Time Warner signs 2-year $100M deal with Snap; Turner, Warner Bros. studio will create up to 10 original shows a year for Snap, which will keep 50% ad revenue
In a wide-ranging deal with Snap Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s Turner cable channels and the Warner Bros. studio will create …
Context & Ripple Effects
Snap has spent a year assembling TV-style originals: after an initial round of show deals with NBCUniversal, Turner and others in May, NBCUniversal had already committed branded formats like SNL and The Voice to Snapchat via its multi-year Snapchat show deal in August 2016. The Time Warner agreement is the escalation of that arc — the first nine-figure, multi-year budget any partner has put behind the format, spanning both Turner's cable channels and the Warner Bros. studio.
For Time Warner it is also consistent hedging: the company took a $580M stake in Hulu's pay-TV service last year and signed Turner up for YouTube's subscription offering in 2015. Content owners are paying to be present wherever young viewers land, and Snap's pitch — keep half the ad revenue while partners carry the production cost — makes it cheap insurance.
First-order effects
- Turner channels and Warner Bros. take on production of up to 10 shows a year at Time Warner's expense, while Snap gains two years of premium inventory with zero production outlay and a guaranteed 50% of every ad dollar those shows generate.
- Snap's sales story changes immediately: it can now sell advertisers TV-grade originals from major studios rather than user-generated filler, competing for brand budgets alongside NBCU's Snapchat slate.
Second-order effects
- CBS and Fox, reportedly already in talks with Snap, face pressure to match Time Warner's commitment level before the best ad slots and creative teams are locked up by NBCU and Turner.
- The 50/50 split sets a pricing benchmark: future platform deals (and NBCU's response, which materialized months later as a 50-50 joint venture studio with Snap) get negotiated against this revenue-share floor.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, networks become contract suppliers to whatever platform owns the audience — a structural reversal from owning distribution, visible across Time Warner's simultaneous bets on Hulu, YouTube and Snap.
- The endgame of that supplier posture is consolidation: eight years later the studio side of this same company was worth more inside Netflix than standalone, per the reported $82.7B acquisition of WBD's studios and streaming business.
The trend: TV networks are converting themselves into content suppliers for mobile platforms, trading distribution ownership for reach and revenue share — with each new deal raising the price of admission for the next partner.