With WndrCo, Jeffrey Katzenberg Wants To Develop TV-Like Content For Mobile

Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg has shed some new light on WndrCo, an upstart that represents his next act after departing DreamWorks Animation as CEO, and for which he has currently raised $600 million to invest in other tech companies and digital media ventures.

Katzenberg said WndrCo, which ultimately hopes to raise a total of $700 million, will focus on developing “new TV,” or content that’s less expensive, less lengthy, and designed specifically for mobile consumption. “I believe there is going to be an enterprise 10 years from now that will be as big as the television business is today,” he told Hearst Magazines president David Carey at a Q&A event, as reported by Variety. “But it’s going to be delivered to you in a mobile experience, in chapters.”

For instance, top-tier shows on Netflix and HBO can cost as much as $200,000 or $300,000 per minute to produce, said Katzenberg, who is 66, while content on YouTube

is priced on average at $100 per minute. Katzenberg believes that there’s a huge opportunity between these two paradigms. As an example, he hypothesized about a scripted edition of The Bachelor that’s released via mobile in eight-minute chapters.

It’s worth noting that AwesomenessTV, which is owned by DreamWorks Animation, had such a service in the works alongside Verizon, which purchased a 24.5% stake in the Gen Z-leading media company last April. The premium content endeavor, however, has since been shelved.

Of his new company’s name, Katzenberg said, “I spent twenty-some-odd years dreaming, now I’m full of wonder,” Variety reports. “We don’t have enough capital yet for vowels.” Katzenberg will be joined at the WndrCo by former DreamWorks Animation president Ann Daly and former Dropbox CFO Sujay Jaswa.