‘Today’ launches FB live vid booth in green room
‘Empire’ launching digital aftershow
LOS ANGELES, March 31, (RTRS): The “Today” show will bring fans face-toface with hosts and guests with a new Facebook Live video-streaming booth, as the staple of morning TV looks to punch up digital reach.
Starting Wednesday, the NBC talk show will begin broadcasting from the iPhone-equipped green room booth via “Today’s” Facebook page, which has 5.1 million followers. The show also is launching an Instagram “Mini Room”, featuring a replica of the “Today” anchor desk scaled to less than half the actual size, which will let guests upload photos to the @TODAYshow account.
For Facebook, which paid for the installation of the booths, the “Today” pact brings a premiere media partner to its live-video platform. Facebook Live has become a strategic imperative for the social giant, which has been seeking to cut deals with TV networks, celebrities and sports leagues including the NFL.
“Today” guests spend upwards of two hours at the show’s Manhattan studio, for what typically results in 2-7 minutes on air, said executive producer of digital Ashley Parrish. The new Facebook Live and Instagram booths will let “Today” produce more content around those appearances, in the hopes of ultimately driving fans to click over to Today.com or tune in to NBC.
“The goal is to pull back the curtain between us and our social audience,” she said. “Our guests can go in and talk directly to our Facebook audience ... This is an opportunity to create digital-exclusive content with celebrities”.
The interactive green room installations will debut around 8:30 am Wednesday. “Today” Orange Room host Carson Daly will be the first to sit in the Facebook Live Booth, and guest co-host and WWE superstar John Cena is slated to be photographed in the Instagram Mini Room. In future segments, other celebrity guests and “Today” hosts will hop into the booths, which were built by FoxTales, a Laguna Hills, California-based company that specializes in custom interactive installations. “Today” will showcase the interactive booths with on-air teasers, with plans to highlight the Facebook Live green-room feed in the telecast.
Mic, a millennial-skewing news media startup, is bringing Hyper’s daily hand-picked selection of Internet video to Apple TV — with an eye on quality over quantity.
New York-based Mic earlier this month acquired Hyper, which last summer debuted an iPad “video magazine” app stocked with short-form news and lifestyle features. Mic has signed GE as the initial sponsor of Hyper on Apple TV, under which a GE-branded video will be one of the 6-12 featured daily videos in the app.
“Apple TV apps are not great for discovering new content”, said Mic CEO Chris Altchek. “What we’re trying to do with Hyper is find the absolute best content published today ... We want this to become the tastemaker app for Apple TV”.
Hyper culls content from video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, and its iPad app has featured videos from independent creators as well as media companies including CNN, the New York Times and Vice Media. “Content creators are pushing us to feature them”, Altchek said.
“We’re driving discovery long before they’re discovered on social networks”.
Fox is hoping to see traffic numbers that mirror its monster ratings for “Empire”, as the network is launching a digital aftershow for the hit drama. The first episode of the aftershow launches tonight, following the west coast return of the show, after its three-month hiatus.
Hosted by “Empire” cast member Ta’Rhonda Jones — who plays Cookie’s ( Taraji P. Henson) assistant Porsha on the series, each week — the digital short will run on the official “Empire” YouTube channel and then will be pushed out to local Fox affiliates to run on-air.
Jones will rehash the episode and offer commentary in every aftershow, which will feature behind the scenes interviews. This week, “Empire” co-star Gabourey Sidibe is featured.
Comedy Central said it would expand the slate of original content it produces for instant-image messaging app Snapchat, the latest signal of deepening ties between the network’s parent, Viacom, and the social-media company.
“It’s been great fun experimenting with established and emerging talent on our Snapchat Discover channel”, said Kent Alterman, the Viacom-owned network’s president of original programming. “It allows us to play with form and format, and