Whip Media, a software and data company for entertainment companies, is widely launching a service that will help buyers and sellers predict demand for TV and film titles.
Called the Whip Media Exchange, the platform uses audience behavior data from Whip Media’s TV Time app, which allows users to track what they are watching and has 2.5 million active monthly users across 170 countries. Gleaning insights from that audience behavior, Whip Media then can create its proprietary “demand score” to predict how TV and film titles up for sale may perform.
The demand score ranges between 1 to 200, which 100 being considered “average” for the specific parameters a buyer or seller using the service inputs. The score can also be adjusted to see how the title may perform in a specific territory and on a specific streaming service.
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Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Sherry Brennan, the executive vp and general manager of the Whip Media Exchange, jokes that the platform is like a “dating service for buyers and sellers.”
“We don’t think anybody needs help selling stuff like Harry Potter, obviously. People know how to do that,” says Brennan, who was formerly the senior vp of distribution at Fox. But the executive notes that all the major studios have deep library catalogues that they want to monetize or are moving into new territories where they have less experience.
“We help the big players figure out which small players does it make sense to talk to, and we help the small players really find access to the big players and stand out and shine. And then we, of course, help the small players find each other where that’s appropriate,” Brennan says. “It really works at all levels, regardless of how big or small the client is.”
Brennan declined to share the specific price points for access to the exchange, but she noted that the price depends on the number of users from a company and if they are purchasing other services from Whip Media, with monthly costs potentially ranging from the hundreds or low thousands to the tens of thousands. Buyers and sellers already on the Whip Media Exchange, which had a beta launch in 2021, include Lionsgate, Pluto TV, Globo, TelevisaUnivision’s ViX, AMC Networks International Latin America, Vodafone Hungary, Tastemade and Keshet International.
“The exchange is really to help people make good buying and selling decisions,” Brennan says.
