In March, Condé Nast Entertainment rolled out its first video series, from Glamour and GQ. Those were followed by offerings from Vogue and Wired. Today came the fifth channel, for Vanity Fair. While earlier channels were heavy on the service quotient, the Vanity Fair programming slate is heavy on the pop culture and entertainment fare for which the magazine is well known.
"Our goal is to bring Vanity Fair to life in a new medium," editor in chief Graydon Carter said in a statement.
Four new original series kick off the channel, and they take advantage of the magazine's existing editorial talent. There’s @VFHollywood with Krista Smith, an interview show with the magazine’s senior West Coast editor; and The Snob’s Dictionary, a survey of high-end pursuits based on contributing editor David Kamp's work.
The other two series available at launch are Vanity Code, an animated, how-to series for surviving oddball cultural situations like behaving at a swinger’s party; and Eminent Domains, which offers a look at some of New York’s famed residences and the people who live in them.
The series are aimed at feeding consumers’—and advertisers’—growing demand for online video content. A big challenge for Condé Nast will be to amass big enough audience for its videos to warrant the premium ad rates it will seek to offset the cost of the content, whose production value is higher than a lot of typical YouTube videos. Condé Nast can get more viewers by distributing its videos widely, but that could dilute the quality of the audience.
So far, the Vanity Fair content will be distributed on Vanity Fair’s site as well as its YouTube channel. American Express, Salvatore Ferragamo and Acura have signed on as the launch sponsors.