Jordan Levin’s LA-based company Generate, newly acquired by Alloy Digital, is behind The Chopra Well, one of 100 YouTube entertainment channels set to launch this year. Jesse Whittock reports.
Jordan Levin
Back then, the likes of NBCUniversal and Disney had closed their digital production studios and, with revenue models constantly shifting, producers, distributors and traditional broadcasters were fighting to make sense of the business.
Ever the entrepreneur, Levin – a former president of The WB – had embedded his Hollywood mini-studio and talent agency Generate LA firmly in the digital production arena and hedged his bets on a prediction that a digital production ecosystem was emerging.
Just 18 months later, Levin looks like he could be right. Last year, we saw Hulu and Netflix move into original production, the latter through a multimillion-dollar deal for a 26-episode remake of BBC political drama House of Cards that debuts this year. And in October, YouTube announced it would launch 100 branded channels at an estimated cost of $150 million. Tucked away among the host of content partners was Generate, through a partnership with Chopra Media.
“We continue to see our original thesis proving itself. The marketplace for original content online continues to grow. We’re starting to see consolidation of distribution, where there are enough players of large enough scale and enough advertisers feeling comfortable with them that we’re starting to see an early-stage ecosystem around content creation, production and distribution,” says Levin.
The Chopra Well channel will feature weekly content (potentially daily) with clips featuring wellbeing guru Deepak Chopra. A Chopra-themed YouTube channel already exists but the new network will bring with it higher production values when it launches on July 1.
“It’s a most welcome leadership position that YouTube is taking to bring original content of scale to the marketplace,” says Levin. “And we’re starting to see more of the large-scale distribution platforms, like Hulu, Machinima and Netflix, fund more directly in a meaningful way.
“YouTube definitely sees itself as a technological solution for audiences and creators to find one another and for brands to play a role in the middle of that,” he adds, noting the site’s recent overhaul, which places the new professional content on the landing page. “It is bringing greater organisation to the YouTube experience and it’s centralising its role in the proliferation of video and connectivity with social media,” adds Levin.
Overall, digital production remains “a slow business to develop,” but it’s moving in “the right direction” and the opportunities provided by YouTube and its kin highlight the growing power of brands in this new framework. “It is inevitable, brands will have to fund content more directly,” predicts Levin.
But he doesn’t rule out traditional players in the digital new world. Indeed, Generate has a production deal with CBS Studios and Levin believes networks have taken notice of the strong ratings online productions are now gaining, especially with younger audiences.
Generate recently produced a spin-off web series for AMCTV.com based on AMC zombie drama The Walking Dead which premiered the week of season two’s launch on the cablenet last year, and coproduced web shorts of MTV’s remake of Teen Wolf with MEC Entertainment and AT&T.
In development is a drama series for a premium US cablenet coproduced with Sony Screen Gems. “It’s a suspense series told in a non-traditional fashion, utilising the variety of cameras that film our everyday lives,” Levin says cryptically, declining to provide further details at this stage.
However, he notes the relationship between digital studios, brands and networks remains uneasy, with key issues including rights retention. As the market slowly develops, solutions are emerging. “It’s very difficult for independents to find ways to maintain a company with ownership of intellectual property. That said, the digital, international and branded content marketplaces are providing levers for independents to retain greater control.”
This is because going directly to the distribution outlet removes the “value extracting” process of going down more traditional routes. However, Levin is in no way anti-broadcast. Indeed, the entrepreneurial exec has a background firmly rooted in the traditionally Hollywood system.
He finds the net neutrality debate “a double-edged sword,” as on the one hand, the emergence of Google and its contemporaries has handed companies of Generate’s size more opportunities and better experiences for users in terms of pricing and speed.
“But at the same time, I worry about too much power being amassed in the hands of too few companies that can then begin to amass operating leverage at the expense of individuals – both producers and users,” he says.
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