Dive Brief:

• Turner announced in a press release that it’s deepening its partnership with Snap Inc. to include original shows specifically made for Snapchat. The two will also collaborate more on ad sales, with Snap heading efforts for Discover publishers and Turner handling Live Stories and the new original content, according to Adweek.
• The Turner portfolio, which includes brands like TBS, Adult Swim and truTV, reaches 75% of millennials each month, according to numbers provided by the company. Snapchat’s audience is similarly younger-skewing
• Turner and Snap first inked deals last year for the launch of Snapchat’s Discover feature for publishers. The popular Turner-owned sports site Bleacher Report will be getting a Discover page for the first time in the U.S. on Jan. 4, while existing Discover publishers like CNN will begin creating more content for the format. Snap and Turner also worked together on Live Stories for sports organizations like the NCAA in March; the sports deals have been renewed as part of the expanded partnership. 

Dive Insight:

As the trend toward cord-cutting grows, broadcasters who have previously found a comfortable home on linear TV networks like Turner are seeing a big appeal in buzzy, digital-first platforms like Snapchat. That’s not to say traditional television is on its way out — TBS, Adult Swim and the NCAA will undoubtedly continue broadcasting to set-top boxes — but young demographic groups, in particular, have shown a fondness for alternative content channels, and both Turner and Snap share a millennial-heavy audience.

Snapchat also faces growing competition from players like Instagram Stories and even Twitter, who has brokered media deals with every major sports organization and launched its own sponsor-backed original programming with the NBA. As more services emerge aping Snapchat’s interface, the app needs to figure out distinct value propositions to offer its users going forward, and exclusive programming with a solid partner like Turner may be part of the answer.

Snapchat has also teamed up this year with both Viacom and NBCUniversal. Better media deals might help Snap monetize ahead of an expected $25 billion-plus IPO happening early next year. Post-IPO, Snap will only have more money to support original programming and build out its content offerings.

The Turner deal likely ties to Snap job postings that surfaced at the beginning of the week searching out developers and production managers for “original shows." At the time, Digiday reported Snap was committed enough to original programming that it was being included in coverage updates from talent agencies as powerful as CAA and WME.