DreamWorks TV - Bite-Sized Videos for Pint-Sized Kids (aka Let the Down-Streaming of Premium Content Begin!)

2014 certainly marks THE pivotal year for digital video in which our cute little twin babies of premium video content and the overall YouTube economy have grown up.  My friends, we are in the midst of a multi-platform video renaissance.  I have written and spoken continuously about the MCN space – and all the machinations within it (including Disney’s buy of Maker Studios for potentially up to nearly $1 Billion).  (By the way, expect more MCN news and major moves in the months ahead).  And, now formerly “traditional” Hollywood studio DreamWorks has just launched something that is very  much non-“traditional” – something that, instead, is deeply digital, deeply original, and multi-platform.  Welcome to DreamWorks TV.  

Multi-platform digital moves are not new to DreamWorks -- the company has proven itself to be an innovator, bravely going places others haven’t gone before (witness its acquisition of MCN AwesomenessTV over one year ago).  But DreamWorks TV IS different.  With DreamWorksTV, DreamWorks is putting its very own brand – and its own deeply-established and most valuable “traditional” characters like Shrek – onto the SMALL screen in the YouTube context and in a new original package specifically made for that small screen.  In other words, DreamWorks TV essentially re-imagines and re-purposes its greatest hits for the mobile world.    

Think bite-sized videos for pint-sized kids. 

Smart move – and a data point for the new down-streaming of premium content (theatrical motion picture properties) into the new world of YouTube.  From the big screen -- to the smallest screen -- the screen where Gens Y and Z are (and where the marketers want to be).

Why smart?

(1) DreamWorks TV expands the company’s business beyond its core motion picture business (a business which is notoriously fickle and high risk);

(2) it is low cost in terms of production and development – a very efficient proving/training ground/farm club for development;

(3) these new easily-produced mini-Shrek-isodes keep franchises alive during gaps in traditional development and production windows -- and for continuous monetization for merchandising, theme parks, and more;

(4) this move is an opportunity for DreamWorks also to “upstream" new properties and personalities developed in the YouTube world to more traditional platforms (TV, motion pictures, merchandise, gaming).  Think of it this way -- Shrek (and other major DreamWorks properties) are the Trojan Horse to get the kids into the gates of DreamWorks TV.  Now that the kids have entered, DreamWorks can tempt them with all kinds of new candy -- new characters, new programming.  And, if the kids bite on that candy, then DreamWorks may have a future more “traditional” hit on its hand when it takes those new properties into the traditional platforms (motion pictures, TV).

DreamWorks has already demonstrated that it “thinks different” in our brave new multi-platform world.  Cases in point -- the acquisition of MCN AwesomenessTV one year ago and mini-MCN Big Frame earlier this year. 

Now, DreamWorks leads the way to the down-streaming of major motion picture and television properties and characters to the wonderful world of YouTube.

And, where DreamWorks goes, others most certainly will follow ... precisely because this brave new world is THE media world.  And, it is better to get ahead of the curve ....