Crooked Media pushes further into TV with new FAST channel
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Crooked Media's Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor. Photo: Courtesy of Crooked Media
Crooked Media, the progressive political media company behind the "Pod Save America" podcast, is expanding to TV with a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel called SANEtv, Axios has confirmed.
Why it matters: What started as a progressive podcast has grown into a cross-platform media powerhouse.
- "We see an opportunity to show up in those spaces with a pro-democracy perspective and meet the moment with both scale and substance," Crooked Media CEO Lucinda Treat told Axios.
Zoom in: SANEtv (Save America News & Entertainment Television) will include a 24/7 stream of content available on Amazon Prime Video. It has also signed a deal to distribute the channel on Amazon Fire devices.
- "This is our first move into streaming, but definitely not the last," Treat added. "We're in active conversations with additional platforms and will continue expanding in the coming months."
- The channel will include video from some of the outlet's biggest shows, including "Pod Save America," "Pod Save the World" and "Lovett or Leave It."
- Crooked Media's platform partners will manage advertising sales against the content.
Context: The new channel comes on the heels of a new weekly compilation show called "Crooked on MS NOW" that airs every Saturday on MS NOW.
- "Our goal is to meet audiences where they already are, including in their living rooms," Treat said.
Zoom out: Crooked hosts nearly a dozen original video podcast shows, and it provides exclusive content to super-fans via its "Friends of the Pod" subscription.
- Treat said the company has nearly 50,000 "Friends of the Pod" paid members across platforms like Substack, YouTube, Supercast and Apple.
- Crooked Media has expanded its live podcast shows into a much broader live touring and events business that includes its own Crooked Con multiday conference
Follow the money: Crooked has been profitable "since Day 1," Treat said.
- Asked how much revenue it generated, Treat declined to answer, but said the business is "strong and growing," thanks in part to the diversified model that it's built across ads, subscriptions and extensions like live events and merchandise.
The big picture: Launched in 2017, Crooked Media became one of the first creator economy companies built to serve progressives for the modern era.
- "Being host-centric is key to our trust relationship with the audience," Treat said.
- She noted a gap in the broader media ecosystem, "particularly on streaming platforms, where right-wing voices have dominated."
What's next: Asked whether Crooked Media was planning to sell or raise more money, Treat said, "We've got the capacity to keep growing without selling or raising additional capital."
