Brief:
- Barstool Sports, the popular sports and men's lifestyle website, will debut a weekly Snapchat show on Sept. 8 called "Barstool U," Adweek reported. The show is focused on campus traditions during college football season. Former quarterback Caleb Pressley will visit campuses and showcase the wildest pre- and post-game traditions alongside other Barstoolers
- Barstool, which hosted the series on its website during the past two years, wants to expand its reach by creating content for a third party. The show is sponsored by Wendy's. Content segments will be interspersed with Snap Ads.
- Barstool U will appear within Snapchat Discover every Friday for 13 weeks. Each edition will be three to four minutes long with video captured from a trip to a college, beginning with the University of Georgia, Adweek said.
Insight:
Snapchat this year has sought to make its mobile app more engaging by focusing on professionally produced video content, such as the Barstool Sports series aimed at the platform's core audience of millennials. The news is just the latest addition to what's become an extensive slate of premium programming from Snapchat, which is likely eyeing Facebook's new Watch tab for TV-like content closely. Snapchat plans to introduce scripted video to its Shows platform by the end of the year.
Last week, CNN announced a daily news show on Snapchat called "The Update," airing each night at 6 p.m. and featuring its network journalists from around the globe. That move followed NBC News' comparable show "Stay Tuned," which rolled out earlier this summer and has been described by executives as an early success. Of the 30 million people who watched NBC's two-to three-minute streams, about 60% of them are in the coveted millennial age group — a segment CNN is clearly trying to reach in pivoting its Snapchat content strategy to daily programming.
Young people, in general, are watching less traditional television, according to data from Nielsen's Total Audience Report. Traditional TV viewing for 18- to 24-year-olds has fallen 41.3% since 2012, according to Nielsen data. TV viewing among teenagers (ages 12-17) declined 41.4% over the last five years, Nielsen said. As broadcast TV struggles to find its next generation of loyal viewers, several major mobile-first companies like Snapchat are leveraging this shift in TV viewing and trying to harness younger audiences by experimenting with original programming.
