INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Real Vision is entering the crowded business and financial new space with a bang
The company, which recently raised a $10 million Series B after a $5 million A round, is working on a number of new initiatives including
distribution on Apple TV, a content distribution partnership with Thomson Reuters and an upcoming documentary on PBS.
The documentary, &A
World on the Brink,& will focus on threats to the global economy
The team is aiming at viewers ages 36-45 instead of the older Boomers who prefer cable financial news far.
&Unlike most video-based media
businesses where short-form video is deemed to have the highest user engagement, Real Vision have found that almost 70% of their customers
who start a half, or an hour-long, video will watch all of it
This engagement in long-form content is breaking boundaries within the industry,& said co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal
&Sensationalism and clickbait is at an all-time high
Traditional financial news has continued to degenerate into attention-seeking sound bites that are at best of little value and at worst,
downright dangerous.&
Pal worked at Goldman Sachs before moving into media.
&I lamented on the state of financial media & how it had let
the ordinary person down repeatedly in 2000 and 2008 and was busy treating finance as entertainment and not taking into account that this
was people life savings they were dealing with
I also noted how far financial programming had become versus the fast-changing world of on line video
Viewing habits and content types were changing but the financial TV incumbents hadn&t changed,& he said &I decided that it was time for
someone to disrupt the way in which television worked & particularly with regard to financial and business information.&
The team will use
the cash to create programming aimed at &those who want to create new business opportunities and startups, manage new enterprises and
leverage new technology.& The videos can run as long as 90 minutes but usually hit the five to thirty-minute mark
They are also distributing their content to Thomson Reuters
It uses a subscription-based model and costs $180 annually.
The team met at a bar in Jesus Pobre, Spain
Pal and his co-founder Damian Horner found each other during their travels and had drinks at a place called Rosita where Horner, a former ad
exec, learned of Pal experience in finance and they both mapped out a new type of online news channel with some real energy
Thus was born a model that mixes on-demand with high-impact news, something that few cable stations can manage.
&Almost all traditional
media outlets rely on an ever-dwindling advertising revenue model
Real Vision is subscription-based and built that way from the ground up,& said Pal
&Most media business are still trying to figure out a subscription model to diversify away from advertising
In a highly competitive digital world, the pressure ‘to get clicks& has a massive impact on the tone, direction and quality of the
Real Vision subscriber model means there is no need to sensationalize, no dumbing down of ideas, no incessant ‘breaking news& headlines,
no clickbait soundbites and no cutting things short for commercial breaks.&
