Viacom Launches Content from Digital Studio

At Viacom’s first-ever Digital Content NewFront, the company unveiled Viacom Digital Studios and revealed its slate of digital programming for Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and BET.

Viacom Digital Studios plans to deliver hundreds of hours of premium, original content with Viacom stars and digital-native talent from Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central and MTV, as well as across social and online video platforms. New original programming for Nick includes The JoJo & BowBow Show Show (YouTube). The series of animated shorts stars JoJo Siwa and her dog BowBow.

Other content and talent deals for Nickelodeon include SlimeZone VR Showdown (YouTube), Nick Trip (YouTube) and Super League Gaming Minecraft City Champs (YouTube). The Creator Edge Partnership, meanwhile, is a hub for internet creators founded by Jace Norman and Xander Norman.

New content slate for BET includes The Majah Hype Show (YouTube), Freestyle Friday (YouTube, Facebook) and Rate the Bars (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter). BET also has a talent deal with De’arra and Ken of the popular digital series De’arra and Ken 4 Life, as well as a partnership with Beautycon to co-create more than 50 beauty tutorials focused on an African American audience for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

New content for Comedy Central is You Up? With Nikki Glaser, a live daily morning show for Facebook Watch; Meet Your First Black Girlfriend (YouTube, Facebook); Between-the-Scenes (Facebook, Facebook Watch, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter) and Hack into Broad City (Facebook, Facebook Watch, YouTube). Comedy Central also revealed its inaugural Creators Program, led by Nate Dern (Funny or Die, Upright Citizens Brigade).

MTV is bringing back Girl Code, but this time for Snapchat, and is also introducing Teen Code (Snapchat), in the tradition of Girl Code. Also for Snapchat, MTV’s slate features Promposal, in which teens pull out all the stops to score their dream dates to prom. Other new content includes MTV Decoded (Facebook, YouTube), Yo! MTV Whips (YouTube), Wild Styles (YouTube) and Remaking the Video (YouTube). MTV is also building the Cribs franchise as a digital-first vertical with Cribs for Snapchat and Cooking in the Crib with Snooki for its YouTube channel.

The presentation also featured new global deals with Snap Inc. and Twitter to deliver original content and talent from BET, Comedy Central and MTV. In addition to bringing back exclusive red carpet coverage of BET and MTV’s biggest awards shows and events, Viacom is joining forces with Twitter to give fans worldwide daily trending news. New show formats include BET Breaks, Comedy Central’s Creator’s Room, MTV News and MTV News International. Viacom renewed its partnership with Snap Inc. to develop and produce new “Shows” and increased content around its tentpoles and live events for Snapchat’s Discover page.

In addition, VidCon will further expand internationally to London, bringing the largest gathering of online video creators and their fans to the ExCel Center from February 14 to 17, 2019. Road to VidCon is a new video series in partnership with MTV that documents the journey of a young creator heading to one of the biggest events in his or her life.

“The launch of Viacom Digital Studios is an amazing opportunity to reimagine our iconic brands for a new generation of young, mobile-first audiences,” said Kelly Day, the president of Viacom Digital Studios. “We’re bringing the power and scale of Viacom’s global content engine and storytelling capabilities to entertain and engage our fans whenever and wherever they’re consuming content.”