Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Erik: What role does content strategy play in your work?
Mark: It's of a primary essence in everything that we do. And by that, what I mean by strategy
is, VH1 is obviously as of right now a television network, primarily. That's where advertisers
pay us. That's how we make our money. That's where we have our largest viewership. But
as the cable industry starts to change and evolve, VH1 is probably over the course of
the next 5-10 years, will still be a TV station. Hopefully. But we're also gonna be producing
content for other devices in other places. Whether that be mobile, on your iPhone or
your iPad, or streaming things on your laptop, people consume content differently based upon
the device that they're using to consume it. So when we're putting together ideas for content,
when talent is coming in, we discuss lots of different ways that we can package information
for different types of audiences based upon how they're gonna be consuming it. You know,
sometimes it's a print interview that will run a thousand words, that goes really in
depth on certain matters with bands. Sometimes it'll be little 30-second video clips that
are, you know, really get to the point, really gets to the essence, something that's newsy
and timely and makes a good bite and something that's funny and that people are gonna share.
Sometimes it's, you know, working with an artist catalog, you know, an established artist
who's come out with a new record taking a look back at their career and maybe putting
together things like a spotify playlist that showcases the ebbs and flow of their particular
career and how they have sort of arrived at the point they're at today. So we look at
content not just in a very—we're talking to this particular artist and it's going to
be an interview. As we're developing the strategies for our interviews, we're really cognizant
of the ways we're putting—we're actually gonna package that and release that out to
consumers at the end of the day.