SVG Sit-Down: Team Whistle's Noah Weissman on the Rise of Short-Form Video, Social Strategies TikTok, Meta, YouTube all lean into short-form; successful content is about more than trimming long-form By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, January 19, 2023 - 1:32 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
When it comes to social-media content creation and monetization, Team Whistle does it all. Its publisher business is focused on competing with the likes of Bleacher Report or Overtime. Then there is branded content, helping clients spread branding across different types of content. And Magnet is a full-service agency launched last year to focus on social content. SVG Executive Director, Editorial Ken Kerschbaumer sat down with Noah Weissman, EVP, content, Team Whistle, to discuss the latest trends in social- and digital-content creation.
Team Whistle's Noah Weissman: We have very specific format types that work for each platform. There's a sweet spot for that 30-second piece of content that works well for YouTube, Meta, and TikTok.
What are some of the trends you are seeing across your business and clients?
I think Meta, crypto, Web 3.0, and NFTs, all of that stuff is fascinating for us even with the economy shifting a bit. We are gonna keep our eye on that in terms of innovation and keep working there.
For us as a media company in the sports and entertainment world, it's all about shorts. It used to be, we [would] make 200 episodes of an eight-minute show. Now we make 200 episodes and 800 pieces of content that are 30 seconds long. And we're shifting and even trying to hire creators full-time. We're also working on a creator fund ourselves to kind of build out freelancers to make content for us.
One thing to watch is that YouTube shorts are going to start to get monetized in February, and that will be a complete game-changer. When YouTube flips the switch, it will be like a Floyd Mayweather punch to the face: Hey, TikTok creators, that's cute to get a million views, but wouldn't you rather also get $1,000? It's going to be really interesting for us, and one of the reasons we have been intentional on dialing up the shorts creation.
Making shorter content is harder than making long-form. What are some effective ways to approach creating short content that hits all the notes?
It's not a completely different thing: you need a compelling hook and need to get people to tune in and keep the energy in the right place throughout the whole video. It's not necessarily like reinventing the wheel.
There are, however, bespoke nuances. Watching TikTok on your phone, where the algorithm feeds you content, is very different from [watching] YouTube. But the same kind of general themes and science works on both platforms.
One big change is that, five years ago, you would need a team to create graphics and now TikTok has a whole suite of tools for anyone to be a creator. But you need the same ingredients that are in place for long-form documentary, like the story beats and the hooks. You just need to be very intentional on how exactly you're positioning it and use things like jump cuts.
If you are shooting something for mid- or long-form, you need to intentionally set aside 30 minutes to make some sort of short-form content for TikTok. It's not just cutting down assets.
So it's not Hey, let's shoot for 30 minutes and then clip stuff out. You need to spend time creating the concept as opposed to just seeing what happens.
Yeah. A big model for us is planning the work and then working the plan because then you're ready. In that 30-minute segment, we'll even beat out scripts and five different things that the subject can choose from. It's like a content buffet where you have a menu of five things that you might want to work on. Being flexible to work with the talent and then taking multiple at-bats at shooting the video is imperative for us.
TikTok serves the viewer the content that its algorithm suggests the viewer wants, instead of the viewer's making a choice. How does that impact the way content is created to reach the audience you want?
Each of the big platforms on social media is best in class, and it's all about packing the algorithm and understanding how to reverse-engineer it. One thing about TikTok is, they don't punish for frequent publishing so you can publish 10 times, 100 times, even a million times. They're just gonna take the content and serve it to who they think wants it.
It's a little Black Mirror in that it will start to serve you content that you want, and it's fascinating how it works because it's a little bit different from the notification style around YouTube. TikTok is really dialed in on what you like. I don't know how they're scraping the data, but they serve you the right content.
As a publisher, we are dialed in to that and taking as many at-bats as we can, posting 10-15 times a day because it's not hurting like it would on Instagram. In three months, TikTok may change the algorithm, and we'll change accordingly as that's kind of the game there.
Social-media platforms seem to have different sweet spots in terms of age. How can you easily serve out content that works for different demographic groups?
That's one of the biggest challenges that we think about: you and I might have a different consumption habit from a 13-year-old fan that wants to see something different.
We have very specific format types that work for each platform, and, to be honest with you, there's a Venn diagram with a sweet spot for that 30-second piece of content that works well for YouTube, Meta, and TikTok.
Green screens make it easier for TikTok users to create viral videos.
So let's say a player has a great night. We'll go i
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
SVG Sit-Down: Team Whistle's Noah Weissman on the Rise of Short-Form Video, Social Strategies TikTok, Meta, YouTube all lean into short-form; successful content is about more than trimming long-form By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
