We talked to The Dodo about its upcoming TV series with Animal Planet, which shows a way digital video companies can grow beyond Facebook

Diversification of revenue is important for digital media companies, especially as Facebook appears to be a less reliable partner.
Traditional TV shows have been considered a good opportunity for years, however, they can be hard to actually complete.
We spoke to The Dodo's leadership about their upcoming collaboration with Animal Planet, "Dodo Heroes," with an eye toward what can get a show the green light.
Though the process to get The Dodo's show on the air started well before the current media chatter over Facebook, it shows how distributed media companies can create revenue streams that aren't tied to Facebook traffic.

The digital media world is in a twitchy mood, and the culprit is Facebook, which has been sending gradually less traffic to publishers over the last few months, even in an area that it once called the future of the platform: video.

This has led to belt-tightening around the industry and at least one death (Little Things) already. And smart publishers are looking at the projects they hoped would diversify their revenue away from a reliance on a single tech giant, and assessing when they will bear fruit.

For video publishers, one of the growth opportunities bandied about has been the development of TV series: either on linear TV or on premium streaming outlets like Netflix. But getting a TV show on the air is tough, and many get killed in various stages of development. Not every digital media outlet has had the success of Vice when it comes to actually getting shows on the air.

Nevertheless, a handful of shows from digital upstarts like BuzzFeed (Oxygen), Vox (PBS, FYI, Netflix), Ozy (PBS), and Attn: (Showtime) have beaten the odds and received the green light.

Getting a TV show on the air is a long process, and these publishers started developing plans in this arena long before the current pessimistic mood on Facebook. But they show yet another way that distributed media companies can create new revenue streams outside of Facebook.

To understand what it takes to land one of these deals, and how they work, Business Insider spoke to The Dodo’s founder Izzie Lerer and president YuJung Kim about their collaboration with Animal Planet, "Dodo Heroes," which is currently in production and whose 6-episode first season will debut June 9 at 9 p.m.

Izzie Lerer

It helps to have a partner

The first big point to understand is why getting on linear TV is so attractive for digital media outlets, some of which have talked about television like it’s a dying medium.

The short answer is “money,” but a longer one is the idea of extending a brand into a premium product. In the digital video system, it’s currently very hard to make enough money to support the kind of high-cost production that can help define a brand and impress big advertisers. And while the ad dollars might not be in traditional TV forever, they are certainly there now, and a TV show gets a video company a much bigger budget.

But people don't just throw money at you to make a TV show.

“Once we could proved ourselves in short form, we could play in mid form, then longer form,” Izzie Lerer told Business Insider in an interview, explaining the way video brands like The Dodo hope to add layers.

But getting a TV show on the air is a long and arduous process, and takes a lot of capital and capabilities many digital media companies simply don’t have. That’s why it helps to have a partner in traditional TV who understands your brand and has a stake in your financial success. In The Dodo’s case, that was Discovery.

“The linear [television] conversations really came about with Group Nine, coinciding with The Dodo maturing as a company,” YuJung Kim said.

In late 2016, the Group Nine holding company was created to tie together four media brands: Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, and Seeker (Discovery's digital network). Discovery, which owns Animal Planet and had previously invested in The Dodo, put another $100 million into Group Nine at the same time.

That financial stake in mutual success helped solidify the trust between Animal Planet and The Dodo when it came time to develop a show together, Lerer said.

“There has been a lot of trust on both sides around what we each know, a lot of willingness to bring social and digital know-how,” she continued.

Susanna Dinnage, the global president of Animal Planet, told Business Insider she was also struck by the “common purpose of the two brands.”

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Pitching the data

With the trust established, Animal Planet and The Dodo could embark on the process of actually making the series.

“Our real bread and butter is telling stories where the animal is the center, making animal the protagonist, their quirks, their likes and dislikes,” Lerer said, before adding “that’s more challenging for linear” television. Not all of The Dodo's bread and butter stories would translate easily.

Lerer said that when thinking through what would work on traditional TV, the team decided to focus on stories that were more relationship-centric and human-centric, settling on "Dodo Heroes," which spotlights humans who go above and beyond to help animals.

