NewFronts 2013: Conde Nast Entertainment Adds Vogue, Wired to Video Network

Publisher exploring over-the-top deals for digital programming

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/1/2013 6:09:49 PM

New York -- Conde Nast Entertainment, which has been gestating for a year and a half under the helm of Dawn Ostroff, will be adding programming based on Vogue and Wired, the division announced at its NewFront presentation on Wednesday.

The titles will join Glamour and GQ, which were the first to launch under CNE in March, with channels for Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Epicurious and Style.com launching later this year.

Vogue's slate will debut on May 8 and include series like Vogue Weddings; The Fund, about the competition for the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund endowment; and cooking show Elettra's Goodness. Wired will launch a week later on May 15 and with series like Game Life, which interviews video game creators; and Codefellas, a scripted animated show set in the world of the NSA.

Glamour and GQ will also add six new series between them: Glamour Video Gift of the Week, which highlights hot men; makeover competition Style to Kill; its first scripted show Single Life; GQ's new series are Casualties of the Gridiron, a documentary about players coping with their post-NFL lives; GQ How To; and The GQ Trend Report.

Ostroff, who watched the migration of young viewers to the Web as the former head of The CW, said she saw several ways CNE's video could end up on television, including deals with over-the-top providers and additional long-form content that could be programmed on traditional networks (The company on Tuesday hired Gina Marcheschi to be VP of television scripted series).

Conde Nast will be leveraging its 200 million global consumers to drive viewership for the channels, and in turn hoping viewership boosts readership, as video content won't be restricted to subscribers. On Wednesday, it announced strategic syndication partnerships with Yahoo, AOL, Twitter, Dailymotion and Grab Media to further extend its reach.

Ostroff opened her remarks Wednesday by saying she was probably the only executive to have hosted both an upfront and a newfront, and it was evident in CNE's tight presentation -- the event at 583 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side came in under 40 minutes, compared to the two-hour runtime of other newfronts this week.