Stop Your Whining About Peak TV: Seeso is More, and More Is Better

There’s been, frankly, too much Hollywood whining and critical hand-wringing of late about whether there’s too much TV.

It’s true that the number of originals TV series has nearly doubled from 266 in 2011 to an expected 500-plus in 2016, but you don’t have to watch all of them, crossing each one off like items on a grocery list. Did you stress yourself out last year about seeing all 701 movies that played in theaters or even the 305 that were eligible for the Academy Awards?

No, you did not.

The fact that a startup streaming network like Seeso is premiering 20-plus original shows this year is stressful for competing networks like Comedy Central, as well as for TV critics trying to keep up with everything. For viewers, though, it’s just 20-plus more ice cream flavors. You don’t have to like them all or even try them all, but BBQ chicken wing ice cream is out there waiting if you’re interested.

Earlier this week, Decider spoke with Evan Shapiro, NBCUniversal’s executive VP for digital, about Seeso’s approach to comedy and the streaming service’s growth since launching in January.

DECIDER: You had told me prior to the interview that Seeso is not going announce subscription numbers until after the end of 2016, but can you characterize how you’re growing? Is it steady or in waves or driven by certain shows?

EVAN SHAPIRO: Taking part in Amazon Channels, which launched in early May, has been enormously successful for us. That was really the beginning of a steady climb for us, and we have had a steady drumbeat of new programming that has driven subscriptions. Every time we release a new show, we see a spike. The shows and the stars of those shows drive the initial wave, and then word of mouth takes over.

I’m looking at Amazon’s app for Roku as we’re talking, and Seeso is on the first screen under add-on subscriptions. Is most of the Amazon uptake coming from the add-on screens on the various apps, or do you think it’s coming more from marketing?

Being on Amazon’s end cap — to use that analogy — has been very powerful, and they’ve also done big promotions for Take My Wife, HarmonQuest, Flowers and other shows. Also, if you go onto Amazon and search for Take My Wife, the show will come up and allow you to subscribe. Having people like Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonah Ray and Dan Harmon talk about Amazon and Seeso has also certainly helped.

When you say Amazon promotes something, where is that — homepage, emails?

Typically, you see it on the carousel when you log onto the Amazon app. They are also very active on social; every time they retweet something about one of our shows, we get a lot of new followers. We’ve also done some smart things on our end. We’ve done screenings all over the country. We launched Take My Wife in the same venue in Chicago where [co-creators and co-stars] Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher got married. We’ve done a lot of social and other media marketing.

Is Seeso making an effort to have a unified look and feel and unified interface across platforms, or do you want people who subscribe on certain platforms to have a certain experience?

We don’t control the page flow on every platform, so everything is a little bit different. We life for it to be as similar as possible, but our strategy is like Apple with hardware. We have our own website and our own apps, and we want you to be able to find it anywhere. If you’d rather go through our website, fantastic. If you find us through Amazon Video, awesome.

How have originals grown as a percentage of your total traffic as you have increased the volume of originals?

People expect a big and vibrant library. We have every episode of Saturday Night Live, and we’re the exclusive home of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall. We have a lot of British stuff. After genre and price, the biggest factor is how many originals we have and how often we refresh. I think a lot of people were surprised when we announced 21 or 22 shows. We have also made a big bet with stand-up and will continue to do that.

In the first month, our original content was less than 3 percent of our overall content, yet it still drove 40 percent of our subscriptions. Seven months later, original content is around 8 percent of our overall content and drives more than 80 percent of our new subscriptions.

The originals function as sort of a gateway drug for the catalog?

That’s exactly right. Someone subscribes and the first thing they watch is an original. Then they start watching other stuff. Sometimes that’s another original, and a lot of times that’s other things from the catalog. Seth Meyers, Monty Python, The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh all do very well for us.

The reviews for Take My Wife have been great in an environment where it’s hard to even get noticed.

We’ve had reviews in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair. Most of our big shows have been reviewed by the New York Times, and New York Magazine has written two pieces. The Los Angeles Times did a piece about our shows, but they waited a little while. That’s part of being a new service vs. being USA or NBC. We don’t get as much attention for the premieres, but that’s not really how people watch us. People are starting our originals all the time.

Are you planning a Golden Globes campaign for any shows?

We’re working right now on our awards strategy, and we think we have some contenders. Relevancy is a big part of how we grade ourself along with subscribers and revenue. Our goal is to be the best comedy channel out there. I think people were surprised when streaming services started to get awards attention, but then last year all of the Golden Globes nominees for comedy were shows that are available on streaming services. Our hope is that the reviews that shows like Flowers and Take My Wife have gotten will help us to be in those conversations.

You have done mostly indie-style comedies. What do you think about the idea of greenlighting a bigger budget show?

The first year was about getting on the map, finding our voice and taking some swings at content. Next year will be more about what do we do now that we’re on the map. The more successful we are, the more ambitious we’ll be able to become. We’re definitely looking at interesting things that would require bigger budgets.

Is the idea for shows like Hidden America and Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ that are now going into multiple seasons to keep them in production so that you can put out 10 more episodes whenever you’re ready, or are you aiming to do a certain number of episodes a year?

Our goal is to constantly have new shows to watch. We’re renewing those shows because they did really well for us. We haven’t announced another season yet for HarmonQuest yet, but that show does really well for us. Those shows grow week-over-week almost every week, which makes sense because new people are on the service every week.

What do you think about Wyatt Cenac, who has Night Train on Seeso, doing People of Earth for TBS?

We don’t want to lock people down. The more attention that Wyatt Cenac and Scott Aukerman and Kulap Vilaysack get, the better it’s going to be for us. The better known Wyatt Cenac gets, the better it is for Night Train. The deals we’ve made with our talent are more artist-friendly than a lot of the deals at other networks, and our artists will tell you that they’re making the shows that they wanted to make.

Is it a priority is it for Seeso to work with other NBCUniversal properties — having your talent on NBC talk shows or doing guest spots on NBC-produced shows — or does Seeso function more as a stand-alone business?

One of the biggest priorities for our CEO Steve Burke is Symphony, which is a big step up from what people used to call synergy. We all support each other’s projects in a way that’s unparalleled in my experience, and I’ve worked other places. When Dana Carvey had a show premiering on USA called First Impressions, we did a huge build-out on Seeso using Dana Carvey’s impressions from Saturday Night Live. For the new season of Million Dollar Listings on Bravo, they did a cool promotion for Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ on their platform. We made a series of shorts with Flula Borg for the Olympics.

Is Will Sharpe going to do a second season of Flowers? Is he doing a different series?

We don’t have anything to announce, but we very much believe in Will Sharpe and are doing everything we can to stay in the Will Sharpe business.

Flowers and Take My Wife both started with six-episode orders. Is that a magic number for how you produce it or how you release those episodes?

There are several reasons. It comes from the British system, so we’re looking at Flowers and Take My Wife almost like independent films. They were written that way and shot that way. Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ is much less arced over the course of a season, so it’s more of a snackable show. We greenlit a show called My Brother My Brother and Me that’s based on a podcast that I’m addicted to, and we sat down and figured out how to make a show. We want shows that are bold, authentic and funny, but we don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.

How seriously are you looking at doing something higher frequency like a daytime talk show or a morning-drive radio show?

I would love to think that we have appointment viewing, but that’s just not how the platform works. Our goal is to get someone to visit Seeso a few times a week. For us, the return this fall of Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ is appointment viewing because people want to see it when it comes out. We’re catering to a demographic who wants to watch things on their own schedule.

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider. He is also a contributing writer for Signature and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.