Netflix brings short videos from major publishers to its homepage

Netflix doesn’t just want your movie night anymore. It wants your 13-minute lunch break, too.

Starting August 3, Netflix will begin adding short and medium videos from major digital publishers directly to its home page, giving subscribers a new way to watch online series without leaving the app.

The first wave of partners includes BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc., Tastemade, and PMX, a division of Penske Media that includes The Hollywood Reporter, BillboardEater, Indiewire, Rolling Stoneagain Variety. The release will be available to Netflix members at all subscription levels in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Videos will range from quick three-minute clips to 20-minute episodes and cover food, travel, fashion, entertainment, wellness, design, celebrity interviews, home tours, and other lifestyle topics.

In other words, the kind of stuff people are already falling for on YouTube if they mean to watch it Vanity Fair lie detector test and somehow ended up 45 minutes deep into the celebrity home tour.

Netflix says the program will include past licensed videos as well as new series in progress. Among the topics that come to the platform are Architectural Digest“Open Door,” BuzzFeed’s “I Draw, You Cook,” Elle‘s “Where Are the Lies,” People‘s “My Life in Pictures,” and Tastemade’s “Struggle Meals.” Other announced franchises include BuzzFeed Celeb’s “30 Questions,” Vanity Fair‘s “Lie Detector,” Harper’s Bazaar“Burning Questions,” Billboard“24 Hrs With,” Variety‘s “How Well Do They Know?,” too Travel + Leisure‘s “Unfiltered Tour.”

For Netflix, the move makes sense. The broadcaster has made a name for itself in full seasons, epic dramas, celebrity documentaries, stand-up specials, and original films. But the way people watch videos online has changed. Sometimes viewers want a two-hour movie. Sometimes they want a 13-minute celebrity interview, Get Ready With Me, or a fashionista over lunch. Netflix is ​​now trying to make sure those short viewing sessions can happen on its site again.

“Members don’t just want to watch a show or a movie and move on; they want to continue exploring their favorite stories and personalities long after the final credits roll,” said John Derderian, Netflix’s vice president of animated series and TV for kids and family, in an announcement by TUDUM, the platform’s official programming agency. “This partnership helps us deepen fandom and create more ways for members to engage with those stories throughout the day.”

The new video publishers also come as Netflix has been expanding beyond its traditional TV and movie properties. The company added games, live events, sports programming, comedy specials, and video podcasts, all while exploring new ways to make the app feel less like a library and more like a place to hang out.

Many of the announced series are polished video series, made by publishers who have become major digital franchises on YouTube, the dominant media distributor in the US: celebrity IQ&As, lie detector interviews, cooking videos, fashion segments, home tours, travel shows, and bite-sized lifestyle series. Of course, Netflix isn’t replacing YouTube, but it’s clearly interested in some of the behaviors expected of YouTube viewers — and social media users have noticed the connection.

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There are still open questions. Netflix has not said exactly how these videos will be displayed, how the platform will recommend them, or how closely they will be tied to related shows, movies, and talent. It also hasn’t announced the full slate of future publisher partners.

But the direction is clear, and soon, Internet videos will live where your popular dramas or true crime documentaries already live.