If You Build It, They Will Come

KNOWING TERRESTRIAL TALK SHOWS WON’T LAST FOREVER, ELLEN DEGENERES CREATED A PLATFORM FOR THE STREAMING AGE. NOW OTHER TOP STARS ARE FOLLOWING HER LEAD.

- Madeline Berg

Last year, when Barack Obama awarded Ellen DeGeneres a Presidential Medal of Freedom to celebrate her past, the talk show host offered a glance into her future. She gathered fellow honorees, including Bill Gates, Diana Ross and Michael Jordan, in the West Wing to take on the Mannequin Challenge—a viral video trend wherein subjects set an elaborate scene and hold poses as cameras roll. Hours later, the 30-second clip was streaming on El len tube, DeGeneres’ platform for exclusive content and original series.

Ellentube, launched in October 2014 to offer bite-size content directly to fans, got a boost when DeGeneres established the Ellen Digital Network in May 2016 in partnership with Warner Bros. Her network, which also folds in the website for her television show and her official YouTube page, makes the 59-year-old DeGeneres a pioneer in the new streaming economy.

“The social platforms gave talent the opportunity to cultivate and have a direct relationship with fans,” says Jason Klein, cofounder of media analytics firm ListenFirst. “Now that the talent has that audience, why not take the fans to platforms they own and control 100%?”