Our focus is co-creating premium content with the top 1% of the worlds’ social media star creator class. The stories we tell live across all platforms, and have social media in their very DNA.
Everything we create is designed to capture the imagination, eyeballs and fingertips of the next generation of content consumers.
Astronauts Wanted is a joint venture between Judy McGrath, former Chairperson and CEO of MTV Networks, and Sony Music Entertainment.
We use our social media platforms and channels like one giant creative incubator: testing everything from new talent to formats to platforms. From Snapchat and Twitter to YouTube and Vine, they function as our playground for Research and Development. Below are some examples of the experiments we’ve conducted and the ways they’ve since influenced our programming strategy.
We’ve turned the travel show format on its head with the crowd-sourced #HeyUSA series. We updated reality TV with the social media-only @SummerBreak. We broke new ground with the country-skipping fashion series Wear In The World. We tore up the late-night talk show with Tawk. Our co-creators in this format disruption include many of the world’s top next-media stars, including Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Tyler Oakley, Kingsley, Jenna Marbles, Colleen Ballinger, Flula Borg, Cameron Dallas, Nash Grier, Lauren Giraldo, Andrea Russett, Simone Shepherd, Rudy Mancuso, Logan Paul, Laci Green, Timothy DeLaGhetto, Jerry Purpdrank, Sam Pottorff, Lilly Singh, Awkwafina, and more.
Partial List of Projects
A Trip to Unicorn Island Lilly Singh travels the world to meet her fans
HeyUSA Crowd-sourced travel show
@SummerBreak Real-time social media reality show
Talk “Stylishly awkward” internet talk show
ANXT Reality show about overcoming phobias
Prior to Astronauts, Judy was Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks, responsible for the business and creative operation of the company networks, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT, Spike TV, TV Land, LOGO and Nick At Nite. In addition, McGrath championed pro-social initiatives like the Hope for Haiti Now global concert, Nickelodeon’s Let’s Just Play, MTV’s anti-bullying initiative A Thin Line, and many more. McGrath is a member of the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, received an Emmy for Outstanding General Programming, and is on the board of Amazon as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Judy McGrath’s Astronauts Wanted Strikes Exclusive Content Deal With Go90 (Exclusive) | The Hollywood Reporter | Nov 11, 2015
A new season of ‘Tawk with Awkwafina’ and ‘HeyUSA_X’ will premiere exclusively on Verizon’s video streaming app.
Astronauts Wanted, the digital studio from MTV veteran Judy McGrath, is bringing two of its franchises to Verizon’s go90 mobile video service.
Verizon has ordered two new seasons of Tawk with Awkwafina, a comedic talk show hosted by rapper Nora Lum, aka Awkwafina. Lum, who will appear in Neighbors 2, brings the satire from her music to the show, which during the first season generated more than 90,000 views on the Astronauts Wanted YouTube channel. Upcoming guests include Alia Shawkat, YouTuber Lilly Singh and Orange is the New Black stars Laura Gomez and Abigail Savage. New episodes of Tawk premiere Nov. 11 exclusively on go90.
McGrath tells The Hollywood Reporter that the Verizon deal gives Tawk a broader platform. “Tawk was one of the first series we ever did, and we did it on our own because we had fallen in love with her,” she says. “It was really great to give her a platform to launch and to make her ideas, along with some of ours, come to life. To be able to sell two seasons of that to Verizon means it will live in a place where her audience is going to be.”
Astronauts Wanted is also bringing HeyUSA spinoff
“This is a perfect platform for us,” says McGrath. “Go90 is reaching out to a demographic that we’re most interested in. They’re experimental and brave with their original content. They have a great library — you’re next to BuzzFeed and Comedy Central. The fact that we have two franchises here that will get a new life on an exciting new platform like this is really great.”
McGrath launched Astronauts Wanted after a long career at MTV Networks, where she served as chairman and CEO. The company is focused on producing content for digital platforms. Among its current projects is A Trip to Unicorn Island, a documentary about Lilly Singh that will premiere on YouTube Red.
Tawk and HeyUSA_X are the latest in a string of exclusive deals that Verizon has struck to boost the offerings of go90. The recently launched video app will also feature Marvel and Star Wars-themed shows from Maker Studios and programming from AwesomenessTV, in addition to licensed content from networks including Comedy Central and eventually sports.
Former MTV Chief Builds Video Network for the Snapchat Generation | Ad Age | April 4, 2014
Judy McGrath spent last decade developing shows for millennials like “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Mom.” Now she wants to do the same for the Snapchat generation.
This June the former MTV Networks CEO’s new company will debut a show and website aimed at the highly sought-after younger millennial and teen female audience.
“I’m an admirer of Vice and AwesomenessTV and believe there’s room for another brand,” said Ms. McGrath, referencing two video-heavy digital media companies that appeal to Millennial-aged and younger consumers.
Her brand is Astronauts Wanted, a joint venture with Sony Music focused on online video that Ms. McGrath announced last July. “We’re purposefully positioning Astronauts Wanted as a brand, not a production company or a branded content agency, though those are part of it,” she said.
Brand strategy
Having a brand has become important for companies in online video, which is dominated by single personalities like PewDiePie. But content companies increasingly want to move audiences off YouTube to properties they own, and need a brand to do that. The same goes for Astronauts Wanted, which plans to debut a full-fledged site for its videos this summer.
