Great Big Story Gets $40M From CNN

Micro-documentary and short-film producer Great Big Story says it has gotten a great big pot of money from CNN that will allow it to launch a new network it says will be tailored to OTT as well as skinny bundles and linear channels.

The launch is still a ways out—summer 2018—the company said, but will be possible thanks to a new $40 million investment from CNN.

With that money, the company will expand beyond short-form video to longer-form, nonscripted and acquired programming.

Great Big Story is available on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Apple TV, Pluto TV, Roku and Amazon Fire as well as licensing deals with Comcast, MSN, Yahoo! and others.

In October 2015, Turner and CNN announced they were creating the social media-delivered short-form network, which is targeted to millennials.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.