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Amidst the wave of networks launching splashy SVOD services, one new offering arrived this summer on iOS with barely a ripple.
Lifetime Movie Club, which supplies 30 original movies from the A+E Network channel at $3.99 a month, isn’t a game-changer like, say, HBO Now, but it’s a savvy, easily digestible repackaging of inventory that otherwise might just be mostly floating in the ether.
“We’ve definitely always viewed Lifetime Movie Club as complementary to the Lifetime channel app,” said Evan Silverman, SVP of digital media at A+E Networks. “It’s really just a way to leverage our library of movies for our passionate fan base and let them be exposed to even more movies.”
The app’s “library movies” are defined as Lifetime originals that have premiered on the linear channel at least one year ago, which mean newcomers to the service won’t be able to watch, say, A Deadly Adoption, the Will Ferrell/Kristen Wiig vehicle that debuted on the network in June, but will be able to feast eyes on titles like Flowers in the Attic, Coco Chanel, and The Trip to Bountiful. A curated playlist feature in the app also provides an “area where we can have some fun editorially with the collection of movies we’re spotlighting,” said Silverman.
At the time of this writing, the section was serving up a platter of “perfect” cinematic fare such as The Perfect Girlfriend, The Perfect Neighbor and Perfect Romance. As the app evolves, Silverman said his team will continue to “change the UX in the app to feature even more playlists and give us a chance to really highlight collections of movies around specific themes that our fans love.”
Lifetime movies definitely fall under their own category of entertainment. Their fan base likely isn’t monstrously huge, but it is loyal, and it makes sense to stream the network’s originals under its own branded service rather than sell select films off to one of the big streaming companies – assuming a Netflix or Amazon would be interested to begin with. Lifetime Movie Club was developed entirely in-house, from product development to technology, so it would seem that outside of some marketing expenses, the financial downside to this app is virtually nil. And according to Silverman, there is a bigger audience of viewers ready to pay $4 for the chance to revisit The Grim Sleeper and 29 more than even Lifetime imagined.
“This is our first subscription VOD product, so we weren’t sure what to expect in terms of reception,” he said. “It’s honestly exceeded our expectations and we’re excited with the numbers given that we’re only on iOS right now.”
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