SAN FRANCISCO—Snap and Samba TV have released a new study showing that Snapchat campaigns have a significant impact in driving audiences to watch new shows and stream movies. 

The results showed an average lift of 84% for audiences exposed to an advertisement on Snapchat compared to control group audiences who were not exposed. Additionally, one in three conversions driven by Snapchat campaigns were from new viewers, which included a wide range of viewer engagement levels, from cord-cutters to heavy TV viewers. 

“Snapchat is the preferred platform for younger generations to stay connected, and the Samba TV studies prove that entertainment advertisers make a significant impact by tapping into our large and highly engaged audience to find new viewers for TV shows and movies.” said Elana Sulzer, U.S. head of entertainment at Snap.

"Samba TV's comprehensive measurement reveals that Snapchat is effectively driving viewership and engagement with new Millennial and Gen Z audiences," said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV. "Our research provides actionable insights for entertainment marketers, demonstrating Snap's emergence as an essential partner in marketers' media strategy, increasing advertiser confidence in leveraging the platform to reach this unique demographic."

The study covered a variety of viewership windows, advertisers, genres, and seasons while measuring the impact of Snapchat campaigns. The measurement approach leveraged Samba TV’s Causal Attribution and Snap’s Intent to Treat control methodologies, combined with Samba TV’s proprietary ACR data, to accurately measure true incremental viewership lift. 

More details can be found in this Snap blog post. 

SANTA MONICA, Calif.—In a bid to create a new revenue stream, Snapchat has launched a new $3.99 a month subscription service Snapchat+. 

The service has launched in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with more territories to follow, the company said. 

The company’s stock has lost about one third of its value in the last six months, and the company has been under pressure to boost revenue, which is currently based on advertising. 

The new service will include ads but offer subscribers “a collection of exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features available in Snapchat,” the company said. “This subscription will allow us to deliver new Snapchat features to some of the most passionate members of our community and allow us to provide prioritized support.”

The service is targeted to avid users and joins subscription services recently launched by Twitter and Telegraph. 

Currently more than 332 million people worldwide use Snapchat every day, the company said. 

SANTA MONICA, Calif.—Snap Inc., owner of the popular Snapchat app, has announced that it has renewed and expanded its content deals with Disney, ViacomCBS and NBCU. 

“The three companies will continue their collaboration with Snap through extended agreements to provide their current shows on Discover and individually plan to bring more shows to Snap in the future,” Snap said in announcing the deals. “These renewals are a strong validation that Discover continues to be an incredibly important platform for some of the biggest consumer media brands in the world – and these agreements affirm their long-term confidence in Snap and our ability to deliver meaningful outcomes to drive reach, relevance and revenue.”

The Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution agreement continues Disney’s show offerings on Discover, providing Snapchat users with content from brands such as ESPN and ABC News, with additional brands to be added at a later time, Snap said. 

Currently, Snapchat users have access to: “SportsCenter on Snap,” “SC Now,” “ESPN MMA Show,” “College GameDay,” “ESPN College GameDay All Access,” “Undefeated On the Yard,” “Hoop Streams,” “Localish,” “What Would You Do?,” and “Marvel Becoming.” 

The collaboration between Disney and Snap resulted in ESPN reaching over 26 million Snapchatters during the 2021-2022 football season, Snap said. 

In addition, Snap and ViacomCBS have expanded their Stories content offering to include CBS content as well as content from Paramount+ and existing ViacomCBS brands including MTV, AwesomenessTV, CMT, and VH1. ViacomCBS will also distribute episodes of new shows each year that have not previously been distributed on Discover based on their linear and Paramount+ properties, Snap reported. 

The new shows include: “Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team,” “Bar Rescue,” “Jersey Shore,” “The Challenge,” “Cribs,” and “AwesomenessTV's Next Influencer.”

ViacomCBS reached 57 million unique viewers across 34 Shows on Snapchat in 2021.

Finally, Snap and NBCUniversal have expanded their Stories content offering to include more from NBC, Bravo and other NBCU-owned networks, including Peacock. NBCU will also distribute episodes of new shows each year that have not previously been distributed on Discover based on their linear networks and Peacock. 

NBCUniversal reached 74 million users on Snapchat across 20 Shows in 2021.

LONDON—“Made-for-social” video content is rising in popularity, especially among younger viewers, and that demand is being met by many social platforms with the commissioning of projects. But traditional broadcasters are also attempting to get in on the action, often in a funding role, according to Ampere Analysis.

Based on research into the strategies of digital studios, Ampere has found that digital studio groups are diving further into video specifically aimed at social platforms. Since the middle of 2018, YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat have commissioned more than 200 digital originals, scripted and unscripted. 2020 will see the launch of another platform, Quibi, which has more than 80 projects of its own in development.

However, while digital studios are interested in creating content specifically for these platforms, there’s an ebb and flow to their ability to produce them. Following 44 projects commissioned in Q4 2018, only 10 titles were commissioned by the social players in Q1 2019; it would rise to 68 in Q3 2019.

“The nature of fast-evolving digital space requires that digital studios need to ensure long-term sustainable growth over short-term gains,” said Henry Beckwith, analyst at Ampere.

One source to help provide stabilization may be traditional broadcast entities. Ampere points out the incumbent broadcast groups have larger budgets than OTT for commissioned content. Add that with their desire to access younger audiences that are increasingly drawn to video on social platforms (Snapchat and Instagram have largest batch of young viewers, 78% and 63% of 18 to 34 year olds, respectively), and broadcasters are looking for ways in.

