, if you can get past the login screen, the service will deliver you into buffering hell. Free WiFi is just as bad, or maybe worse.

Sure, I could ditch the tablet and use my smartphone for my video fix. However, a typical cellphone data plan is limited to only 2 Gigabytes. Streaming one hour of HD content will eat that up before I’ve sent a single email. I could, of course, watch four hours of standard-definition content, but I seriously run the risk of data overages — so count me out.

A much better solution is downloading to take content with you on-the-go. Consumers are accustomed to “pulling” content — they do it every time they log onto our video-on-demand portals. Let’s allow them to pull more of the content they already have paid for onto their mobile device.

We already have the rights for in-home viewing, and the technology exists to protect rights holders and restrict the content to a one-time out-of-home view.

To sum it all up: Downloading has become the table stakes for mobile video — Amazon Prime Instant Video and now YouTube Red both enable offline viewing for their content. Consumers expect ultimate viewing flexibility and programmers and service providers need to allow downloading to meet those expectations.

We can either get on the bus, or land under it, because the bus of mobile video and downloading by consumers is inevitably arriving, and it’s picking up speed. Together, let’s invest in true content everywhere.

Melani Griffith is executive vice president, business development, and a board member at Penthera.

Members of the coveted millennial audience spend about as much of their time online perusing social-media platforms as they do watching over-the-top video, according to a new study from content delivery specialist Limelight Networks.

Those activities were neck and neck, followed closely by reading news content, per Limelight’s second annual State of the User Experience report, which tallied results from more than 1,300 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore. When a larger group of consumers were added to the mix, social networking dominated time spent online, followed by video viewing.

And it’s increasingly clear that eyeballs continue to shift from traditional TV. Limelight said 45% of those surveyed spend more than 15 hours per week online outside of work, up from 23% in the year-ago study. Interestingly, 51% of baby boomers (51-to-69 year-olds) said they spent that much time online, versus 41% among the millennials studied.

Limelight also found that consumers are becoming generally more patient with buffering and loading times. Last year, 41% of respondents were willing to wait five seconds or more for a website to load, but this year’s study found 52% of respondents were willing to wait that long.

Consumers are also expecting improved mobile experiences. About 35% of respondents to the 2015 study were willing to wait longer for a webpage to load on a mobile device, down from 44%. Likewise, 26% were willing to deal with longer load times on PCs, up from 15%. “The flip-flop between 2014 and 2015 clearly indicates that performance for the mobile Web has become top-of-mind for consumers,” Limelight said.

For more charts from the Limelight report, download the PDF of this story from the Nov. 2, 2015, edition of Multichannel News.

Pivot, Participant Media’s two-year old network-aimed at digital-savvy millennials, is looking to reach that audience of 17-to-34-year-olds with content it hopes will inspire them to make positive change in the world. During the recent New York City Television Week, Pivot general manager Kent Rees spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about how that millennial generation will affect the future of television, as well as about Pivot’s plans for linear and digital distribution. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

MCN:Two years in, how would you define the Pivot brand?

Kent Rees: Pivot is a network dedicated to content that inspires social change. It came out of our parent, Participant Media, and Participant was founded on the idea that if you show people content that inspires them and gives them different ways to take action on the most pressing issues facing the world, that they would want to get involved and do things directly. Pivot is the TV version of that same idea.

MCN:Pivot’s target is young, millennial audiences who aren’t predisposed to watching traditional television. How difficult is it to reach such a fluid audience base?

KR: We concentrate on a specific kind of millennial whom we call the conscious consumers. These are people who are passionate about the world around them, where their food comes from, what they’re children are eating — it’s really a psychographic and a mentality that is very unique and specifically intense within the millennial audience. They want to get involved, and they see Pivot as a credible resource for them as a way to be entertained and inspired at the same time.

MCN:How big a role will millennials play in defining television’s future?

KR: I think millennials are really reaping the benefits of the content explosion that you’ve seen over the last 10 years. They are not necessarily driving the change, but taking full advantage of the technological explosion in the industry and the opportunities that come from that.

MCN:How is Pivot taking advantage of the technological advancements in digital content distribution to reach millennial viewers?

KR: We offer an authenticated app that you can use to watch the network streaming on a 24-hour basis. We also have a lot of great digital content on our sister site, dubbed Takepart. com, where you can dig deeper into a lot of issues that we create.

