DeerHunter.TV Debuts, Jumping From Cable to OTT and Back Again

Content will air on the new video destination before going to TV

Cable television no longer worked for the people at Deer & Deer Hunting magazine, so they followed their audience online and launched DeerHunter.TV on Jan. 17.

That’s the reverse route for some creators, but it makes perfect sense to the people at Deer & Deer Hunting. Although the magazine has offered cable-TV programming for years, it operated under the time-buy model: it bought time off channels, offered its own programming, and sold its own ads. Recently, channels have become more restrictive about usage rules, requiring that creators wait 10 weeks before reusing programming online.

DeerHunter.TV is intended to meet outdoor enthusiasts’ desire for quality programming.

That upset the economics for Deer & Deer Hunting, which began looking around for a better way to reach viewers. “The long-term play for us was not to continue to embrace the traditional outlets, print and television,” says Publisher Jamie Wilkinson, “but to look for a digital-first approach.”

With help from custom-video-platform company Sportsrocket, Deer & Deer Hunting created DeerHunter.TV, a freely available multiplatform OTT video destination. Under this new model, shows will air for a week or so online, then move to cable. It makes sense, Wilkinson says, because the company sees better numbers from digital than it does from TV.

At launch, DeerHunter.TV offers nine years’ worth of Deer & Deer Hunting TV, the flagship show it created for NBC. It is also offering Destination Whitetail, a top-rated show from the Sportsman Channel; Land of Whitetails; and multiple web exclusives. Hunting enthusiasts are hungry for quality online programs.

“Most hunters spend time in deer stands, and they are consuming content at a rapid rate on their mobile devices,” Wilkinson says. “The interesting thing about hunting, it’s about five hours of sitting and, if you’re successful, a few minutes of excitement. There’s a lot of time to fill.”

Hunting enthusiasts can watch DeerHunter.TV through browsers on desktop computers and mobile devices, as well as the channel’s social-media accounts. It will debut a Roku app in mid February, with Apple TV and other connected platforms to follow.

Deer & Deer Hunting certainly isn’t finished with television: it will bring its shows to Pursuit Channel, which isn’t putting any restrictions on content and will allow Deer & Deer Hunting to program its own two-hour block in the third and fourth quarter. What excites Wilkinson about the deal is that he can use the analytics from DeerHunter.TV to understand what content the viewers like best, then feed those shows to the TV audience. The online platform provides instant viewing data, something he never had with cable.

OTT partner Sportsrocket entered the picture, thanks to Tom Beusse, CEO of Deer & Deer Hunting parent F+W Media. When Wilkinson told Beusse how he wanted to transition distribution, Beusse connected him with Sportsrocket founder Brian Bedol. After a quick meeting, Wilkinson was certain that this was the right company for the job. He credits Sportsrocket with applying lessons it learned on mainstream projects to the outdoor space, moving the project along faster than it would have done otherwise.

Sportsrocket provides the backend technology for DeerHunter.TV — uploading, tagging, distribution — as well as offering best practices for social networks. The team at Deer & Deer Hunting creates all the content in-house. There are multiple opportunities for sponsor involvement: category sponsorship, presenting within a show, and 15- and 30-second commercials. The outdoor market is product-driven, Wilkinson notes, providing plenty of opportunities to feature sponsors’ goods. All sponsored content is clearly marked, he adds.

Now that it has a working OTT platform, Deer & Deer Hunting is opening it up to outside publishers as well. Wilkinson wants the platform to be an inclusive space where smaller television packagers can find a digital home.

With DeerHunter.TV a success, F+W Media plans to create a similar destination for one of its other enthusiast niches: the woodworking community. That’s also a video-rich destination, and the GM of F+W’s Popular Woodworking has been interested in the DeerHunter.TV launch. The move has gone well so far, and Wilkinson sees good things in the future now that his team is digital-first.

“We’re hopeful that, in the next three to six months, we’re going to see this platform grow by leaps and bounds,” he says. “It’s an exciting time for us. With this platform, we control our own destiny.”