In IAC’s November 2, 2016 shareholder letter, the company announced that Vimeo was working on an over-the-top (OTT) TV subscription service to rival its competition. Tubefilter reports that Vimeo has recently hired three experienced executives – Alana Mayo, Kesila Childers and Kelly Miller – to help make that vision a reality.

In the shareholder letter, interim Vimeo CEO Joey Levin said:

“Vimeo has the once-in-a-generation opportunity to, following in Netflix’s footsteps, deliver compelling subscription viewing experiences for consumers in the market for pay TV. I believe we can do so at a fraction of the cost of other major competitors by virtual of the audience and content benefits conferred upon Vimeo through our existing marketplace. And I believe we can do it in a way that empowers the content creators,” Levin said.

“The main differentiator between us and others at play in this new OTT market is that unlike all others who have to start from scratch, we begin with over a billion monthly video views, 115 million videos available, 240 million monthly viewers – over 100 million of whom are on Vimeo properties, 24 million of whom watch three or more videos on Vimeo per month and millions of whom have already purchased content on the Vimeo platform from a Vimeo creator. Not bad for approximately $65 million aggregate investment into Vimeo, the vast majority of which build the SaaS business,” he added.

In order to make this happen, Levin said the focus had to be on great content, effective distribution and an experience that will attract a paying audience. In terms of content, Vimeo already has an extensive library and a community of emerging filmmakers and content creators that are already attracting their own subscribers.

“…we’ll strategically fund content, but unlike larger players, will focus our efforts and leverage our community in order to compete on quality and originality versus simple magnitude of spend. We believe there’s room in the market, and there always has been, for programming that breaks the mold, both in terms of content and format, at high production values without outrageous budgets – we’ve already done it,” Levin said.

According to Tubefilter, Mayo, who comes from Paramount Pictures, will be Vimeo’s vice president and head of original development. Miller, from Bunmi-Murray Productions, will serve as director of content development, and Miller, who was in acquisitions at Hulu, will be the director of content acquisitions. With an all-star content team in place, Vimeo can scout out additional talent and original content to grow its OTT platform and its dominance in the online video marketplace.

Vimeo has not yet announced a release date or pricing for its forthcoming OTT service.

Insider Take:

Netflix and Hulu might have a headstart on Vimeo, but Vimeo has many unique advantages that those OTT platforms do not. They are starting with a large built-in audience, 768,000 paid subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter, fourth quarter revenue of $66.3 million, and a wide range of emerging and proven content creators already using the Vimeo platform.

People who are already using Vimeo for comedy, drama, sports, music videos and documentaries are likely to find an OTT service attractive, particularly if it offers them truly unique content at a lower price point than all of the other services. This is an exciting opportunity for Vimeo, and we are eager to see what they do with it.