The past few years have seen a number of changes for digital publishers. Websites became more reliant on platforms like Facebook to get reach for their content and in the process, ended up reshaping their business models. A wave of layoffs in started in 2015, as editorial brands began to “pivot to video” following the promised revenue potential of the medium. In a way, it made sense. To get better visibility in the endless streams of newsfeeds, wouldn’t a moving image be more attractive than a link to an article? But this turned out to be an ill-informed bet. (A group of advertisers recently won $40 million in a suit against Facebook, claiming that the company inflated viewing metrics by as much as 900%.) As companies across industries have started to look beyond Facebook to reach their desired audience, publishers have taken a different position on video. Short, snappy, and shareable has evolved into to longer, higher production value fare.
This year, the New York Times and Vox Media Studios, a wing of the digital publisher which includes sites like Eater and The Verge, each released scripted series based on existing intellectual property. Modern Love, an anthology series released on Amazon earlier this year, is based on a popular New York Times column that features reader-submitted essays on love. The recently released Apple TV+ show Little America, another anthology series, is also based on first-person essays, originally published on Epic Magazine’s site. (Epic Magazine, bought last year by Vox, was co-founded in 2013 by Joshuah Bearman, author of the Wired article the Oscar-winning film Argo was based on.)
This trend extends to content centered around celebrities and lifestyle, too. Condé Nast, the storied publisher whose titles include Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, has been building out its video content beyond YouTube for the past of couple years. The video network offshoot of the over a century-old brand, which was signed by William Morris Endeavor last year, reportedly has over 100 pilots in the works. Last year it launched free, ad-supported streaming for its popular food magazine Bon Appétit.
Of course, this move towards monetizing existing intellectual property isn’t new. Magazine articles have always made good source material for stranger-than-fiction screenplays. The practice goes back to films like Dog Day Afternoon (1975, based on a Life magazine article) and Saturday Night Fever (1977, based on a New York magazine story). More recently, films like Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, and Todd Phillips’ War Dogs all came out of pieces that ran in print. What’s different today is the development of new video divisions and joint ventures from brands like Conde Nast, Vox Media the New York Times, and more. These publishers have vertically integrated the production of their stories, making it easier to get the most out of the stories they own.
