TL;DRNetflix licensed short-form videos from BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Hearst, and Penske brands. Launches August 3 in six markets as Bloomberg reports viewer drop-off.
Netflix is licensing short-form video content from publishers including BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc., Tastemade, and several Penske Media brands such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Eater, and IndieWire. The content launches August 3 in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
The videos range from 2 to 3 minutes up to more than 20, covering news, lifestyle, how-tos, and celebrity content. The lineup includes BuzzFeed Celeb’s 30 Questions, Vanity Fair’s Lie Detector, Billboard’s 24 Hrs With, Variety’s How Well Do They Know, and Tastemade’s Struggle Meals, among others. Netflix says more publishers will be added over time.
The move follows a Bloomberg report that Netflix is struggling to retain fans between first and second seasons of top shows, a trend that has worried executives. The company already added a TikTok-style “Clips” feature for scrolling through short snippets, but that was designed to funnel viewers toward longer content. These publisher deals go the other direction, bringing short-form content onto the platform as standalone viewing. Netflix has been using generative AI to address content discovery, but the deeper problem is competition from YouTube and TikTok for the same viewing time.
