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Production company Tribal Apes launches online TV streaming service SkipiTV

Production company Tribal Apes has launched its new online streaming service SkipiTV which will feature weekly long form segments on music, film, TV, politics and news.

Bruce Dawson, co-founder of SkipiTV, told Mumbrella: “The idea is 100% digital, 100% video and to get away from all the crap video content out there and try and work with sophisticated storytellers to bridge the gap between what was traditionally on TV and bring it into the online space and make longer format content.

“We want to try and make content that is a lean back experience so people can come home and sit on the couch and have the option to watch content that’s traditionally only been available on a hand held device,” he said.

“No one in Australia is making edgy political content, I always find myself going online to music shows that are produced out of America. Our vision was to follow a time style of journalism back in the day when there was that model of fostering creativity and fostering storytelling and fostering journalism that’s got a bit of mongrel and a bit of fight in it.”

Tribal Apes has its own live streaming studio at Fox Studios in Australia which provides the production for the streaming service.

Dawson said when it comes to ads on the platform, he has “held back at the moment and focused on trying to create premium content” but is in discussion with larger publishers and networks.

“A big part of our strategy from day one is to make content for larger media players and organisations who don’t have the pipeline, the skill set, or the capacity or the budget to actually make content for themselves.

“The next phase through those partnerships and strategic relationships will hopefully be finding that traditional native and hybrid advertising model.”

Dawson said he didn’t see any competition in the market

Dawson said the vision moving forward is looking at distribution models including an app, Apple TV, Xbox, Amazon and Android Play, as well as live content.

SkipiTV’s 20-40 minute episode of music and news review show ‘The Right Note’ features Bernard Zuel, from the Sydney Morning Herald, Danielle McGrane from Australian Associated Press as well as Triple J personality Lindsay McDougall.

The Third Rail is a political media talk show and the third current content series is Watch This, which is hosted by CJ Johnson from ABC Radio’s Movieland.

SkipiTV is also set to to launch a gaming show which will be released later this month as well as producing daily news content on the site.

Dawson said he didn’t see any competition in the market because no other publishers are producing longer form content in the digital space.

“There’s a lot of music publishers in Australia but no-ones making a music show every week, and with our political show people aren’t getting the analysis in their journalism.

“There’s no one in the digital space who can pump out the volume of content with the production value in the time that we can, at such a competitive price and that was a major we reason we built the studio,” he said.

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