The CW’s Rick Haskins on How CW Seed Has Bloomed

Subscription Video on Demand SVoD is on the rise as the landscape of television continues to change amp160But CW Seed is quite different from the standard paid subscription model offering users free streaming of the full runs of fanfavorite series like Hellcats Everwood and Girlfriends plus original digital content including eSports the animated DC series Vixen Freedom Fighters The Ray and Constantine City of Demons the awardwinning musical I Ship It and the fulllength feature Beerfest Thirst for VictoryMediaVillage caught up with Haskins to discuss the network39s initiatives and to see exactly how Seed has bloomed to become an intergrated part of the everexpanding CW universeSteve Gidlow amp160What prompted the need for a digital network like CW Seed in addition to CWTVcom and The CW appRick Haskins amp160Seed really came about because we had a corporate offsite retreat amp160One of the things that came out of that was because we felt we were so digital as was the audience we would really like to have a digitalonly network that would continue to gain learning for usOnce we kind of figured out what Seed was three things came to beamp160amp160We wanted it to function as an incubator where we could test new technology be it a new video player or something like push notifications amp8230 basically things we39d like to try before putting them on the digital amp8220mothershipamp8221 that is CWTVcomamp160amp160It would also work as an incubator for new talent which it has proven fairly successful at being amp160An example would be the producers and writers of one of our early Seed shows Significant Mother went on to become the writers and producers of the Lucy Hale broadcast series Life Sentence amp160And one of the stars of our show Saving the Human Race Hartley Sawyer went on to become Elongated ManRalph Dibney on The Flashamp160Gidlow amp160What factors go into programming selectionHaskins amp160That was the third part of the incubator looking at new business opportunitiesamp160 One of those was getting into the business of finding properties that had been on TV and weren39t necessarily the longrunning shows that make for successful syndication amp160Shows that maybe didn39t get as fair a shot as possible with either one or twoyear runs but we felt were good creatively amp160We also knew the target audience of CW Seed was 21 to 26 so we looked for shows that this audience grew up withHere are some stats amp160The CW show Hellcats 201011 is consistently the No 1rated streaming show on Seedamp160 Going into year three or four of being streamed it continues to do extremely well amp160The CBS oneyear vampire show Moonlight 200708 is also doing very well for us amp160The secret to our success there is to find shows that have similar audiences to our broadcast shows amp160We39ll use the broadcast to push to CW Seed and weamp8217ve found the audience does indeed like those similar shows amp160We used The Vampire Diaries and The Originals to push to Moonlight while Crazy ExGirlfriend and Dynasty are perfect for HellcatsGidlow amp160What are some of the strategic moves of CW SeedHaskins amp160I look at it in that we have digital properties the biggest and most important being CWTVcom where we stream all our hourlong broadcast dramas amp160There39s definitely a showbyshow bias as to what streams well and what doesn39t amp160Interestingly the one that streams best of the trifecta is The Flash amp160It performs well from a linear perspective and from the delayed perspective amp160Itamp8217s also right up there with Riverdale for streaming on digitalWith our younger viewing audience Riverdale performs strongly on this platform amp160Another interesting tidbit is about 50 of the streaming audience for Riverdale is on mobile devicesGidlow amp160Has the success of these amp8220syndicatedamp8221 shows by CW Seed prompted talk of possible rebootsHaskins amp160This is an incubator so never say never amp160We have no announcements but this isn39t the first discussion I39ve had about this amp160It39s a great question and one that we39ve asked ourselves a lot amp160However there are a lot of pieces that need to go into place like bringing in the original stars who may have moved onamp160 I39m not sure people want to see 30 or 40yearold cheerleaders on Hellcats laughsGidlow amp160What are your distribution statisticsHaskins amp160We are literally everywhere with the only major platform weamp8217re not on being PlayStation amp160We have over five million app downloads while CWTVcom has over 35 million so combined there are over 40 millionGidlow amp160Unlike your parent company and CBS All Access this is free for all usersamp160 From a profit perspective why not chargeHaskins amp160We looked at the SVoD model and one of the things we found was there are well over 100 digital SVoDs now competing for a very limited consumer space amp160I believe a lot of the consumer SVoD choices go to Netflix CBS All Access and Amazon first amp160Then if you want to pick one or two more you have over 100 choices amp160It39s difficult to get traction that way and because we do have a younger Millennial audience that has grown up watching ads and understands the business proposition that amp8220if I do watch ads I get something for freeamp8221 they39re willing to do it amp160To us that felt like it was the right way to go amp160I will say for both CWTVcom and Seed it was the right decisionGidlow amp160Are there criteria for ad selection for these platformsHaskins amp160Not being in sales I can39t really speak to that but I can tell you there are multiplatform advertisers and digitalonly advertisers amp160On CW Seed you see a combination of both of thoseGidlow amp160With so many the options what are some of the challenges in just getting the word out regarding a platformHaskins amp160The challenge is really building awareness amp160I believe we39ve curated an ecosystem between CWTVcom our social media and our broadcast network that enables us to break through where a lot of our competitors don39t amp160Maybe they don39t have the marketing knowledge to reach out or the appropriate platform to really build awareness amp160I really believe that39s the challenge of the myriad of SVoDs how do you get the word out to an audience that is interested in what you are offeringClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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The CW’s Rick Haskins on How CW Seed Has Bloomed

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The CW’s Rick Haskins on How CW Seed Has Bloomed

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