Dailymotion switches focus to premium content

Vivendi’s streaming video service Dailymotion is backing away from the YouTube and Switch market with a shift to premium video.

The former Yahoo acquisition target has signed up with Vice, Universal Music (which is also owned by Vivendi) and CNN to create what it described as high quality content targeting the 18-49 age range. Content will be split among four main categories – news, sports, entertainment and music.

Short format and live video will be the primary focus. It’s not known whether all of this will come for free, or instead require some sort of membership or subscription. A revamp of its ad strategy has been touted, however, with the company promising less intrusive pre-roll ads.

This will all be delivered by a new app on the App Store and Google Play with a desktop relaunch scheduled for July 5th in France and July 25th worldwide.

Dailymotion currently boasts around 300m unique monthly users. Vivendi acquired an 80 per cent stake in the company in 2015, although this has since risen to 90 per cent.

We are very excited to unveil the new Dailymotion, to partners and advertisers," chairman and CEO Maxime Saada said. The new app is designed to be the go-to place where users will get their daily dose of must-see videos across four popular topics: news, sports, music and entertainment.

For our partners, the new app is proof of how much we love and value their content. Brands will also benefit thanks to a new advertising approach that favours innovative formats that don’t stand in the way of customer experience. This is really a pivoting moment for Dailymotion and a fresh start for our company."