MTV for Generation Z

Rupert Murdoch’s daughter is turning a start-up into a major supplier of appbased video series for mobile devices, writes

AYOUNG actor with a bushy goatee, cast as a Satanist on a murdermystery show called Solve, sat facing a camera on a stuffy, nofrills set in July. Six tenderfoot crew members stood sweating in the shadows nearby. One was staring at his iPhone’s stopwatch.

“Now give me a take where you’re exhausted,” the director, doubling as a camera operator, told the actor. “You’ve been up all night worshiping Satan in this one. Ready? Action!”

It was no good. “Too long,” the iPhone guy said glumly. “That was 22 seconds.” Orders were given to redo the scene — preferably in an 18-second take. Perhaps try a “jittery” Satanist.

This is the down-and-dirty future of television as practised by Vertical Networks, a start-up founded by Elisabeth Murdoch, the media entrepreneur whose father is Rupert Murdoch.

While her dad and brothers, Lachlan and James, have been busy selling the family’s old-line studios to the Walt Disney Company, she has quietly built Vertical into a major supplier of app-based video series for mobile devices.

The stories are told in short bursts (20-second scenes, episodes that last mere minutes) that rely on whiz-bang production techniques (split screens, onscreen text) and are filmed vertically instead of horizontally: MTV for Generation Z.

“I wanted a front-row seat in seeing this new world unfold,” Elisabeth, 50, said in an email. “It’s harder than it looks. Great mobile video is unforgiving, labour-intensive and often counterintuitive to produce.”

By relying on research, Vertical has figured out how to engage teenage viewers on Snapchat, for instance, even as proven hit makers like WarnerMedia and Viacom have been slow to gain traction.

Vertical-produced hits on Snapchat include Phone Swap, a dating show that allows participants to snoop through each other’s mobile devices and attracts an average of 10 million viewers per episode.

Solve, which details a crime inspired by real events and then asks viewers to sort through potential suspects, debuted in May and draws a similar audience.

“It would be your Law & Order if you were 13,” said Adam Lederer, 27, the showrunner for Solve.

Vertical, which counts Snap, the parent of Snapchat, as a minority investor, also makes shows for Facebook (I Have A Secret) and YouTube (Yes Theory).

Vertical said its original content — including Brother, a digital magazine for young men that publishes daily on Snapchat and Facebook — attracts more than 50 million monthly active viewers.

Elisabeth’s start-up is profitable, a spokeswoman said, with ad sales contributing the bulk of its revenue. Nike, Intel and Warner Bros are clients.

As the traditional TV business has faltered, with younger audiences forgoing cable connections and broadcasters struggling to compete with Netflix, Hollywood has started to get serious about reaching the mobile masses.

Disney is paying US$71.3 billion (about RM296 billion) for vast swaths of the Murdochian media empire to supercharge its app-based streaming plans. Murdoch declined to comment on the sale.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation founder, said that his new venture, WndrCo, had secured US$1 billion from investors that include Universal, Sony and Paramount to create high quality, bitesize content intended for mobile viewing.

Some conventional media companies, including NBCUniversal and Conde Nast, have found some success in this realm.

So far, however, the winners in “mobilefirst” original series have largely been scrappy start-ups like Vertical.

“The biggest mistake Hollywood makes is arrogance,” said Tom Wright, who was Vertical’s chief executive until recently.

“It’s the classic ‘We will give audiences what we want, and if they don’t want it, well,