I think a really great success story for us was [original series] Fortitude, which had a digital companion series where scientists went episode to episode and talked about the impact of what you saw in the episode and how it related back to global warming.

MCN:How do you see the television landscape developing over the next few years, and how does Pivot fit into that landscape?

KR: We’re bullish on the fact that television is an important way to reach people and a great way to provide content. That’s at the heart of what we do: it’s content that inspires social change, and I think TV is the perfect place to do that among all these other platforms.

In a study that should provide comfort to Comcast and Verizon as they try to draw eyeballs to their new Watchable (pictured) and go90 over-the-top services, Adobe found that 92% of millennials in the U.S. consider the smartphone to be their primary device for watching TV when on the go. 

That compares to 84% among GenX'ers, 69% of baby boomers, and 67% of the 70-and-older crowd, per Adobe’s survey of cross-section of 4,000 consumers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France (the stats cited here are Adobe’s for the U.S.).

Additionally, 38% of those surveyed said they are using mobile devices to watch live sports, well above 9% from  Adobe’s study from last year.

And most consumers aren’t shy about registering personal info in order to gain access to ad-supported content. About 63% of U.S. mobile users told Adobe that they provide their email address in exchange for receiving premium content with advertising.

Among other findings, Adobe said 67% of U.S. respondents favored apps for streaming TV shows and full-length movies. But just 31% of millennials said they were extremely satisfied with that mobile experience, versus 20% of the GenX group, 13% of Baby Boomers, and 9% of consumers 70 years and older.

Adobe also found that millennials and GenX respondents perceive personalized experiences to be just as important as “simplification,” a category that includes elements such as recommendations based on viewing history.

Poker Central is making a big bet on social media as the startup linear TV channel seeks out new ways to connect with card players and enthusiasts who tend to skew into that hard-to-reach millennials crowd.

One big card it’s playing is a channel on Twitch, the popular over-the-top live streaming service now owned by Amazon, and a new interactive show starring professional player Maria Ho, who has accumulated about $2.6 million in poker tournament earnings. The live show, called Poker Central Live With Maria Ho, is being offered three times a week, with each show running about five hours in length. Poker Central is announcing specific airdates on its website and the Twitch channel itself.

The Twitch offering is viewed as an OTT complement to the 24/7 Poker Central channel, which debuted on Oct. 1. (Distribution partners had not been announced at press time.)

The Twitch channel is also one component of Poker Central’s broader social-media strategy, which also includes a presence on Facebook, which had 274,976 “likes” as of last week. Its Twitter account (@PokerCentral_) has more than 16,700 followers.

MAKING A ‘POKER FACE’

In concert with this week’s network launch, Poker Central is also holding a “Poker Faces” contest on social media whereby viewers can upload their poker face for a chance to win one of three trips to the Aria in Las Vegas and for a private lesson with one of the pros.

Each month, one of the network’s three professional poker player partners — Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari or Phil Hellmuth — will act as judge and provide the winner with his or her lesson.

That’s all part and parcel of a plan to connect with younger viewers in places they frequent. “We know there’s a strong millennial audience interest in poker,” Clint Stinchcomb, CEO of Poker Central (and a former Discovery Networks executive), said.

He said Poker Central knew it was onto something with Twitch following a summer trial on the platform of the Super High Roller Cash Game ($250,000 buy-in).

“Millennials came to Twitch and participated aggressively,” Stinchcomb said, noting that the event generated 1.5 million unique in a bare-bones offering that didn’t include elements such as onscreen graphics and a view of the players’ hole cards.

“Twitch, for us, is about promotion,” Stinchcomb said, noting that Poker Central will also use the platform to pump in clips from the primary network, which will start off with about 2,000 hours of content, spanning categories such as tournament programming; instructional programming, news and highlights; player bios and documentaries; and poker-themed films. Poker Central’s primetime slate will include shows and series such as Super High Roller Cash Game, Heads Up Grand Slam, Poker After Dark, Doubles Poker Championship, Face the Ace and 100 Greatest Poker Moments, among others.

SOCIAL PROMO POWER

Stinchcomb is also a fan of using mobile live streaming platforms such as Periscope and Meerkat to provide an additional social-media vehicle for Poker Central. For instance, poker pros, many of whom have huge followings on social media, can use those platforms to promote upcoming telecasts.

Don’t expect to see Poker Central follow in the footsteps of CBS, HBO and Showtime and sell its primary service over-the-top, though.

