Ellen Digital, founded by Ellen Degeneres and Warner Bros. Digital Networks, has divided up its programming into three focused brands and each brand will be launching new series.

The three brands--introduced during Ellen Digital’s NewFronts presentation Thursday, are bubble, dedicated to mother, sage, aimed at inspiring women, and smile, which amplifies the voices of extraordinary individuals.

The bubble brand is exemplified by Momsplaining with Kristen Bell, returning for a sixth season. New series coming to bubble are Mama to Mama, featuring celebrity moms interviewing one another, and Spill the Family Tea, based on the game featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Sage is headlined by Lady Parts, with Sarah Hyland and Dr. Sherry Ross talking about female sex and health, which is returning for season 2. New sage series include Lady Like, spotlighting women working in primarily male fields.

Also Read: NewFronts Speakers See Advertisers Changing Channels from Traditional TV

Smile will feature two new shows: All Good Things, celebrating everyday people doing small things that make a big impact, and Dragged, where an experienced drag queen helps a curious LGBTQ+ person transform and express themselves.

Ellen Digital plans to extend its brands in social, games, podcasts and experiential events, including Camp Mom, a weekend for parents.

Ellen Digital programming can be found across YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, with 300 million social followers generating 8 billion views in 2020.

Patty Hirsch has been named SVP and GM of Warner Bros. Digital Labs (WBDL) and head up a team that powers Warner Bros. Digital Networks’s portfolio of digital offerings.

Hirsch will also oversee DramaFever, an OTT-delivered, subscription service focused on TV shows and movies from Korea and romantic comedies. Warner Bros. acquired DramaFever in 2016.

She’ll work with Seung Bak, current head of Warner Bros. Digital Labs and CEO of DramaFever, on a multi-week transition plan, after which Bak will leave the company to pursue entrepreneurial projects, the company said.

Hirsch is based in New York and reports to Jay Levine, executive vice president of WBDN.

Prior to joining WBDN, Hirsch was an exec focused on multi-platform digital offerings, including SVP, digital for Time Inc., and GM of its Sports Group. She is also late of CBS Interactive, where she was VP & GM digital media, and was with Muze (now part of TiVo/Rovi), Synacor and Charter Communications.

She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Colorado.

“I am thrilled that Patty is joining the fast-growing Warner Bros. Digital Networks family,” Craig Hunegs, president, WBDN, and president, business and strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group, in a statement. “Along with her wealth of knowledge, Patty brings to Warner Bros. Digital Labs a passion for, and commitment to, innovating through technology that will help take this group to new levels of success.”

In a deal that will add hundreds of Hollywood classics to its library, FilmStruck, the Turner-owned SVOD service for film aficionados, has inked an exclusive streaming deal with Warner Bros. Digital Networks (WBDN) that adds hundreds of Hollywood classics to its subscription VOD library, including Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and An American in Paris. 

FilmStruck also announced TCM Select, a new curated collection of “iconic films from the Golden Age of Hollywood” that will be complemented by introductions from Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz, along with archival content and other bonus materials. FilmStruck is also pushing ahead with new curated themes around classic Hollywood such as Rogers & Astaire: The Complete Collection, Neo-Noir, and a Star of the Week theme featuring Bette Davis, Hepburn & Tracy and Ava Gardner, among others.

Amid the new content and distribution partnership, Warner Archive, an SVOD service that was launched in April 2013, will be sunset, and current customers will be transitioned to a FilmStruck subscription.

Warner Archive has been selling for $9.99 per month or $94.99 per year. By comparison, FilmStruck’s baseline service starts at $6.99 per month (and now includes TCM Select), or $10.99 per month or $99 per year when FilmStruck is combined with The Criterion Channel. FilmStruck is adding the new Warner Bros. titles without raising the price on the service

WBDN said the decision to team up with FilmStruck made sense on several levels as it mulled whether to have Warner Archive continue on as a stand-alone service.

“We had a decision to make -- we were either going to get really serious about it and put our iconic films to work and put more films on the service and build a better consumer experience or we were going to partner with Turner,” Craig Hunegs, president of WBDN and president, business strategy for Warner Bros. Television Group, said.

Following discussions with Turner, including with Coleman Breland, president of Turner Classic Movies, FilmStruck and Turner Content Experiences, “We realized that rather than having two services that overlap with each other [with respect to the fan base], let’s put them together and make on undeniable film service for fans who love the greatest movies…It made all the sense in the world to partner on this.”

“It is the absolutely right step to take,” added Breland, noting that FilmStruck has been building up its library through partnerships with a wide range of studios, including Sony, MGM, Lionsgate, Universal and Paramount.

The streaming content deal marks the latest partnership between Turner and Warner Bros.

Last month, they formed a joint venture that will extend FilmStruck internationally, starting in the U.K. They are also partnered on an OTT-delivered SVOD version of Boomerang that launched last April.

RELATED: FilmStruck Sets International Expansion

Breland said the new partnership will help FilmStruck adds films from the Golden Age of Hollywood and help it continue to focus on what it views as an underserved category of independent and arthouse films, and expand that content slate without raising the price on the service.