Then they decided on potential subjects using data on what had performed well for The Dodo in short form online.

“Given that the concept came from us, they were looking for a rec from us around casting,” Lerer said. “In almost all cases we had data around the heroes we ended up featuring.”

“That was the very starting point, pulling data on those specific stories,” Kim added.

One of those stories in the upcoming season that Kim specifically pointed out centers around a vet, Derrick Campana, who makes animal prosthetics. He works a lot with dogs, but in the episode “we get to see him work with an elephant which is incredibly unique,” Kim said.

the dodo animal planet

Enter a third party production company

To make the show, The Dodo and Animal Planet worked with a third-party production company.

“Animal Planet agreed on a production partner, Nomadica Films,” Lerer said. “They are out in the field shooting. We have been extremely involved every step: casting, providing shot lists, talking them through our approach, what we want it to feel like and look like.”

The use of a third-party production company is an important point, and is a common arrangement for TV shows coming from digital media companies, though some have done production in-house (like Vice).

Why use a production partner?

“Everything from equipment, to experience shooting that kind of production,” Lerer said. “We don't have a built out originals team. These shoots are all over the world they are very time intensive. We are also a really lean shop.” The Dodo currently has 63 employees.

Other industry insiders Business Insider spoke to also emphasized that a company like Nomadica was a known entity for Animal Planet, and while this would minimize risk, it could also limit the financial upside for The Dodo.

This is markedly different from many of the TV-like shows appearing on Facebook’s Watch platform, which digital media companies like The Dodo have been making entirely in-house.

“We have been able to use the people we’ve had,” with a few additional hires, Kim said of The Dodo’s Facebook Watch shows. These include "Comeback Kids: Animal Edition," which Lerer described as the “number one” show on the Watch platform.

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Is it a hit?

When the show comes out this summer, it will be time to measure its success.

“I want to reach every audience with this show,” Dinnage said. “Total consumption becomes a really interesting point. Everyone living in world of linear ratings, that’s only part of a story.”

One point Kim stressed was that from an ad-sales perspective, Group Nine had made “a bundle that is pretty rare in the market, a true digital-linear package. 'Dodo Heroes' is perfect example in one product being able to bring together digital and linear,” she said.

But though both Lerer and Kim pointed to The Dodo’s moves to diversify platforms — “we are the No. 1 animal channel on YouTube” — the spectre of Facebook is still hanging over many brands that built huge followings on that platform.

“Engagement is the key word in the [Facebook algorithm] shift,” Kim said. “Content that generates engagement will rise to top … On [Facebook] Watch we have three of the top five when it comes to shares per episode.”

That sentiment is true when comparing competitors in the space, but the absolute Facebook numbers have not been kind for video views, even for video publishers with engaging videos.

The Dodo's views for new videos on its main Facebook page stand at around 1.2 billion for posts published in April 2017, and 560 million for those published in February 2018, according to data from CrowdTangle. Total Facebook video views on The Dodo's main page saw a less sharp drop, from 1.17 billion in April 2017 to 843 million million in February 2018, the company said.

That drop is not out of step with many of The Dodo's competitors, but it does raise the question of how much having an engaging brand can help one beat against the Facebook tide. That is one reason why diversification is so important, Kim said.

In fact, overall The Dodo grew from 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion monthly video views over the last year on all platforms, the company said.

"Our approach to being a distributed media company has always been about creating exceptional programming wherever audiences are — whether that's on Facebook, TV or beyond,” Kim said in response to the decreased reach of video publishers on Facebook. “It's about being diversified, and most importantly, creating engaging content that people love. Time spent on our content was at an all time high in February, and I think that's a testament to our ability to optimize content for our audience across all our platforms."

For distributed media companies to continue to grow revenue, initiatives like The Dodo’s upcoming TV show will be important to understand where to lean in, and where to lean away. With Facebook no longer the silver bullet, we’ll see which brands that grew enormous from it can extend beyond it.

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