“We’re not in the business of going direct to the consumer,” Stinchcomb said. “I’m not a huge fan of the direct-to-consumer business, personally … We’re focused on providing what meets the need of today’s distributor.”

New Form Digital said it will develop and produce six scripted series for go90, Verizon’s mobile-first video service for millennial audiences that recently debuted as an invitation-only beta.

The following six original series will premiere on go90 over the next year, with 12-episode runs for each:

The Fourth Door: A fantasy adventure about a woman who wakes up in the embattled way-station between this life and the next; populated by mysterious and dangerous creatures who force her to face the past, present and future to save the man she loves. Created and directed by Tony E. Valenzuela.

#DoOver (working title): What if you could repeat the most important day of your life until you perfected it? Allison Lee gets more than she wished for when she's stuck repeating her epic 25th birthday bash which goes up in flames, over and over again. Created and written by Kathleen Grace and Shawn Dempewolff-Barrett.

Miss Earth (working title): An intergalactic sci-fi comedy following Victoria Young, a pageant queen on Earth, who takes the place of her battle-tested twin sister in a competition with all of humanity at stake. Created by and starring Anna Akana.

Mr. Student Body President (working title): A dark political comedy about an incredibly likable and charming teenage dictator. Ferris Bueller meets Frank Underwood. Created and directed by Ryan Hunter and Jack Ferry.

Cold (working title): A dramatic crime series about a teenage girl who seeks out her birth parents only to find that her separation from them occurred due to significant tragedy. In her efforts to uncover what really happened, she explores the town where she would have grown up, finding that although seemingly quaint - it is a place with many secrets. Created and directed by Emily Diana Ruth.

And one additional series to be announced shortly.

All of those series will be available on go90, starting with The Fourth Door in October 2015. 

Other announced content partners for go90 include UphoricTV, ESPN, Comedy Central, VH1, Nickelodeon, MTV, Spike, Food Network, TLC, Discovery Network, NFL Network, HGTV, BET, Investigation Discovery, AwesomenessTV, Collective Digital Studio, Defy, Vice, Maker Studios, Machinima, Fullscreen, StyleHaul, and Tastemade.

Fusion, a network focused on millennials, said it has launched on Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT-TV service for cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

Fusion is offered on Sling TV’s “World News Extra” add-on pack, which sells for $5 per month on top of Sling TV’s core $20 per month “Best of Live TV” service.  The add-on pack also features NDTV 24x7, News18 India,  euronews, France 24, HLN, and RT Network.

Update: Bloomberg Television and CNN are part of Sling TV's core package. 

Fusion , a joint venture of Univision and Disney/ABC Television Network, also offers content via traditional pay TV providers such as DirecTV, Dish, Cablevision Systems, Charter, Cox, AT&T U-verse, Google Fiber, and Verizon FiOS, and via apps for platforms such as Roku, Apple TV, Spotify, Vessel and Flipps. 

 “FUSION is committed to producing programming for a young, diverse audience that informs, provokes, and entertains. With our launch on Sling TV, FUSION is taking another critical step towards reaching our digitally-native audience in all the places they are consuming content,” said FUSION CEO Isaac Lee, in a statement. 

UphoricTV, an OTT digital service dedicated to the “global festival circuit,” said it’s poised to arrive this fall on go90, Verizon’s digital-first video service tailored for millennial audiences.

UG Strategies, in partnership with U.S.-based marketing company Corso Agency, announced the launch of UphoricTV today. UphoricTV will first be offered in the U.S. via go90, and plans to announce other domestic and international distributers and multi-channel networks over the next six to 12 months. UphoricTV said it will also broadcast via YouTube and other social media platforms.

UphoricTV said its focus is to provide an exclusive look into the world of music festivals, as well as coverage from food festivals, film festivals, and other “major global cultural destinations.”  Original fare will span artist and music content, behind-the-scenes footage, documentaries, and interviews.

Go90, a free, ad-supported service,  launched in invitation-only trial form earlier this month, and will later expand to other consumers.  Go90 will initially be offered on iOS and  Android-powered mobile devices.  Other announced go90 content partners include ESPN, Comedy Central, VH1, Nickelodeon, MTV, Spike, Food Network, TLC, Discovery Network, NFL Network, HGTV, BET, Investigation Discovery, AwesomenessTV, Collective Digital Studio, Defy, Vice, Maker Studios, Machinima, Fullscreen, StyleHaul, and Tastemade.

