FOX, YouTube Team For Teen Expansion

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If you can’t beat ’em, or compete with ’em, partner with ’em.


For Fox Networks Group, that means teaming up with Alphabet-owned YouTube as it seeks to grow the brand value of its Teen Choice Awards.

FNG and YouTube are set to expand its “Teen Choice 2017” across digital platforms. That sees the launch of Teen Fest 2017 — a free music and arts festival held in tandem with the annual awards show. Teen Fest will stream exclusively on YouTube and feature “YouTube star” Jake Paul as host. Paul will also be streaming coverage from Teen Fest on his personal YouTube channel.

YouTube will also serve as the exclusive social platform for Teen Fest and plans to use its VR180 virtual reality technology during the Red Carpet pre-show of the awards show.

Teen Fest is shaping up to be an eight-band, three-hour event that will feature performances by Paul and his band, Team 10; Echosmith; Bea Miller; Hey Violet; New Hope Club; PRETTYMUCH; Sleeping with Sirens; and STEP.

It will be held in downtown Los Angeles at 3PM Pacific on Sunday (8/13), and along with food trucks, art installations, and inflatable games is an 85-foot Ferris wheel.

The Teen Choice Awards will air live for East Coast viewers on FOX stations across the U.S., from 8-11pm Eastern/Pacific on Sunday.

As previously reported by RBR+TVBR, the Teen Choice Awards will be the first nationally broadcast TV show to feature six-second ads; TV stations in markets such as Dayton, Ohio sold 0:05 and 0:06 ads during local breaks through the 1990s, with CBS affiliate WHIO-7 among the first to offer the ultra-short spot opportunity.

“Fox continues to be at the forefront of improving the viewer experience and delivering higher impact ad loads, and this collaboration is the latest example of those efforts,” said FNG EVP/Digital Revenue David Levy. “Teen Choice 2017 viewers will get back to the show faster thanks to innovative ad formats, shorter ad pods and fewer commercial breaks, all of which also provides greater attention to and engagement with the brand messages that are shown.”