Digital studios are working with broadcasters, discovering talent and create or license IP to commercial and public broadcast groups. What will make this strategy successful, according to Ampere, is “spotting and securing social video personalities early and adopting formats that could be easily shifted to a broadcast environment.”

For more information, visit Ampere Analysis’ website.

DALLAS—On the same day that the Emmy Awards announce their nominations for the 2018 season, a new report suggests that an increasing number of viewers are watching “alternative content” on Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and other video websites, and that such habits constitute another of the numerous threats to traditional pay TV.

In its report, “360 Deep Dive: Alternative Content Consumption,” Parks Associates defines “alternative content” as user-generated video, livestreaming, short-form videos and web vide series that are available via social networking, video sharing or similar apps or sites. On average, U.S. broadband households watch two hours of alternative content on a computer each week and nearly one-half of U.S. broadband households watch user-generated content on a monthly basis, with more than 10 percent watching livestreamed content.

[Read: Younger Viewers Gravitating To OTT TV Services: Study]

"Alternative video is an important part of the video landscape, and it competes with other video options for a share of consumer attention," said Brett Sappington, senior director of research, Parks Associates. "Approximately one-half of households with a TV watch video from YouTube and similar sites on their TV set. In fact, more households watch online video from an app such as YouTube than watch video from a TV channel app."

Parks Associates data about alternative content consumption shows that adoption of pay TV declines as the frequency of user-generated content consumption increases. This correlation poses a future threat to pay-TV providers as younger respondents are far more likely to watch user-generated content, which could potentially impact their future pay-TV habits and perspectives according to the research firm.

"Younger consumers are far more likely to create their own content as well as watch user-generated content," Sappington said. "For these viewers, the creation of content is as much a part of the entertainment experience as is watching video. Increasingly, traditional content producers and service providers are leveraging alternative content in order to connect with audiences and draw viewers. Some are partnering with individual web celebrities and influencers who often have a disproportionately large influence on the user-generated side of the alternative content space."

Additional data from the research reveals:

• At present, only 7% of U.S. broadband households watch sporting events via livestream.

• Consumers who view user-generated content are much more likely than those who never watch it to have an OTT service.

• Almost one-quarter of broadband households have posted videos to some type of content site or app within the last 30 days.

• Alternative content compromises more than two hours of online video watched weekly on a computer.

NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES—Discovery Channel’s summer staple “Shark Week” is pushing into new media as a new short-form series, “Shark Week on Snapchat,” is scheduled to launch on July 23 exclusively on Snapchat’s Discover platform.

“Shark Week on Snapchat” will be hosted by comedian Jordan Carlos and will have three episodes, with each episode remaining on the platform for two days before the next episode premieres. In addition a special filter will be available for Snapchat users to “shark” themselves on July 23.

This special series is part of the deal that Discovery Communications and Snap, Inc. signed earlier this year to develop shows for Snapchat’s Discover platform. “Shark Week on Snapchat” was produced by Discovery’s Original Content team and Group Nine Studios.

“Shark Week” officially gets underway on Discovery Channel as of July 23 and runs through July 30.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC is starting to put its plan together for its broadcast of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. After an announcement earlier this week that coverage will be available live in all time zones, NBC Olympics has also announced that it is once again partnering with Snap Inc. for special coverage of the Olympic Games.

Using Snap Inc.’s signature service, Snapchat, NBC Olympic will provide daily coverage through the app’s “Our Stories” and “Publisher Stories” features that are available in Snapchat Discover. The “Publisher Stories” will be co-produced with BuzzFeed. This partnership will also include sales packages in the Snap Ad slots in “Our Stories” and “Publishers Stories,” as well as opportunities to purchase national Geofilters and Lenses in the U.S.

The “Our Story” coverage, which will be available to all Snapchat users in the U.S., will include behind-the-scenes and fan moments submitted from users in PyeongChang and curated by Snapchat. NBC Olympics coverage on the app will also include clips, brand marks, logos and other broadcast elements.

“Publisher Stories” from the Games are expected to feature content produced from the BuzzFeed team in PyeongChang. BuzzFee will have access to athletes, as well as provide clips from inside and outside PyeongChang Olympic venues.

Snapchat will make this content available during the entire Olympic Games, as well as during select dates leading up to the Opening Ceremony.

NBC Olympics and Snap had a similar partnership with the 2016 Rio Olympics, which saw a reported 35 million Snapchat users view the content.

The 2018 Olympic Winter Games will take place in PyeongChang, South Korea begins on Feb. 8, 2018.

ATLANTA—The NCAA’s March Madness College Basketball Tournament kicks off next Thursday, March 17, and Turner Sports has announced a deal to offer a new way for fans to experience it, a partnership with Snapchat and its Live Story product. This announcement is the beginning of a multi-year deal that will use Snapchat’s Live Story to provide coverage for a number of major sporting events.

This partnership will take the Snapchat’s Live Stories, which are a collection of videos and photos from Snapchat users to create a collective story, to offer unique perspectives for all the action of March Madness. Users will also have access to official brand marks, imagery and behind-the-scenes Snaps to add to their own content as part of the deal.

Advertising opportunities for the deal include Snapchat’s 3V ad product, which offers full-screen, vertical video ads that are interspersed throughout the user-submitted content in a Live Story.

In addition to college basketball, Snapchat is expected to offer similar services to the other sports that Turner Sports covers, including the NBA, Major League Baseball, boxing and professional golf.

The 2016 NCAA College Basketball Tournament will run from March 17-April 4.