AOL's Video Hat Trick: A Slate Of Original Content, Be On Creative Studio, And A Deal With FreeWheel + Mediaocean For Multiscreen Ad Buys

Online video is booming, and today AOL (owner of TechCrunch) unveiled three new initiatives that spell out how it plans to tackle it: 15 original, unscripted shows; a new creative studio, Be On, to create branded videos; and a deal with FreeWheel and Mediaocean to add in AOL’s video inventory to its platform, so that media buyers looking for multiscreen investments across TV and online video can include AOL in the mix. The news was unveiled at the company’s 2013 Digital Content NewFront event, the upfront event where AOL presents its strategy for the year ahead to key advertisers and agencies. The slate of content is not AOL’s move into Netflix-style dramas (for now, at least). Instead, it plays on the network of sites that AOL already owns in the news and information space, which also includes other tech sites like Engadget as well as the Huffington Post. Up to now the AOL On network, the video network that AOL launched last year to span all of those sites and more (the videos go to YouTube and elsewhere) has been going pretty strong, with some 8 billion views in 2012. “We think we’ve reached the point at which it makes sense to produce more, to give us a more distinct voice,” Tal Simantov, GM of AOL On said. The list of shows includes “Fatherhood,” centered around Hank Azaria and his experiences as a first-time father; and “City.Ballet”, produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, covering the cut-throat world of the New York City Ballet. Simantov wouldn’t say how much AOL is investing in this but says that it will be in the “double-digits, an interesting number.” One reason that AOL is spinning out more content is because of a growing audience for the material, but it is also looking to sell significantly more ads against it. Part of that will be coming from the new Be On studio — this is the company’s branded content business, a creative studio that will partner with advertisers and agencies to produce branded content that combines its goViral acquisition with video distribution across AOL’s own network of sites plus third-party sites like YouTube, and AOL Studios production. The offering includes production, distribution, and analytics to measure how they perform. The move for content companies to move further into video ad production, leveraging their reputation with other content, is part of a wider trend — just yesterday,

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