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After spending the past year making deals with almost every major TV media company to produce original series for Snapchat, Snap Inc. is now getting into business with entertainment studios as well.
MGM Television will be the first major entertainment studio to develop and produce original series for Snapchat’s Discover platform, the companies announced today.
There is no timetable yet for when the first shows from MGM—which produces TV series like Fargo, Vikings, The Voice, Survivor, Shark Tank and Hulu’s upcoming The Handmaid’s Tale—will debut on Snapchat.
“The team at Snap is thinking about mobile TV differently than anyone else in this space. They are innovators, and it presents us with a unique opportunity to flex our development and production muscle in a whole new way,” said Barry Poznick, MGM president of unscripted television, in a statement.
“We are excited to create content for their vast and hard-to-reach audience that consumes entertainment in a very specific fashion.”
MGM’s content will appear alongside the other original shows, on Snapchat’s Stories page and its Discover page.
Added Snap Inc. vp of content Nick Bell in a statement, “MGM has an incredible pool of talent—from producers and directors to writers—that we’re excited to tap into as we join forces to develop shows. Partnering with a studio of their caliber opens up a lot of possibilities for the future of shows on Snapchat.”
The MGM announcement comes after Snap has partnered with almost all major media companies to create exclusive, original content—usually between four and five minutes and shot vertically for the platform—for Snapchat.
The most recent of those was Snap’s deal with Vice Media, announced last week. Last month, the company announced partnerships with Discovery Communications, A+E Networks and BBC Worldwide, while December’s deals included Turner and Disney-ABC Television Group.
Snap Inc. also launched a partnership with Viacom last February and teamed up with NBCUniversal in August, in a deal that included original Snapchat content related to The Voice, which is produced by MGM Television.
