Condé Nast Announces Sports Expansion and CTV Partnerships at NewFronts Presentation

The media company Condé Nast announced Tuesday afternoon at its NewFronts presentation in Hudson Yards that it plans to expand significantly into the world of connected television, sports programming and original film and television production. Amid a flurry of debuts, the topline ventures include: a significant investment in sports content led by GQ; two key partnerships, with Moat Reach and XITE, in the CTV space; and its largest-ever video slate, including over 250 total films, video series and audio programs. The news, delivered by chief revenue officer Pamela Drucker Mann, follows on the heels of the first profitable year for Condé Nast in recent memory, a turnaround the publisher has largely attributed to its growing presence in digital video and a companywide realignment toward its digital future. “We're just moving fast and we're trying new things,” Drucker Mann said. “We're putting our brands and our influence in places we haven't been before.” The publisher, a privately held division of Advance Publications, called its vision a surround-sound approach to content consumption, a concept meant to reflect the changing viewing behavior of consumers, Drucker Mann said. The media company has emphasized its ability to meet consumers where they prefer to consume content––whether on social platforms or owned and operated channels––and to spark cultural moments in those spaces. GQ gets sporty Athletes have long played an outsized role in the world of fashion, and a new venture from Condé Nast to ramp up GQ Sports aims to capitalize on that growing trend. The publisher witnessed the demand for sports content from GQ when, in January, the publisher released a handful of digital covers featuring athletes from then-upcoming sporting tentpoles, including the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, said Agnes Chu, president of Condé Nast Entertainment. As a result, the publisher will be tripling its production of GQ Sports content. The offering is meant to help marketers add incrementality to their advertising around sports, which too often focuses exclusively on live programming and leaves reserves of fandom untapped, Drucker Mann told Adweek. “Marketers want incrementality around sports, but they often buy too singularly––they focus almost solely on live,” Drucker Mann said. “There is an assumption around what consumers want that looks exactly like it did 25 years ago, but social has completely changed that.” The jewel of the new programming expansion will be GQ’s coverage of the Super Bowl, an event the publisher hopes will imitate Vanity Fair’s coverage of the Oscars and Vogue’s coverage of the Met Gala. Key CTV partnerships Condé Nast announced two key partnerships designed to help it expand more meaningfully into the CTV space. The first, a deal with music-video platform XITE, will allow the publisher to reach 100 million new households with its music-centric content. Several Condé Nast properties, including Pitchfork, Vogue and Vanity Fair, routinely feature celebrity musicians, and the partnership with XITE aims to help bring more viewership to those series. The second agreement, with Moat Reach, aims to help Condé Nast bring measurability to its CTV offerings, a key pain point that has hindered the growth of the medium. Moat appealed to Condé Nast because it will allow the digital media company to measure its impact across various platforms, including CTV and social media, with one vendor, centralizing its data collection in an effort to simplify its deals with media buyers. New video, audio and television programming The publisher announced its largest-ever slate of new video programming at its NewFronts presentation, an offering of over 250 new and returning digital video, film and audio series. Titles including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Epicurious, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Wired will also release new digital video series, while Pitchfork, The New Yorker and Wired will be debuting new audio programming in the coming months. The film and television arm of the publisher has over 70 projects in various stages of development, including a film adaptation of The New Yorker short fiction work Cat Person and A People’s History of Black Twitter from Wired. “We're meeting our audiences with the exceptional quality content that we have, in every platform where we know our audiences are––whether digital video, podcast form, film and television or streaming,” Chu said. “Ultimately, we’re focused on continuing to be the authority in these incredible culturally relevant spaces.”