Jeffrey Katzenberg Hits $1 Billion Benchmark For His Short-Form Streaming Platform

Jeffrey Katzenberg speaks at the MPTF NextGen Launch Event at NeueHouse Los Angeles on August 17, 2016 in Hollywood. Image by Getty Images/John Sciulli/Stringer
In a DVD extra for his 2006 film “Inland Empire” the director David Lynch said, “If you’re playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film.” But Lynch’s exhortation hasn’t stopped ex-DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who’s betting big money that tablet and mobile viewing of cinema-quality content are the way of the future.
The New York Times reports that Katzenberg has raised the first half of a two billion dollar ask for his holding company, WndrCo, from 10 American media companies and Alibaba, the China-based technology titan.
Katzenberg’s venture, which has the working title of NewTV, is intended to disrupt the media status quo by producing videos that only run a few minutes and are designed exclusively for mobile devices. The shorts will have an inflated budget of $100,000 per minute (the standard for YouTube’s highly produced content is roughly a tenth of this, The Times reported last year). NewTV’s bite-sized movies are planned to boast Hollywood-level production value, big name stars and strong narrative arcs. Think the best of the Pixar shorts but with recognizable talent attached.
“We keep coming up with new ways to exceed the expectation of our customers,” Katzenberg told The Times, referring to the consecutive viewing revolutions of cable, DVDs and streaming. “Except now, for the first time in history, we have a whole generation of customers that have a new consumption habit, with this thing called short-form content. And the professional enterprise of storytellers in Hollywood is nowhere near it.” The model Katzenberg has in mind for NewTV is less YouTube and more HBO, relying on paid subscriptions. However, the platform’s not meant to challenge the likes of HBO and Starz, Katzenberg stressed, as it’s targeting an audience in search of a quick fix of entertainment while waiting in line at the post office, sitting at a coffee shop or taking the subway to work.
NewTV has yet to announce its programming, but among its partners are Hollywood studios Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 21st Century Fox and his alma mater, The Walt Disney Company, each of which bring a wealth of proven properties with them. Interestingly, these legacy names and the promise of a shorter format suggest the early days of film updated for a pocket-tech world.
With Disney onboard, it’s likely a high-end “Steamboat Willie” remake starring Mickey Mouse is coming to an iPhone screen near you.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American
-
Fast Forward Trump administration freezes research funding to Princeton amid antisemitism investigations
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.