Postmedia Network Inc. and North American content creation and marketing company Contend are launching a new strategic partnership that will tap the news media company’s extensive archives to develop new content for a streaming world.
The venture, Postmedia Studios, aims to be a platform for Canadian voices that will produce film, television and short-form content that can be distributed on online streaming networks, said Erika Tustin, vice-president of content monetization at Postmedia.
“I think we saw an opportunity really open up when (Bill) C-11 became material, and just how companies like ours could work a lot more closely with companies in the online streaming space — the Netflixes and the Spotifys of the world,” Tustin said. “And work to come up with new programming, new content, new ideas to be able to really tell stories to Canadians, done by Canadians.”
Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, mandates that all broadcasters, including online streaming services, contribute and distribute Canadian content.
Postmedia Studios will enable stories from the company’s archives to be reimagined to appeal to different generations, Tustin said, noting the Postmedia’s various media properties have had boots on the ground in Canadian communities large and small for decades.
“I just think that we’re unparalleled in that space,” she said.
Contend, which has worked with American publishers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, as well as clients such as Disney and Microsoft, was the ideal fit for the partnership, Tustin said.
Steven Amato, founder and CEO of Contend, said his company specializes in unlocking ”unique opportunities.”
“We thought this was an opportunity unlike any other,” said Amato.
Among other opportunities, the deal with Contend will give Postmedia Studios access to advanced video technologies, Amato said.
For example, the team will be using SmartStage, a proprietary technology that can put a live-action person into a photo-realistic, virtual environment. It uses a 3D computer graphics game engine called Unreal Engine, originally developed by Epic Games for video games.
“That is a game changer for a lot of different ways, whether it’s being able to break broadcast news … or pick up a scene and do reshoots for more big-budget stuff, but it has been unbelievably effective,” Amato said.
Postmedia, which publishes the National Post, Financial Post and dozens of other titles across Canada, will license and co-produce content, creating opportunities for content creators, the companies said in a press release.
Amato said the team is working very closely with a content monetization platform that many content creators use. “There could be a really nice symbiotic opportunity there that we’re mapping out.”
Projects currently in development include documentaries exploring Canada’s history, true crime and sports series, and Tustin anticipates the first piece of content could drop as early as January 2025, with a number of others to follow within the next year.
“We certainly have ambitious plans, and our goal is to hit the ground running,” she said.