Fortune: Coming Soon... Ellen TV

Posted December 05, 2016

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And now it's Ellen.  Ellen DeGeneres is the latest person to announce that they are starting a personal digital media brand.  Ellen and Warner Brothers annoucned recently that Ellen would be getting her own digital TV channel with what they describe as "snack sized" entertainment.  Ellen is just the next name in a trend that is picking up steam, and sure to continue.

The internet and digital video have profoundly changed the media landscape.  Owning and operating a TV channel used to cost millions and was only done by a handful of people and corporations.  Those days are over.  First it was with YouTube and YouTube stars, but now, with the proliferation of live streaming and personal websites, almost anyone can decide one day that they want to start a digital TV channel and start making money through it. 

Now undoubtedly, Ellen will make more from it quickly, but that is because Ellen is an established brand and she already has her own dedicated viewership that will soon become her users among other things.  But nothing is stopping you from starting now, doing it every day, and cultivating your own viewership and following.  The reality remains that you can do this, and you can do this cheaply, so what are you waiting for?

Chris Lee from Fortune reports:

Earlier this month, Ellen DeGeneres expanded her personal brand further into the digital realm with the unveiling of her Ellen Digital Network—an initiative greeted by fans with a kind of instant recognition not dissimilar to hitting “Like” on Facebook.

Over the last decade, the Emmy-winning talk show host has morphed into a social media maven, amassing a gigantic follower base on Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Facebook FB1.41% and Periscope that generated more than a billion cross-platform views in 2015.

And in partnership with Warner Bros. Television, her digital network intends to build upon Degeneres’ existing digital footprint—which encompasses the video hub ellentube, the website for her top-rated-in-its-slot NBC program The Ellen DeGeneres Show EllenTV.com and her official YouTube channel—to launch a spate of new web and social-media series, effectively creating a new business model for TV-to-online brand integration in the process.

In 2011, at the peak of her cultural influence, Oprah Winfrey announced she was ending her eponymous daytime talk show to launch the Oprah Winfrey Network: a 24-hour cable station to reflect her “visions, values and interests” (that was initially met with dismal ratings and poor viewer engagement). Unlike OWN, however, DeGeneres’ network has its sights set on a humbler prize: monetizing “snack-sized entertainment” on consumers’ smart phones.

Read the full article.