The NBCUniversal News Group is taking a minority stake in NowThis News, a short-form video news network built for mobile and social users. NowThis News and NBCU News Group producers will collaborate on projects based out of NowThis News’s New York studio.
“We know that news consumption among younger audiences continues to grow, but in order to reach that audience, we need to continue to create video for the platforms they use most. NowThis News does exactly that — delivering relevant news stories for the mobile and social platforms that resonate with this audience,” said Patricia Fili-Krushel, Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group.
NowThis News was co-founded by Ken Lerer of Lerer Ventures in the summer of 2012 as Planet Daily. The site relaunched a few months later as NowThis News and counted ABC News, CNN and Washington Post executives in its leadership ranks. In addition to the NBCU news, NowThis News has named Sean Mills, president and Ashish Patel, as VP of Social Media. Mills had been president of The Onion, while Patel joins from VICE where he was head of social media.
The partnership comes less than two weeks after the NBCU News Group announced an investment and content partnership with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg’s new venture.