Flying high: Virgin Produced’s Jason Felts
Virgin Produced CEO Jason Felts tells Michael Pickard about the company’s first small-screen series and reveals how airline passengers could become the next test pilots for television. When Amazon moved into original television production, it came up with an innovative way to decide which shows to make, releasing multiple pilots online for viewers to watch and rate before the most popular were commissioned to series. Now Virgin Produced, the television and film production arm of Richard Branson’s firm, might be about to take that strategy to another level. After focusing on film for the past five years, the company has turned its attention towards television – and CEO Jason Felts says he’s excited by how audiences are now consuming series in different ways. “We’ve watched how consumption has shifted and how players like Netflix and Amazon are competing with the broadcast networks,” he says. “We love the ability to be able to create weekly episodes and have them streamed or air on the traditional networks. Our sensibility leans more towards cable networks and streaming versus the broadcast networks. We’re not huge fans of standards and practices so we definitely lean towards cable networks and streaming.” Virgin customers can also tune into a Virgin Produced channel inside planes and hotels, which Felts hopes will one day become Virgin’s own platform for testing new series. “My ultimate plan is to incubate concepts on that channel using my test audience and growing them into full-blown shows I sell to the networks. It’s my … Continue reading Flying high: Virgin Produced’s Jason Felts
