If there\u2019s ever a time to build strong program brands that people trust, it would be before technology makes the concept of traditional television channels irrelevant. Keith Richman is already thinking ahead to a time when \u201cthe notion of channels\u201d will go away.<\/p>\n
The prognostications of the President of Defy Media will come as no surprise to the company\u2019s target audiences, Gen Z and Millennials, who aren\u2019t accustomed to consuming video content based on predetermined time slots. That\u2019s because they\u2019re among Defy\u2019s more than 70 million YouTube subscribers and 100 million social media followers.<\/p>\n
In this interview with Beet.TV, Richman sees the Digital Content NewFronts<\/a> as an effective venue for presenting new programming. And while he doesn\u2019t expect to actually transact business \u201cthe day after the New Fronts,\u201d it eventually follows.<\/p>\n \u201cJust the fact that we can introduce people to the programming, make them aware of it and then have subsequent conversations has always led to everything that we\u2019ve talked about at the NewFronts basically leading to partnerships,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Defy\u2019s<\/a> big news this season includes many new and returning shows, foremost among them three titles from its Smosh comedy brand on YouTube: Not Quite Canceled, One Hour Song Machine and Operation: Open World, as reported by Tubefilter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Asked which budgets advertisers should tap to integrate themselves into Defy\u2019s world, Richman is pretty agnostic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to change the macro trends. People are shifting dollars already. We\u2019re just saying once it\u2019s already here, how do we get our hands on the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n He foresees the time when modern day semantics about TV choices will go the way of the rooftop antenna, pushed there by Amazon\u2019s Alexa, Google Home and cable set-top boxes that let people surf for programming choices instead of hopping across channels.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat there\u2019s going to be are brands that people care about, programming that\u2019s meaningful to them and a set of people they trust to provide that to them,\u201d Richman says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to build here is that set of brands that people truly care about and will go to for their programming needs.\u201d<\/p>\n