“After more than a decade of working with festivals from around the world, we have seen the demand for festival content rise exponentially,” said Parag Bhandari, CEO of UG Strategies, in a statement.  “Festivals of all kinds have become critical to pop culture, with enthusiasm for them rivaling that of major sporting events, each offering so much more than music and thus creating endless sources of creative and unique video content. UphoricTV’s debut on digital, ‘cord-cutting’ platforms such as go90, alongside major content providers like ESPN, Vice Media, Viacom, and others, manifests how important these events have become.”

“After 25 years in the festival experiential space, I cannot tell you how many fans have begged for us to let them in on what we know and what we see,” added David Corso, CEO of Corso Agency. “UphoricTV is the answer to their demands, and is perfectly aligned to strengthen the burgeoning global festival circuit. We’re excited to access our extensive network in music, entertainment and festivals to help bring this to life.”

Oxygen Media said Very Real, a site tailored for millennial women, has driven more than 2.6 million visits since its launch in May, accounting for 37% of all traffic to Oxygen.com.

Oxygen said Very Real traffic has grown 30% on average each week since launch, noting that August set new traffic records.

Additionally, time spent on the Very Real site has grown 47% since launch, and 76% of Very Real traffic is coming in from Facebook. Monthly referrals from social networks are up 112% since Very Real’s launch, Oxygen said. 

An Evercore ISI Group study of 866 millennial men and women showed that while the younger generation watches most of its video online, they are more than willing to pay for it and are in no rush to cancel their cable/satellite/telco subscriptions.

According to the survey, conducted by Evercore’s researchers Oscar Sloterbeck, Charles Saltzman and James Walsh, more than half of millennials in four age groups – 13-17; 18-23; 24-29; and 30-35 – said they were unlikely or somewhat unlikely to replace traditional pay TV for online video. About 10% of 24-to-29 year olds said they were very likely to cut the cord, with less than 10% of the other age groups selecting that option. Nearly 20% of those aged 24-29 and 30-35 said they have already cut the cord while about 5% of 13-to-17 year olds and 10% of those aged 18-23 dropped their pay TV package.

The survey showed that viewing habits also change as consumers age – about 42% of 13-to-17 year-olds watch video on their PCs and Laptops, while 65% of 18-to-23 year-olds view video on those devices. Older millennials watch mostly via their cable/satellite/telco subscriptions, with 38% of millennials aged 24-29 and 52% of millennials aged 30-35 taking that option. As far as mobile viewing, 25% of 13-to-17 year-olds and 10% of 30-to-35 year olds watch video on mobile devices.

"Online video seems to be the most popular way to watch video among young millennials,” said Evercore ISI media analyst Vijay Jayant in an email. “However, as of now online video seems to be mostly complimentary to cable/satellite with only a small percentage of respondents saying they are likely to disconnect their traditional cable/satellite connection in favor of online video.”

One thing all the age groups could agree on was what online content site they watched the most – Netflix. Netflix was the online video site that 43% of 13-to-17 year-olds watched most and the numbers didn’t fall off much among the older set: 45% of 18-to-23 year-olds; 45% of 24-to-29 year olds and 35% of 30-to-35 year-olds. In second place was YouTube, with just under 30% of 13-to-17 year-olds watching the Google-owned site the most; just under 40% for 18-to-23 year-olds and 24-to-29 year olds; and about 25% for 30-to-35 year-olds.

That makeup is probably while the majority of males and females responded that they were willing to pay for content – females surveyed said 33% of the online video sites they watch are free while 67% ae pay sites. Males were a little bit cheaper – they said 45% of video sites they view are free and 55% charge a fee.

NFL games and live concerts will be among the video fare offered by Go90, a free, “mobile-first” over-the-top offering from Verizon Communications targeted to millennials that will debut this week, according toThe New York Times.

Go90 is expected to be a free, ad-supported service that offers a blend of live and on-demand content. Though initially developed for mobile devices (the name of the service is about rotating a smartphone 90 degrees to view video in landscape mode), Verizon’s also noodling TV-based streaming strategies, the paper said.

Announced partners for Verizon’s new service include Discovery Communications, Vice Media, Scripps Networks Interactive, ACC Digital Network, Campus Insiders, CBS Sports, ESPN, 120 Sports,  Awesomeness TV, and AOL, which Verizon acquired in June. The New York Times noted that the offering will also feature shows from Comedy Central, NFL Network, Tastemade and Machinima.

Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s senior vice president for consumer products, told the  Times that Verizon struck mobile rights for specific shows rather than crafting deals that provide access to entire networks. Expanding on its NFL mobile exclusive, Verizon Wireless announced last week that all current and legacy price plans will include live streaming of Sunday local NFL games as well as Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football matchups, plus mobile streaming access to NFL Network.

Verizon’s new mobile video offering will be network-agnostic, but will “work best” on Verizon networks, Marni Walden, EVP and president of product innovation and new business at Verizon, said on a conference call in June. She also confirmed that “ad-sponsored data” will be part of the offering.

Variety reported that the launch of Go90 could happen as soon as Tuesday (September 8), noting that a splash page for the service showed a customer agreement that temporarily read: “Effective date: September 8, 2015.”

Verizon has been asked for further comment about the apparent imminent launch of the Go90 service.

Comcast, meanwhile, appears to be nearing the debut of Watchable, an ad-supported OTT service tailored for younger audiences, but has not announced a launch date for the service, nor confirmed that Watchable will be the name of the service when it does go live.

Turns out that Hillary Clinton is in the minority when she talks about favoring a Snapchat app that automatically deletes messages (she is under the gun over allegedly classified emails on her server), but that may be a factor of age.

In a new Pew Research Center survey, only 17% of respondents with smart phones use apps like Snapchat or Wickr, which do not preserve messages, compared with 36% who use messaging apps such as Kik or iMessage, which do.

But those numbers change markedly among younger demos. Roughly half of smartphone users ages 18-30 use a messaging app, and 41% use a message-deleting app.

Pew pointed out that such apps are free and, when used with WiFi, don't use up SMS data. The study also noted that message-deleting apps offer more private online socializing than Facebook or Twitter.

The study found that use of Pinterest and Instagram has doubled since 2012, with 31% using Pinterest, up from 15% in 2012, and 28% using Instagram, up from 13% in 2012.

Growth has leveled off, however. None of the social media platforms in the survey had significant increases in the number of users between September 2014 and April 2015, though among those who already use them, frequency of use had increased significantly.

Facebook continues to dominate among social media sites, with 72% of online respondents saying they use it, 70% daily and 43% several times a day.

The study found that 15% of Internet users are on discussion forums including reddit, Digg or Slashdot, while 10% use Tumblr.

The survey was conducted March 17-April 12, 2015, among 1,907 adults 18-plus (of whom 1,612 are Internet users). The margin of error for all respondents was plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points.

Verizon’s coming “mobile-first” video service for millennials will be called Go90 and initially be launched under a free, ad-supported model, Varietyreported, citing details found on a pre-launch staging site that has since been taken down.

Before the site was removed from public view, Go90 was being characterized as a service that will offer “live music, exclusive events, best of web content, sports, prime time and more,” according to the report. "We wanted to create a mobile-first, video-based app that can keep up with you and your on-the-go social life, One that features completely immersive live and on-demand content, no matter where you are or where you’re going. No cord required."

Verizon hasn’t announced a launch date for the service, but company CFO Fran Shammo said on this week’s earnings call that it will debut in the “late summer” and that content from AOL, which Verizon just acquired, will also be featured.  However, the service “won't be the full entire of everything that we contemplate within the product set,” he said.

Other announced content partners for the coming service include Vice Media, Scripps Networks Interactive, ACC Digital Network, Campus Insiders, CBS Sports, ESPN, 120 Sports and Awesomeness TV.

The site discovered by Variety also featured content from others, including Victorious, GoPro and Vevo, and references to shows from Fox and AMC and NFL fare (Verizon has mobile distribution rights for NFL games and other content), but a Verizon official told the pub that not all content shown on the staging site is accurate.

Verizon has already said the mobile-first offering will include “ad-sponsored data” (expected to be so-called “zero-rated” content that won’t count toward a wireless sub’s monthly usage cap) and feature both live and on-demand content.  The service will be network-agnostic, but will be optimized for Verizon’s mobile network. Verizon will use bandwidth-friendly LTE multicast technology to deliver some live content. 

Live TV is still the first choice among viewers when they pick up the remote to watch TV, but new research from Hub Entertainment research says Netflix is but a click away from becoming the default choice for consumers – particularly among younger viewers.

Slightly more than one-third of consumers polled said that live Tv is the most common default for TV viewing, which is down from 50% in 2013, according to the survey.  Live Tv is also the main choice for 40% of consumers looking to surf content when they don’t have a specific show in mind, while half of all consumers choose live TV if they want a TV show on in the background while they’re doing other things, according to Hub.

