Ad buyers and TV network executives converged in New York City last week for a series of splashy, star-studded events. Jennifer Hudson sang. The cast of "Roseanne" reunited. There was lots of trash talking aimed at Facebook and Google. There was a new show about a magician who consults for the FBI.
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There was something missing from the TV industry's sales extravaganza
Web publishers ranging from BuzzFeed to Mashable have aligned with big traditional media companies, in part hoping to create TV shows. But so far it's been slow going.
Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti
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But there was something missing among the round of TV upfront presentations, during which networks try and sell advertisers on their new crop of upcoming shows: lots of projects spun out of digital media companies.
Consider all the recent alliances and investments between traditional media giants and digital upstarts:
- Vox Media
- BuzzFeed
- Mashable
- Refinery29
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Generally speaking, TV money is better than digital ad money, so it's natural for web companies, particularly venture-backed firms looking to justify their valuations, to want to venture into TV. Getting on TV is also a great legitimizer in the media world.
Thus, it's noteworthy that so few major networks have announced digital-publishing-born TV projects. To be fair, TV gestation periods are long, and some of these companies say they have many potential TV series waiting in the wings.
Still, traditional TV companies desperately need to figure out how to connect with younger audiences, and their affiliations with digital native publishers were enacted with the promise of borrowing some of these companies' "we get millennials" magic.
For web publishers, they would seem to need TV's to help accelerate their revenue growth. Being on TV should theoretically open them up to a much broader set of advertisers and let them sell content to a wider group of distributors.
Here's what the various big web publishers are up to on TV:
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Refinery29 - Headed to TNT with prestige documentaries
BuzzFeed - Moving cautiously, with little urgency to push brands like Tasty to TV
Mashable - Its Turner partnership has yet to yield a TV project
There are no TV projects in the works for Mashable at the moment, though last year
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Mic – The company just raised money to ramp up its video game, but there's nothing imminent on the TV front
Vox Media – Two years into Vox Entertainment's life, several TV projects have been greenlit, but there's nothing firm yet
Vice Media - They have the TV deal everybody would seem to want, though it's not clear whether Viceland has been a hit
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