The NBCUniversal News Group has bought a minority stake in NowThis News, which specializes in creating short form video that’s distributed across social media.
The move is aimed to capture younger news consumers, who don’t watch traditional newscasts on broadcast networks.
"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,” Pat Fili-Krushel, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a statement. “NowThis News does exactly that—delivering relevant news stories for the mobile and social platforms that resonate with this audience.”
NBCUniversal News Group and NowThis News will collaborate to create original, short-form video for Today, MSNBC, NBC News and CNBC such as mashups of political, pop culture or business news and "explainers" breaking down events of the day.
"By working together, the NBCUniversal News Group and NowThis News can learn from each other and build a great digital news experience that's a win-win for the new news consumer who wants all video, all the time, built for social and mobile,” said Kenneth Lerer, NowThis News's co-founder and manager of Lerer Ventures. “This partnership allows us to showcase our shared vision of combining the world's strongest news brands with NowThis News to super serve consumers."