Not surprisingly, Netflix is a more popular choice among younger viewers.  About 33% of millennials default to live TV compared to 31% for Netflix, according to the survey, For viewers 16-24 years of age, Netflix emerges as the group’s first TV viewing choice ( 40%), compared to just 26% who default to live TV.

Further, 26% of all viewers looking for a specific show or want to focus on watching TV without interruptions or distractions choose Netflix, while less than 21% choose Live TV.

“It’s important to note that along with an overall decline as consumers’ go-to viewing source, Live TV is losing ground in what one might argue are the more valuable viewing occasions,” said Hub principal Peter Fondulas. “The shows where people are most engaged versus the occasions when they’re just looking for something to have on in the background.”

One more reason for traditional Tv providers to worry about Netflix and other emerging digital content distribution services.  

Ted Sarandos talks about the value of original programming at TCA 2015 in a new "One Question For ..." video.

As millennials grow older, ABC Family is shifting its focus to a younger-skewing ‘becomers’ with a lineup of unscripted and scripted series that will allow the network to offer year-long original programming, the network said prior to its upfront presentation Tuesday in New York.

ABC Family president Tom Ascheim told Multichannel News that the network’s millennial target audience it began targeting a decade ago is now growing older – in five years millennials will be less than half of the network’s core 12-34 demo – so the network will focus on what it defines as ‘becomers’ who are just beginning to enter key stages of their lives.

“That keeps us tightly focused on the audience and the journey of that audience – it informs our programming and our marketing,” Ascheim said.

He added that the network’s “family” brand is targeted to young adult audience. “The focus is on viewers in our sweet spot, with a median age in the 20’s,” he said.  

The network is more than doubling its original content, which includes unscripted programming as well as scripted dramas and comedies, according to Karey Burke, ABC Family executive vice president of programming and development.

“We’re making more programming that has a becomer lens on it,” she said.

Among the new series set to launch this summer are Job or No Job, which follows one young adult to his/her first journey to land a job and Becoming Us, which centers on a teenager who is learning to live with his dad becoming a woman. The shows will join previously announced new summer shows Monica the Medium, Startup U,Next Step Realty: NYC, Kevin From Work and Stitchers.

Show in development for ABC Family include Hearts and Clubs, from executive producer Christina Aguilera about young performers working in Las Vegas; Famous In Love, starring Bella Thorne and based on the novel by Rebecca Serle; Sold Out, about a young band hitting the road for their first-ever tour;  I Am Maker, a docu-series that follows up and coming Youtube sensations living together and mentored by celebrity talent, Shadowhunters, a supernatural drama which follows an 18-year old who discovers she comes from a family of human-angel hybrids who hunt down demons and You Got To Work It, from actress Eva Longora that follows eight unemployed girls vying for seven job opportunities in seven industries.

Earlier this month the network said it will develop pilots for scripted series Gorgeous Morons and Beyond.

On the specials front, the network will develop We Heart Disney, a music spectacular featuring today’s biggest pop stars and classic Disney songs.

You might think by now that the whole “zombie” craze is exhausted on TV, that fickle younger adults have moved on from apocalyptic stories involving the flesh-eating undead.

But you would be wrong. The demographic that’s powering the ratings muscle of AMC’s The Walking Dead is squarely in the millennial camp. The show is the most watched by the 18-to-34-yearold demographic, a group that’s drawn to darker sides of the drama genre. These shows are often set in bleak, futuristic worlds and depict ambivalent heroes.

“These millennials have come of age in absolute chaos, so it’s natural that the programming they are attracted to has an even edgier edge than we’re used to seeing,” Jane Gould, senior vice president of research for MTV, said. “The lines that used to be so firmly cemented so as to not cross have been easily crossed now, because as humans we like to escape and think our lives are better than the one that we’re watching, and that’s easy to imagine when you’re watching The Walking Dead.”

Indeed, the post-apocalyptic zombie series and its companion talk show Talking Dead, as well as HBO’s fantasy-driven series Game of Thrones and FX’s horror anthology series American Horror Story, all ranked among the top five most watched cable shows for millennials in 2014 averaging a combined 15 rating according to Ratings Intelligence. (ESPN’s Monday Night Football rounds out the list.)

