On Monday, Peacock will debut original shows unlike anything the NBCUniversal-owned streaming platform has ever launched before… vertical microdramas, brought to you by Bravo.
The unscripted vertical series, called Campus Confidential, is part of a major mobile content push by Peacock, which is leaning into vertical video and made-for-phone experiences as it tries to carve out more engagement from loyal users.
“We’re trying to give people reasons to open up our app every single day, and we know the value of one incremental hour per user per month, we know the value of a user who spends one more day on our platform,” says Matt Strauss, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re being very surgical, identifying the fandoms that we believe we can super serve, and how do we drive and generate more of that share of time by ensuring that we are the absolute best destination for these fans to want to spend more of their video calories on Peacock.”
The result has been a slew of experiments and bets: Live vertical sports content from the NBA and FIFA World Cup, clips, mobile games like Law & Order and Jeopardy! Today, and Shop What Happens, a vertical live series with click-to-buy capabilities. And yes, that original programming, starting with those Bravo microdramas.
“If you think about microdramas, essentially, microdramas are very soap opera-esque, and one could argue that Bravo and these docusoaps are sort of the current iteration, or at least a close cousin to the legacy soap opera,” says Liz Jenkins, chief business officer for NBCUniversal Entertainment. “Peacock is one piece of NBCUniversal’s flywheel, and our IP and our franchises are the things that fuel that flywheel, and I think storytellers and IP come first, but we should show up where and how audiences are consuming content, and so I think obviously with an increasing amount of consumption happening on the mobile device, it’s important that we show up there in a format that is organic or authentic to that.”
But Peacock has also started to quietly license select microdramas from ReelShort, which Strauss frames as being about building an ecosystem where people get used to watching vertical video content, betting that the acquired programs can complement its originals.
The company is also leaning into advanced tech, including an AI-powered Andy Cohen who will guide viewers through Bravo clips, and advanced tech that automates the process of converting live and on-demand video from a horizontal format to vertical.
“We’ve designed this in a way that it could be extrapolated to any large catalog of programming, like imagine The Office being an experience, or SNL,” Strauss says. “So when you combine these four elements of clips, live vertical video, originals and innovation, you know this is not something that happened overnight.”
And THR has learned that this month Peacock will launch a dedicated vertical video feed, first based on clips, before Your Bravoverse is added later this summer. Disney+ and Netflix have also significantly refreshed their vertical video offerings in recent months, and Peacock, like those platforms, views the move as key to growing their IP.
“The interesting thing about IP and these franchises and that emotional connection is they stand the test of time,” Jenkins says. “These franchises, big IPs, have lasted for decades and decades and survived lots of different cycles of innovation and expansion of these platforms. So for us, yes, of course, it’s about driving engagement and that sort of thing, but it’s more than that. It is how do you continue to nurture and extend the health relevance of these franchises and deliver fans what they need?”
Fans, it turns out, use their phones for content too. Peacock just wants to meet them where they are.
