Participation Media announced Wednesday that it intends to shutter its Millennial-focused on-demand portal based TV network, Pivot, to focus on “content creation and social impact.” The news comes as a surprise, seeing as Participant has over $200 million invested in the cable network project that had included, most notably, shows such as Raising McCain hosted by Meghan McCain, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRecord on TV, and the Newark based docu-soap Jersey Strong.
Participant Media CEO David Linde explained the decision to cut bait on such a huge investment wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.
“As the media landscape changes, we have been evaluating how we fulfill our mission to entertain and inspire social action around the world’s most pressing issues. That process has led us to the decision to move away from owning and operating a cable network. While this conclusion was not an easy one, it is ultimately in the best interest of all our stakeholders, and allows us to allocate more resources toward the production of compelling content across all platforms.”
Almost immediately since debuting in 2013, Pivot TV ran into major viewer issues. The big cable TV distributors have begun to consolidate their resources; producing high-quality content that can compete with the big boys like HBO and Showtime has never been harder; and consumers are increasingly open to cutting the cord in favor of pick-and-choose web based services such as Sling TV. As the eyeballs dwindled, so did the profits, and thus comes the time for Participant to, well, pivot.
(Via Vulture)
