- WBD’s MotorTrend is a rare media company that’s transformed from print to long-form video.
- Digital and video content has become a nine-figure business with shows aimed at a broad audience.
- A Spanish-language FAST channel is up next and MotorTrend is making a push into co-productions.
Kevin Hart’s unscripted series “Kevin Hart’s Muscle Car Crew,” which just announced its second season with MotorTrend Group, represents a progression for Hart and his friends, the “Plastic Cup Boyz,” as they go from developing a car club to an actual restoration garage.
It’s also an evolution for MotorTrend, as the Warner Bros. Discovery unit’s first coproduction, with Roku, and is a significant step in MotorTrend’s multi-year effort to expand beyond its core car lovers and reach new audiences.
As MotorTrend approaches its 75th anniversary in 2024, it’s a rare example of a media transformation. While many publishers have failed to adapt to new forms of media, MotorTrend has gone from a collection of car enthusiast titles like Motor Trend, Hot Rod, and Automobile, to a profitable, diversified media company.
“Print, which made us, can no longer define us,” said Alex Wellen, MotorTrend’s CEO and president. “It was like a Harvard Business Review case study-type opportunity — how do you take a brand and make it modern and pull it without breaking it?”
This year, digital and video programming revenue will be a nine-figure business as the company monetizes its content across digital and video platforms. (MotorTrend declined to release precise dollar figures.) Building on its linear channel MotorTrend TV and DTC business MotorTrend+, it launched Warner Bros. Discovery’s first free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channel last October, and it’s slated to roll out its first Spanish-language FAST TV channel, MotorTrend Veloz TV, in August.
MotorTrend got into longform video early
MotorTrend launched eight original YouTube channels in 2012. Then it embarked on a big direct-to-consumer expansion under what was then unscripted powerhouse Discovery Communications, which was looking to expand its digital and DTC footprint. Discovery formed a joint venture in 2017 of MotorTrend and its cable channel Velocity (since renamed MotorTrend TV). The following year, it acquired Scripps Networks Interactive, parent of HGTV, Food Network, and other cable networks, as another step in that expansion.
To jumpstart MotorTrend, Discovery hired Wellen, who had led the digital transformation at CNN Worldwide. Wellen saw that MotorTrend had to expand its appeal to a broader viewership without dumbing it down in the eyes of hotrod and other classic car enthusiasts; he also folded most of MotorTrend’s print titles.
MotorTrend created new series like the animated show “Super Turbo Story Time” featuring the likes of comedian and producer Rob Corddry; “Shorty’s Dream Shop,” featuring a primarily Latino cast; and “Super Street Garage,” which celebrated Japanese domestic cars and their young, diverse fans.
Mike Suggett, head of Studio at MotorTrend, had been with the company since 2006 and was confident MotorTrend’s content could adapt to new audiences and formats.
“Automotive content translates on all these platforms,” Suggett said. “A ’64 Mustang is always going to be cool.”
Suggett is keen to do more programming for the Spanish-speaking audience. He also looks around at the wider WBD portfolio and imagines how MotorTrend could play in the scripted realm.
“We salivate at the idea of the Batmobile and what we could do to contextualize that,” he said.
MotorTrend is seeking to offset content costs with coproductions
MotorTrend is not immune to the entertainment industry’s headwinds of linear TV’s decline and shrinking content budgets.
Wellen said the company so far has been able to offset its declining linear revenue by producing evergreen content that can be monetized many times over by releasing it on multiple platforms for set periods of time. MotorTrend’s content also is unscripted, which makes it immune to the double Hollywood strikes of actors and writers.
MotorTrend is set to launch nine new freshman shows this year, an 80% increase over 2022, and it’s seeking coproduction partners for those with the broadest appeal, in line with the Kevin Hart show.
“The environment has changed, and we must change with it,” Wellen said. “If a certain series will appeal to, say, a broad Roku audience, then it’s in everyone’s interest – consumers, partners, and us – to mitigate risk, collaborate on the creative product, split production costs, and share the revenue globally.”
Still, there’s no guarantee of success for even the most established players when there’s a plethora of production companies making car and car-themed shows aimed at everyone from the auto enthusiast to the car-curious, not to mention an explosion of FAST content in general. MotorTrend’s FAST channel launch last fall on Samsung TVs coincided with Samsung launching its own automotive channel, Ride or Drive, for example.
“It is the fight for attention,” Suggett said. “You look over your shoulder and see amazing stories being told on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. That’s where our heritage comes in — our ability to harness that trust and turn it into shows — that’s where we have the right to win.”
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