AOL to ramp up content investment

Jimmy Maymann

AOL plans to ramp up its investment in original and licensed video content following its acquisition by Verizon, with no limits currently being set to what the company can do, according to Jimmy Maymann, EVP and president, AOL Content and Consumer Brands and former CEO of The Huffington Post.

Speaking at the MIPCOM programming market this morning, Maymann said that his company’s acquisition by Verizon would enable it to make more investment in content including original content.

“We need to accelerate our investment in video even more. About 20% of what we serve up is currently video but a third of what people do when they log on with their mobile phones is now video. We need to produce more original content and to license content,” he said.

He said the company wanted to commission content and aggregate the best user generated content on the MCN model.

“We as programmers need to find out how tthat [YouTube content] fits in our ecosystem,” he said.

Maymann said that  content had been democratised but traditional media had still to take this on board. “I’m not saying everyone should have a voice, but our Outreach should become a talent discovery platform. With the amount of content you need to be relevant to the new digital audience, I coudn’t do this on my own. You need some user generated content as part of your model,” he said.