How does a multi-channel network compete in 2015? One increasingly common way is to build a production studio for creators to make video content. Digital music distributor ONErpm, a fast-growing MCN, has done just this in creatively rich Brooklyn.
“If we can create a production facility that meets that needs of sophisticated video production, then I feel we have something different,” says CEO and founder Emmanuel Zunz. So, to attract more and better talent, ONErpm decided to create a production studio complete with HD camera systems and a dedicated staff. The facility is free for members of ONErpm’s network.
The new studio reflects the current direction of digital music. Zunz says the five-year-old company gets half its business from videos. Its MCN has about 1,200 YouTube channels on YouTube and 22,000 artists and labels worldwide. In May, ONErpm logged 700 million views of official videos and user-uploaded videos that used its artists’ recordings.
This has been done before. California-based YouTube has a production studio in Manhattan. Other MCN facilities exist in MCN-heavily Los Angeles. But Zunz believes the New York area needed a production facility offered by a New York-based company. So he created a facility in ONErpm’s home turf of Brooklyn. “There’s a culture of film and TV production in the Northeast but there’s not a culture of YouTube creators working with studios to do something on YouTube.”
Not that ONErpm is regional. The company got its start in 2010 by first focusing on Brazil, a market then underserved by digital distributors. “It’s a very big market and it’s still growing for us. We have two big offices in Brazil, one in Argentina and another in Mexico,” says Zunz.
