CNN courts the YouTube generation by partnering with Casey Neistat
CNN is preparing its second major effort to appeal to a younger generation of news consumers. And this time it's tapping one of YouTube's biggest stars.
CNN is teaming up with Casey Neistat to launch a new standalone company that will use smartphones to create video content.
As part of the move, CNN is buying Neistat's Beme app, which launched in July 2015. CNN did not disclose the terms of the deal.
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The Beme app will be shut down in the coming weeks while the rest of the company will fold into the new venture owned by CNN. Matt Hackett, the chief technology officer of Beme and formerly the head of engineering at Tumblr, will help lead the new company.
Neistat has emerged as one of the most popular YouTube stars thanks to a combination of extreme sports footage, humor and technology. His YouTube account has 5.9 million subscribers and popular videos have received more than 10 million views.
Neistat had been an active vlogger until November when he abruptly announced that he would no longer be producing daily videos.
Exactly what his role at the new venture is unclear. Andrew Morse, who oversees CNN's U.S. news gathering and its digital side, said that the new company is still in planning mode.
"This is when the fun part comes," Morse told Mashable. "We are in the process of spending hours and hours with whiteboards brainstorming and spitballing and trying to nail down the value proposition of what this new company will become."
The plan is to launch the new company by summer.
The new venture will be similar in some ways to Great Big Story, a CNN company that launched in October 2015. That venture has been compared to other digitally native media operations like BuzzFeed and Vice both in its stories and package, as well as its embrace of sponsored content.
Morse said that these efforts are driven in part by a desire to tell stories that are being missed.
"This isn't going to be a news company with a capital N, but it will tap into conversations that are happening across this country," Morse said.
Morse also said CNN probably isn't done, and that the company could make similar moves early in 2017.
"I suspect you'll see other moves like this," he said.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