The closest non-scripted drama series among millennials is VH1’s Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, with just under a 2.5 rating.

Millennials — living today under the constant threat of terrorism, a stagnant economy, high unemployment and crippling student-loan debt — are not as optimistic about the state of the workd as baby boomers were when they moved into adult, Kent Rees, general manager of millennial-targeted network Pivot, said.

“Millennials are more realistic — they look around the world and see that the world is screwed up,” said Rees. This past January, Pivot debuted Fortitude, a dark drama with climate change overtones in which a small Arctic town is rocked by a grisly murder.

The darker shows of today are a drastic change from the dramas of 20 years ago. Such shows as The West Wing, Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue were considered edgy, but look tame by today’s standards.

FEWER HAPPY ENDINGS

Back then, boomers saw the world as their oyster and everything was about optimism, happy endings comfort, certainty, and law, order and justice, according to Don Micallef, vice president of research for Discovery Communications, which recently commissioned “The Dark Side,” a report on the viewer appeal of dark dramas. On the other hand, today’s millennials see the world as a dangerous place, filled with uncertainty, consequences, betrayal and fear, Micallef said.

“Certainly, when you look at the history of millennials and what they were exposed to early in their lifetime, starting with the dotcom bubble bursting through 9/11, the world has really turned upside down,” he said. “So, they are used to seeing the world in a much darker perspective than the boomers or the [Generation Xers] did.”

And today’s darker-themed shows are influencing the development of programs aimed at baby boomers, Micallef added. Shows such as NBC’s The Blacklist and ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder are successfully reaching older audiences with intense plot twists, murder and mayhem.

“Five years ago, the networks wouldn’t have tried shows like that for their broader audience because they would have come across as too dark,” he said. “But now — in order to compete with what’s on cable, which offers much darker content — the broadcast networks have had to adapt.”

But it’s not all about the doom and gloom. Pivot’s Rees said shows that feature chaos but also provide a sliver of hope for the future and depict characters who are willing to pull together for the greater good have big appeal to millennials.

Fortitude’s climate change theme is supported by a show-related website that provides information and recommendations to counter the phenomenon. Rees said the series and its companion website give millennials a more informative view of the subject.

“[The website] highlights the real science behind the show, and I think we’re making that extra commitment and layer to the show,” he said. “[Viewers] can be involved in the vibe of the show and get involved in the mystery and story and then go online and engage deeper.”

MTV’s Gould pointed to recent network research on the TV viewing habits of millennials that revealed the group is driven by complicated storylines in which millennials work together to create a better world for themselves and build unique, non-traditional family bonds, similar to the relationship between the human survivors in The Walking Dead and the bond between friends within MTV’s horror-themed series Teen Wolf, the network’s most-watched scripted drama series among millennials.

Millennials also want programming that doesn’t adhere to traditional stereotypes or follow a formula, but rather shows that have fluid boundaries. “What we see from millennials in this lean-in TV world is a desire for chaos, but then for people to work together against that something that is threatening them,” Gould added.

The tie between scripted dramas and social media is also strong for millennials, and more often than not, millennials are talking about these shows on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, which follows four teen girls tormented by a mysterious murderer known as “A,” has generated the top five most tweeted telecasts in television history over its five seasons, according to Karey Burke, executive vice president of programming and development.

The show is currently the most-followed scripted television series on Instagram, generating close to 2 million fans per episode, according to ABC Family.

SOCIAL MEDIA APPEAL

“Social media has become the modern water cooler, and these shows in particular have these very big stakes and surprises,” Burke said. “I think they love the suspension of disbelief, and they can’t predict what’s going to happen. Being on those virtual rollercoaster rides for them is thrilling.”

Dave Quinn, editor-in-chief for website Beamly, which bills itself as a social discovery platform for TV, said the networks have done a good job of using social media to attract millennials who want to discuss the latest murder or the unexpected plot twists by creating hashtags within the show to drive online discussions.

“People like pulling apart all of the conflict and mystery involved in those shows,” he said.

Millennial-targeted networks will look to continue its walk on the dark side with its viewers. MTV is creating a TV version of the hit theatrical horror franchise Scream and is developing the miniseries Shannara, based on Terry Brooks’ fantasy-themed novels of the same name that chronicle a land of magic nearly 2000 years after Earth’s demon-induced demise.

ABC Family is developing a procedural drama called Stitchers, set to air this summer, in which a woman hacks into the minds of dead bodies to help solve murders.

Pivot is also looking at a number of drama series to potentially add to its lineup, while upstart El Rey Network has begun production on a second season of its horror series From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.

Discovery’s Micallef said he expects TV will see even darker dramas in the future as millennials continue to look to entertainment for an escape from reality.

“We haven’t seen a pushback yet from audiences so I think it can get even darker,” he said. “I think we’ll see more of it, rather than less of it.”

Deloitte's 2015 "Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions"   foresees that  "the generation that won't spend" is actually "spending a lot on media content" and that "disruptive innovations with broadband delivery" will make higher speed services more widely available.

In its latest annual outlook, unveiled in mid-January, the global consultants examine an array of topics, from the Internet of  Things (one billion devices to be shipped this year, up 60% from 2014; predominantly used in industrial rather than consumer settings) to contactless mobile payment systems (should be integrated with other retail/financial applications; need strong security).

In its wide-ranging 76-page analysis, Deloitte paints a bullish picture for streaming media and equipment used to access it.  It expects that North America's 83 million Millennials (ages 18 to 34 years old) will spend $62 billion this year on media content, including video (pay TV, subscription VOD), music, games and other entertainment/information sources.

Overall, Millennials will spend about $3,000 per year on technology hardware and connectivity," including game consoles and portable devices on which they can receive and watch streamed video, Deloitte says.

The analysis contends that short form video has a strong future, but it is not the future of television."  It predicts that videos less than 20-minutes long) will represent  "under 3% of all video watched on all screens."  Although such short videos will generate $5 billion in global revenues, that sum will pale against the $400 billion from long-form TV content brought in by advertising and subscription revenues.

"Short-form should not be considered as a direct competitor to 'traditional' long-form content, but rather as an additional screen-based medium, addressing needs that were previously un-served or which were catered for by other media," Deloitte concludes.  

As for sports, the report notes that Millennials are "less devoted to major league sports than older generations," but that 86% of them watch live sporting events on TV and are many are "likely to spend $25 to attend a game."

In its Telecommunications forecast, Deloitte dwells on "haves" and "have nots," particularly  rural users. It concludes that, "There are evident implications for regulators" and "It may not be sufficient simply to call for broadband to be recognized as a universal service, in the same way as fixed-line telephony."  

The report suggests that the definition of broadband "needs to be updated regularly"; it predicts that rather than conventional downstream benchmarks, "in future, as broadband usage evolves, upstream speed will become increasingly important as users upload more content." 

"Regulators should also consider how price per megabit is affected by technology," according to Deloitte's assessment.   

As for over-the-top and VOD services, Deloitte recommends that providers may have to develop "alternative approaches" to reach customers who cannot access mainstream services. It cites "satellite caching" as a possible option.

The Deloitte study delves into some unusual territory, touching on topics that may be vital for cable operators looking at whole-home service, such as WiFi delivery.

For example, it acknowledges that WiFi can result in a 50% drop in speed.

"Providing a wired connection is too complex for most households," Deloitte observes, but it lists numerous barriers to wireless home service: older routers have less throughput; construction materials affect performance (thick walls in old home; foil-backed plasterboard/insulation in new homes); underfloor heating coils that deflect signal.

"The highest speeds within a WiFi home are generally closest to the router," Deloitte says, "but in some cases the device needing the fastest speeds (typically the television) may not be adjacent to the router."

Summarizing many of the challenges for these and other broadband installations, Deloitte concludes that, "In the long-term there is ample opportunity for more disruptive innovation with broadband delivery."

Gary Arlen analyzes broadband and media trends at Arlen Communications.

Oxygen will look to reach young, multicultural women with four new series as part of its development slate.

The new shows include The Misty Copeland Project (working title) which follows the renowned African-American ballerina (pictured) as she trains would-be ballerinas; Teaching English, which follows a group of young Americans living abroad in countries where English is rarely heard; Survival of The Clickiest, which follows a group of young budding online style stars each forging a path in the ultra-competitive world of vlogging; and Straight Up With A Twist, a half-hour comedy that captures after work bar discussions of various groups of friends.

“From the unbelievably inspirational and talented Misty Copeland, to the bold young women experiencing life abroad, the new development slate appeals to a multitude of female viewers,” said Cori Abraham, Senior Vice President of Development & International for Oxygen Media in a statement.  “These projects embrace the new Oxygen programming filter, which focuses on real characters who are on a journey to seek out new experiences and follow their true passions in life.”