A Digiday report on HuffPost Live this week explains how it helps The Huffington Post be everywhere, even on Hulu, whenever. It also revealed that John Oliver’s format of ranting about an important issue is about to be replicated.
Remember when the listicle first started spreading around the Internet and then everyone was making lists? That’s sort of what’s happening now with what we’ll call “The Oliver.” HuffPost Live president Roy Sekoff plans to churn as many videos like the comedian’s closing segments as possible:
We’ve got the scale part down. That’s working like a well-oiled machine,” said Sekoff. “But we’re looking at a couple of things like [‘Last Week Tonight’] that hopefully have potential to break out and really become a brand definer.
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The profile reveals that HuffPost Live is really just a digital advertising factory:
Since its inception in 2012, Huffington Post executives have envisioned HuffPost Live as a “clip-generating machine,” one with fixed production costs and clear returns, said HuffPost Live president Roy Sekoff. …That strategy has enabled The Huffington Post to cheaply produce around 400 original video clips each week, which Huffington Post editors embed in articles across the site. The company also pipes HuffPost Live content to several other distribution channels, including the AOL On video network and Hulu, which began posting HuffPost Live interviews last week.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The profile on the channel’s focus on going viral is in line with a recent interview of “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, who insinuated that the Huffington Post traffics clickbait. HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill was a perfect gentleman:, responding, basically with “well, yea.”
Why would you want it to be anything else. But riddle me this: am I the only one who’s Macbook just shuts down whenever a HuffPost Live tab opens? Can’t they make it easier to actually watch? As long as the ads auto-play, maybe they don’t care.