“Right now we have the architecture. We have been working with a firm on building it and are entering into phase two or three. We’ll have a slate to roll out by, let’s say, June and will have the owned-and-operated in pretty good shape for that launch,” Ms. McGrath said.
Over the last nine months, the New York-based company has staffed up seven people, including two execs well-versed in youth media culture, as it looks to program for today’s cool kids.
“We have a team of young college students and one of the series is from a high school student. They’re on the payroll and we talk to them formally every Friday. We talk to them constantly. We want them to be like scouts for us on talent and what’s going on,” Ms. McGrath said.
Finding Gen Z
Ms. McGrath’s top scout is her former senior VP-strategic insights and research at MTV, Nick Shore, who has spent years studying up on youth culture.
“We’re seeing the tail end of the millennials and the ascendancy now of Gen Z [loosely categorized as those under 17 years old],” said Mr. Shore, now chief creative strategist at Astronauts Wanted.
When he joined Astronauts last July, Mr. Shore’s first job was to figure out what audience the company should be targeting and how. He described the mid-to-late female teen audience as “the sweet spot” for the social hyperactivity. But to program to them successfully means breaking down the fourth wall to create a dialogue between a show and its audience. It also means looking to them for talent as opposed to forcing stars upon them.”It speaks a lot to the bottom-up nature of Gen Z. They are their own heroes; they’re kids on Vine and YouTube and Instagram,” he said.
Mr. Shore also found that Vine may carry more sway than YouTube. “Vine is edgier than YouTube, though that’s hard to say because there’s so much content on YouTube,” Mr. Shore said, describing Gen Z as “a bit edgier” than millennials.
‘Summer Break’
All of Mr. Shore’s insights are represented in what Ms. McGrath described as the company’s flagship show, “Summer Break,” which Astronauts grabbed from The Chernin Group along with its producer.
Something of a younger sibling to MTV’s former reality series “Laguna Beach,” the show aired its first season last summer about a group of Southern California high school graduates during the months before leaving for college. But unlike its predecessor — or any show, really — “Summer Break” didn’t air on any specific service. Termed a “transmedia” production, the show streamed episodes on YouTube but also regularly posted content between episodes on Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram.
Aimed at Astronauts’ Millennial-and-teen-girl audience, the second season to premiere in June will add Vine and Snapchat to the distribution mix. And the company has brought in Billy Parks who produced the inaugural season as executive VP-digital production and programming at The Chernin Group and is now the chief content officer at Astronauts.
“We plan to make several shows over the next 12 months,” Mr. Parks said. As with “Summer Break,” those shows will pop up on the company’s site, YouTube, Vine, Twitter and other services. Ms. McGrath declined to share show specifics because they’re still in development, but mentioned fashion and music as two categories of interest.
“Summer Break” serves as not only as a template for content and distribution but also revenue. The series is co-produced with AT&T, which carries a presenting sponsor branding in episodes as well as product placement.
Astronauts plans to fund “a lot of the content ourselves,” Ms. McGrath said, but is open to co-funding with marketers. That sounds expensive but potentially worthwhile if a brand can piggyback any traction Astronauts’ gets with Millennials’ and their younger cohort.
However Astronauts’ content output won’t always be so formal as programmed series. For example, last weekend Astronauts worked out a deal for Vine star Princess Lauren — who counts 2.5 million followers on Twitter’s video-sharing service — to take over the company’s Instagram account and post videos from the Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Like this one: That’s not so much a show as it is content people in this demo want to check out. “We want Astronauts to feel like a ‘for us, by us’ brand. We want it to feel like it’s a conversation,” Mr. Parks said.
Judy McGrath’s Astronauts Wanted Hires Chernin Group’s Billy Parks as Content Chief | Variety | April 4, 2014
Astronauts Wanted: No Experience Necessary, the millennial-targeted media joint venture between Judy McGrath and Sony Music Entertainment, has hired Billy Parks, Chernin Group’s EVP digital production and programming, as chief content officer.
Parks was the co-creator and exec producer of “@SummerBreak,” the Chernin Group’s real-time social reality show about Southern California teens sponsored by AT&T launched last year. Series is set to return for second run in mid-June, and had already enlisted McGrath as a creative and production partner.
At Astronauts Wanted, Parks will develop series and branded content aimed at young, social-savvy consumers, working with chief creative strategist Nick Shore, formerly SVP strategic insights and research at MTV.
“Billy’s talent as a creative storyteller is perfect for Astronauts Wanted as we look to engage young people in bold new ways,” said McGrath, former MTV Networks CEO. “He has a unique understanding of today’s young adults and how they consume, create and share content. Engaging this generation of content creators is our mission.”
Prior to Chernin Group, Parks was an independent producer of commercials and music videos working with brands such as Honda, P&G, NFL and Microsoft, and artists including Rihanna, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Prince, Miley Cyrus and Jay-Z. He also was director of new media and production at Quality Filmed Entertainment, and worked under Lucas Foster, former president of production for Bruckheimer/Simpson.
Parks was included on Variety’s Reality Impact Report 2013 list of top bizzers in the category.