Condé Nast, in biggest bid yet to parlay lifestyle magazine franchises into video entertainment, announced plans to deliver slate of more than 30 new online shows this year — adding channels for Vogue and Wired to stable — at its first Digital Content NewFronts event.
Shows are being developed by company’s Condé Nast Entertainment division, created in late 2011. Under new pacts, CNE content will be syndicated to AOL, Yahoo, Twitter, Dailymotion and Grab Media.
Back in the 1980s, cable TV started out with short-form content, and “aside from the hairdos, it looked like pretty much everything on the Internet today,” CNE prexy Dawn Ostroff said. “Just as cable took baby steps to improve, digital is upping its game.”
Company is teaming with production firms Radical Media, Hud:sun Media and Magical Elves.
Ostroff, who created The CW network, said new content will span short-form shows, comedies, scripted dramas and documentaries.
New series on Glamour channel are to include “Glamour Video Gift of the Week,” weekly series featuring “the hottest guys in hilarious vignettes”; “Style to Kill” from Magical Elves, reality competition pitting two stylists who will give one Glamour fan makeover in each episode; and “Single Life,” scripted series following two unmarrieds in the world of online dating.
GQ series will include “Casualties of the Gridiron,” docu-series about physical and mental toll game inflicts on NFL pros; “GQ How To,” series covering subjects ranging from mixing drinks to tying a tie; and “The GQ Trend Report” news program.
In March, CNE launched eight original video series “inspired by” GQ and Glamour (four for each brand), currently available on dedicated websites and YouTube. Those series are exclusively sponsored by Procter & Gamble, Microsoft and snack-food conglom Mondelēz International.
CNE will launch video channels for Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Epicurious and Style.com later in 2013, with more to come next year, Ostroff said. Overall, Condé Nast has 18 consumer magazines and four trade titles.
Condé Nast is one of two traditional print publishers participating in NewFronts, along with The Wall Street Journal, which held its sesh Monday. Mag giant’s shindig was held at event venue on Park Avenue at 63rd Street.
Condé Nast kept it short and sweet: Entire presentation ran about 37 minutes. By comparison, AOL’s NewFronts event Tuesday dragged on for more than 2 hours.
Company posted YouTube teasers of forthcoming channels for Vogue (to debut May 8) and Wired (slated to bow May 15). The latter will feature “Angry Nerd,” a grumpy bald guy named Chris Baker billed as a digital Andy Rooney.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYPQhC1RYv8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLP0AvTyFk4
