In its effort to create TV-like content, Snap has signed original show deals with NBCUniversal, Turner, others, and is in talks with CBS and Fox, sources say
Snap Inc.'s ambitious effort to create television-like content has old and new media companies alike clamoring to learn …
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands mid-arc: NBCUniversal had already committed in a multi-year 2016 deal to make Snapchat shows from SNL, The Voice, and Fallon before this story adds Turner to the signed column and puts CBS and Fox in active talks. Snap is converting a messaging app into a TV-like destination, and the major networks are queueing up rather than waiting each other out.
The momentum was real: within weeks, [[a:919883|Time Warner signed a two-year, $100M deal committing Turner and Warner Bros. to up to ten originals a year]], and by October Snap and NBCU deepened further into a 50-50 joint venture studio with the Duplass brothers attached. What began as highlight clips was becoming commissioned programming with dedicated economics.
First-order effects
- CBS and Fox face a join-or-cede decision: NBCU and Turner now hold early positions in Snapchat's Discover lineup, while holdouts risk their younger audiences forming viewing habits around rivals' branded shows.
- Snap gains premium, brand-backed series it can point advertisers to, replacing user-generated novelty with scheduled, sellable inventory.
Second-order effects
- Time Warner's $100M commitment sets the price benchmark CBS and Fox negotiate against — Snap's reported 50% ad-revenue share becomes the template any new partner must match or beat.
- Networks' production units start building parallel short-format pipelines, reworking existing franchises into platform-native episodes instead of porting full broadcasts — a path the live-snippet tool later extended by letting networks pipe live broadcast snippets directly into Snapchat.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, simple licensing evolves into co-owned IP: the NBCU joint venture model suggests platforms and studios sharing ownership rather than renting content, restructuring how TV rights get carved up across apps.
- By 2019 the deals had hardened into defined unit economics — Snap offering $40K-$50K per episode for 10-12 seven-minute installments — pointing toward a durable, separate market for mobile-first originals alongside traditional television.
The trend: Legacy TV networks are treating social apps as a new distribution window, trading brand equity for platform-native originals and shared ad revenue rather than guarding content behind their own pipes.