Viva La Revolution!

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By Geoff Yang

Yesterday Tastemade announced their latest round of funding of $40M.

What makes them an important company? Tastemade is not just a digital video network delivering inexpensive, quality content to digital screens across the world. Of course that describes some of what they do, but they are also much more.

Tastemade is delivering the best quality content to their viewers wherever they want to view it. That may be on Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Vessel, or Twitter. It might also be on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung, or even on the Food Network. Tastemade shares the best content wherever viewers want to view it.

Their approach is to take the best content either produced directly or through creative partnerships; format it for the best native experience (very short form, intermediate form, long form, horizontal, vertical, small screen or large screen); and then distribute it on the best possible digital or linear channel. The entertainment formula used to be much simpler when the formats were all the same (4:3 TV’s and either 22 min or 44 min in length) and distribution was straight forward (terrestrial, satellite, or cable). Today, the different combinations are far more complex, and that complexity is growing. In very short order, we will see skinny bundles with a combination of linear and OTT channels packaged for cheaper subscriptions targeting Millennials and Gen-Zer’s. I see few traditional media companies that will easily make that transition of knowing what type of content works on which format, and how to execute that delivery and monetization. New companies will thrive on that complexity and change.

I think there are going to be a generation of modern media companies delivering content that lives across all formats and all channels, and I hope Tastemade is going to be one of the leaders in that revolution. Viva la revolution!