Amp’d Announces Original Content

Amp’d has announced partnerships with some heavy-hitting TV show creators to develop content specifically for its mobile service. The partners include:
–Bunim Murray (The originator of the reality television genre with MTV’s “Real World,” “Road Rules” and “The Simple Life”)… he will work to bring existing reality shows into Amp’ds service as well as develop and produce original mobile series.
— Donick Cary (A writer/producer whose credits include head writer of “Late Night with David Letterman” and co-executive producer of “The Simpsons” and “Just Shoot Me”) has signed an exclusive deal with Amp’d for six animated programs due for the first half of 2006. has an exclusive deal with Amp’d and is underway with development and production of six animated and scripted original programs set to debut in the first half of 2006.
— QD3 Productions will provide documentary-style, behind-the-scenes footage from popular hip-hop stars, as well as additional footage from top selling DVD documentaries “Beef” and “Beef II.”
— LivePlanet (The production company co-founded by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) is working exclusively with Amp’d Mobile to create an unprecedented location-based mobile game that brings together social networking and entertainment in the mobile space. The “Hunt & Capture” style competition-based game, slated to release in Q1, 2006, pits real players across the country against each other for cash and prizes.
If the Amp’d experiment does crash and burn it won’t be through lack of effort…the company is putting a lot of money and effort behind the idea that mobile phones will become very intense entertainment devices and enough people are interested in that level of content to make a successful business. Seth Cummings, SVP at Amp’d, stated that Amp’d would “create the largest offering of original content for the mobile entertainment space“, which is a difficult thing to make comparisons with. He did specify original mobile content, taking out of the contention competitors such as ESPN Mobile, which has a lot of repurposed content.
“By collaborating with Emmy-award winning producers to originate programming that combines scripted storylines with interactive, user-submitted content and mobile-specific features, our members will participate in pioneering an entirely new category of entertainment — that can be found only on Amp’d,” said Cummings. I’m very interested to see the sort of innovation they come up with…
Related stories:
The Hip Can Finally Get Amp’d
Amp’d Launches, Softly
Amp’d Signs Up With CBS & UPN

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