He estimates that FilmStruck will now be offering more than 1,800 titles per month via a curated library that will be rotated and refreshed each month.

He said the addition of TCM Select will focus on 26 “iconic” titles, plus the bonus elements. “The titles are critical,” Breland said. “It’s not just the titles; it’s how they are actually positioned.”

FilmStruck, which launched its U.S. offering in November 2016, has not announced subscriber numbers, but Breland said he likes the trajectory of those numbers so far and that retention on annual subscriptions to the service have been “incredibly high.”

Warner Archive likewise doesn’t disclose specific sub numbers, but Hunegs said the size of the service’s base is in the tens of thousands.

To help with the transition, existing Warner Archive customers are being offered two free months of the FilmStruck + The Criterion Channel offering. After April 26, Warner Bros. will no longer support subscribers on the Warner Archive platform, though all current subscriptions to that service will be honored on FilmStruck.

The content partnership between FilmStruck and Warner Bros. and the sunsetting of the Warner Archive service also follows a wider trend in the exploding SVOD sector, which is undergoing a correction of sorts as some services get shut down while others, as in this case, continue on via newly formed partnerships.

For more on that trend, please see this week’s cover story in Broadcasting & Cable.

RELATED: SVOD Market: Survival of the Fittest (subscription required)

Meanwhile, Breland believes FilmStruck’s approach and focus is well-positioned for the long term. “We don't think of FilmStruck as just an SVOD service,” he said. “It’s not about taking a linear brand and forcing it into an SVOD slot. This is about serving the fans in a way that they want it." 

FilmStruck, the SVOD service for movie aficionados, is getting ready to hit the world stage.

FilmStruck, launched in the U.S. in November 2016 with a mix of mainstream, cult, independent and art house titles, is evolving into a multi-territory movie streaming service through a joint venture of Turner International’s Digital Ventures & Innovation Group and Warner Bros. Digital Networks.

The international offering will combine the assets of both companies, and “draw primarily” on the Warner Bros. library and the Criterion Collection library, and also feature fare from other global and local content partners, they said.

The JV will initially launch service in the U.K. in association with cinema brand Curzon, and be called Filmstruck Curzon. That offering , expected to launch in the “coming weeks” will include titles from the Curzon Artificial Eye film library and be available on a range of mobile and TV-connected platforms. The U.S. version of FilmStruck is already supported on iOS and Android mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV boxes, Roku players and Roku TVs, Android TV devices, and is optimized for Google Chromecast streaming adapters.


The JV expects plan to launch FilmStruck to markets around the world over the next two years.

“International film fans now have a new home for a wide and diverse range of movies including some of Warner Bros.’ most iconic titles,” Craig Hunegs, president, business and strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group and president, Warner Bros. Digital Networks, said in a statement.

In addition to FilmStruck, Turner International offers two other SVOD brands -- EI Plus in Brazil and Toonix in the Nordics.

Warner Bros. has inked a deal to acquire Machinima, the digital service focused on gamer and fandom culture, an agreement that comes more than two years after the studio first invested in the upstart.

Financial terms were not announced (Varietyreported that it's slightly less than $100 million). Machinima has raised about $91.5 million, per Crunchbase. In February 2015, Machinimascored a $24 million financing round led by Warner Bros. Entertainment with existing investors Redpoint Ventures, MK Capital, Coffin Capital, with participation from Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise

Machinima will become part of the Warner Bros. Digital Networks, a unit founded in June 2016 aimed at growing the studio’s digtal and OTT offerings. That unit also works closely with Time Warner’s Turner and HBO divisions.

Of recent note, Machinima hired media industry vets Gary King and Dave Pullano as directors of development and a  revamp of Machinima’s programming lineup.

After an earlier focus a YouTube MCN, Machinima has expanded distribution through other partners such as Playstation Vue, Amazon Prime, Verizon’s go90, China’s Sohu and The CW Network.

RELATED: Machinima Connects With Sky, Amazon

Machinima, which reaches nearly 150 million viewers each month, is also being offered through VRV, the just-launched SVOD aggregation service from Ellation.

RELATED: VRV’s ‘Combo Pack’ Offers 8 SVOD Channels for $9.99/Month

“Machinima is a strong gamer and fandom content and social brand with enormous reach and high engagement with audiences that play our games and are big fans of DC films and television shows,” Craig Hunegs, president, business and strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group and president, Warner Bros. Digital Networks, said in a statement.

The acquisition of Machinima, he added, “is another meaningful move forward as Warner Bros. develops more direct relationships with our consumers.”

“Since making their first investment in Machinima in 2014, Warner Bros. has been an active business partner in our transformation, so we already have proof points as to how the companies can work together to accelerate Machinima’s growth plans,” added Chad Gutstein, Machinima’s CEO. “We’ll now be able to take full advantage of Warner Bros.’ intellectual property, sales and distribution, while still creating content for social and premium digital platforms that gamers and geeks love.”