Gunpowder & Sky, the studio founded by Floris Bauer and former MTV head Van Toffler is looking to expand its roster of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels by starting channels from scratch or by acquiring them.
The company jumped into FAST five years ago. It says its current channels, Dust and Alter, which focus on sci-fi and horror, are flourishing, increasing viewership and profitability by 100% last year, with a similar performance expected this year.
Gunpowder & Sky is investing in its channels with deals to acquire the rights to 30 more TV series and movies, which will enable them to refresh their programming line ups.
New acquisitions include iconic titles Train to Busan; Creep; Hounds of Love; Summer of ‘84; The Masters of Horror series (with episodes directed by John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Joe Dante and John Landis), Fear Itself, Elvira’s Movie Macabre, Mark Hamill’s Pop Culture Quest; Weird or What? with William Shatner, and Encounter: UFO.
The channels will air marathons of franchises including Phantasm, Grave Encounters, Waxwork and Wishmaster.
“We know how to program to a targeted audience,” Toffler told Broadcasting+Cable. “Through Dust and Alter, we’ve acquired a bunch of equity over time with distributors like Roku and Sling. They know if we were to launch something, it would be premium and have high engagement.”
Bauer said the company is in active discussions with channels it could acquire. “We’ve identified a few key categories where we would love a channel,” Bauer said.
Gunpowder & Sky would want to acquire a channel, rather than start one from scratch because “we’re in a hurry and launching a new channel and getting it on a bunch of platforms takes time,” Bauer said.
Bauer said the FAST market is growing quickly, “There’s an opportunity to take smaller channels and really apply our expertise in branding, programming, distribution and monetization and create a lot of value. The initial acquisition cost is worth the investment.”
A year ago, programming was more difficult to acquire because media companies were hoarding content to stream on their own subscription services.
Now, “everybody is open to third-party licensing and it wouldn't surprise me even if people like Netflix at some point would open their gate,” Bauer said.
The studios are making more creative windows for content that they’ve already streamed on their own platforms, added Toffler. Those windows allow the companies to continue to monetize content.
“There’s only a handful of titles that really drive new subscribers and retention,” Toffler said. “I think there’s going to be a bifurcated strategy of having some key titles and series exclusively” while others are licensed to third parties.
“They’re going to move the needle for us a lot,” Bauer noted. “We can program them next to the things we know [our viewers] like because we’re catering to a very specific audience.”
In addition to acquired series and movies, Alter and Dust features short films from upcoming filmmakers as part of their programming mix.
“These channels and brands provide really robust outlets for young creatives and filmmakers and it provides us access in key categories, like sci-fi and horror to find and discover and work with young filmmakers, said Toffler.
Gunpowder & Sky’s studio works with those young filmmakers to adapt their work into feature-length films and TV series, he said. “That fills the other part of our pipeline, and so it works on multiple levels for us.”
For Toffler, the current stage of the FAST channel business is reminiscent of the early days of cable.
“It is quite analogous to the explosive growth of basic cable. We thought it would never end,” Toffler said. Digital technology now enables programmers to connect with consumers in a very niche way. “No surprise, based on my history at MTV Networks, we have chosen a very handcrafted premium approach that has garnered much higher engagement than a broader approach.”
