“Shudder and other niche services survive in the same way specialty stores survive today: They need to be close to their audience, know their customers, and give them what they want.” They need to own the big needs, they need to be the big-box stores,” said Brett Sappington, VP at the media and tech consultancy Interpret. Services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu’s “primary objective is to include enough good content to satisfy everyone’s general needs. BritBox and Acorn TV specialize in British programming, Crunchyroll is the biggest name in anime and manga, and UMC focuses on Black TV and film. In the horror space alone, there’s Screambox, Full Moon Features, Midnight Pulp, and FrightPix. While that number might seem quaint next to Netflix’s 193 million members, Shudder is a leader in a rich field of specialty streaming services whose objective is not to kill Netflix, but to be an accompaniment to the streaming king offering content to audiences who crave deeper libraries of their favorite genres. The service, which launched in 2015, crossed 1 million subscribers in September thanks to its nimbleness, deep familiarity with what its audience wants, and commitment to the kind unique programming horror hounds can’t get anywhere else.ĭavid Zaslav, Defender of the Cable Bundle, Is Ready to Bundle Max with Other Streamers The 57-minute film based on Savage’s video, “Host,” released in July, exemplifies why AMC Networks’ Shudder has been able to find success in such a crowded streaming landscape. “It was 12 weeks from the time we were pitched the movie to the time it ended up on Shudder.”

“We said, ‘Let’s talk right away.’ What sold us was ‘Zoom seance,'” Shudder general manger Craig Engler recalled of the timely concept. The two-minute video, now viewed over 220,000 times on Twitter, immediately sparked the interest of executives at horror streaming service Shudder. In April, as everyone was just getting used to conducting affairs through Zoom calls, director Rob Savage had an idea: Set up an elaborate video-conference prank in which he explores the source of creepy footsteps coming from his attic, ending in a horrifying jump scare for his friends.

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