As the streaming wars have raged on between Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max and the rest, one company has quietly assembled a large portfolio of enthusiast streaming channels and an expansive library of independent content: Cinedigm Corp (NASDAQ:CIDM).
When Cinedigm launched its flagship streaming service, Cineverse, in October, the company set an ambitious goal: Grow its vast content library of more than 12,000 films and television episodes by another 18,000 in 2022 and several hundred thousand more over the next three years.
The platform, available across iOS, Android, Roku and Samsung apps, is well on its way to doing just that, with a suite of channels including Screambox, Fandor The Country Network, and Crime Hunters — not to mention channels dedicated to Bob Ross and Elvis Presley, among many others.
In fact, Cinedigm might also now have an instant cult classic on its hands. Just in time for Halloween, Bloody Disgusting released the slasher horror flick Terrifier 2, which has grossed over $10.1 million to date at the box office on a budget of just $250,000.
CEO Chris McGurk has been thrilled with the Cineverse’s early days.
“Across our audiences as well as from the different platforms that we’ve launched on, people have been impressed with the quality of our apps as well as the breadth of our content offering,” McGurk told Proactive.
“They are pleased with the number and quality of titles that we have up so far is expansive, and the underlying tech provided by our Matchpoint platform works really well. We've been very pleased by the launch, and it’s only going to get better as we onboard more channels and continue to publish much more content.”
In terms of content, McGurk is aggressively pursuing independent film and television content. That’s different from other streaming companies like Netflix, which have put a premium on original programming and marketing spending.
“We're not trying to compete with Netflix and Disney+ and the other big general entertainment streamers,” he said. “They're reducing their commitment to acquire independent content because they're so focused on winning the streaming wars by having these expensive new shows.”
Instead, Cineverse is designed to be “perfectly complementary” to the general entertainment streamers. There’s currently a large void in the market for independent films and niche television, one that McGurk believes Cinedigm is well-positioned to fill.
Crucially, Cineverse contains FAST (free ad-supported television) channels and a large catalog of ad-supported video-on-demand titles, relying on ads for revenue rather than having to churn out continuous subscriber growth like other streamers.
Cinedigm does have more than a million subscribers across its portfolio of channels, but McGurk says that’s happened organically. He’s more focused on the company’s ten straight quarters and counting of triple-digit advertising growth.
Future of film distribution
Cinedigm’s secret sauce is its technology platform, an extension of when the company first made a name for itself by revolutionizing digital projection in movie theaters.
The future of film distribution, though, is in the home, McGurk said. So Cinedigm started acquiring a huge library of distribution rights and developing its own streaming platform called Matchpoint.
Starting in 2015, three channels became 10, 10 became 30 and, eventually, the Cineverse service was a fully fleshed-out galaxy of independent content.
Cinedigm operates what McGurk called an ingestion and digestion system at scale. Essentially, it takes content from 800 suppliers and distributes it across 100 different streaming platforms and partners where it's interoperable.
Matchpoint, meanwhile, is a discovery engine designed to offer hyper-personalized content. It analyzes users’ viewing history, title-related metadata and scene-specific contextual data in order to offer content recommendations to help viewers create playlists from its huge library of content.
Fortune 500 companies trying to get into the streaming have taken note, McGurk said, and multiple firms have expressed interest in utilizing the company’s Matchpoint technology.
And then there's the most intriguing piece of all: The company is exploring artificial intelligence technology that could bring Elvis Presley and Bob Ross back to life on screen.
For example, The Bob Ross Channel on Cineverse features all 300+ episodes from the 31 seasons of “The Joy of Painting.” But what if Ross could speak to you and help you paint entirely new works of art? Cinedigm is exploring opportunities to make that a reality in many languages around the world.
“Imagine if you’ve got a really good deep-fake Bob Ross creating art,” McGurk said. “Wow!”
The importance of independence
Before McGurk joined Cinedigm in 2011, he worked for MGM, Universal and Disney, three titans of Hollywood. Even then, he championed independent projects.
At Disney, he led the 1993 acquisition of the independent film studio Miramax, which would go on to produce Pulp Fiction a year later. During his time at Universal, the company bought October Films, which produced Secrets and Lies as well as The Apostle, and at MGM, he helped reposition United Artists as a specialty film company that released movies like Bowling for Columbine and Hotel Rwanda.
Independent films matter a lot to McGurk.
“I've always been really interested in that piece of the business as opposed to the James Bond movies and the bigger stuff like that,” he said. “I really like where we've ended up here, not just because it's a winning business proposition but it really is an opportunity for us to continue to support and assist the independent film and TV business to thrive.”
The Bond example wasn’t just coincidence either. McGurk was involved there too.
“I was just in an interview with somebody about the 20th anniversary of the Bond movie Die Another Day that we did,” he said. “I was just saying to myself, ‘Jesus. It was so difficult with all the egos and the big budgets’ and how much easier and better it is to be working in the independent end of the business with these smaller movies and first-time filmmakers.”
If there’s a sun at the center of the Cineverse, that’s certainly it.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel