Discovery Communications has taken a minority stake in VS MEDIA, a multi-channel network (MCN) that serves digital natives in Greater China and which focuses on Chinese content creators.
Founded in 2013, VS MEDIA is devoted to young Chinese leading mobile-enabled and socially-driven lives. In just three years, the company has recruited and mentored a multi-talented cohort of more than 500 creators.
It empowers creators by providing production facilities and funding, offering direction and support for cross-marketing, social media and search optimization to enable monetization opportunities.
“As Discovery looks to build deeper traction in the Chinese-speaking markets, VS MEDIA’s robust following is incredibly valuable to us,” said Arthur Bastings, president and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific. “Through their advanced analytics, we can get fully plugged in to the Chinese millennial zeitgeist.”
Through recent investments, VS MEDIA is setting up a $4-million content development fund which will be used to collaborate with creators to produce local formats. The fund allows creators to pitch original content ideas with potential for multi- franchises. This will be produced for VS MEDIA’s consumer brand, VS ME.
VS MEDIA will tap into content from Discovery Digital Networks (DDN), which produces and distributes digital-native programming appealing to millennial audiences across platforms globally.
The DDN content will be locally branded, customized and curated for VS ME. To further boost engagement with the global Chinese-speaking communities, Discovery will lend its expertise in developing strong IPs and content.