This is innovation at its finest — breathing new life into beloved catalog titles while reaching younger audiences where they actually watch content. Snips and their partners are creating opportunities for classic shows to find fresh fans in the palm of their hands.
Insiders note this deal raises serious questions about revenue sharing with original creators, writers, and talent whose work is being repackaged without new production costs. One industry source called it 'the ultimate library monetization play' — at everyone else's expense.
Snips has sealed deals with Banijay Rights (global distributor) and BIG Media specifically to adapt titles including 'Big Brother' and 'Humans' into minute-long vertical episodes. The announcement was made August 18, 2026 via Variety as an exclusive report.
When rights holders can squeeze new revenue from old content without paying creators another dime, something is fundamentally broken in how the industry values creative labor.
The entertainment industry's latest money grab has a shiny new wrapper — and it's vertical. Snips, a digital startup that mines existing TV and film libraries to create short-form microseries content, announced Tuesday it has struck fresh deals with Banijay Rights and BIG Media to adapt catalog titles including 'Big Brother' and the sci-fi drama 'Humans' into minute-long, vertical-format episodes optimized for mobile viewing. The partnerships represent a significant play in the ongoing scramble by legacy content holders to monetize decades of accumulated programming for audiences who increasingly consume entertainment in TikTok-sized increments.
Banijay Rights, described as a global distribution powerhouse, brings an extensive catalog to the table, while BIG Media contributes additional library titles ripe for vertical resurrection. But while executives are likely popping champagne corks over this deal, industry observers are raising eyebrows at what this means for the creative community. Original writers, directors, performers, and below-the-line talent who brought 'Big Brother' and 'Humans' to life originally have little to no say in how their work gets repackaged — or whether they see a dime from its new digital afterlife.
Snips' model essentially allows rights holders to generate fresh revenue streams without the overhead of new production. The company takes existing footage, re-edits it into vertical-friendly segments, and positions them for platforms where younger viewers spend hours scrolling. It's content monetization at maximum efficiency — assuming you're not the person who originally created that content.
The timing isn't coincidental. As streaming wars have compressed margins across the industry, catalog exploitation has become increasingly attractive to companies holding large libraries. The vertical video format specifically targets mobile-first consumption patterns, particularly among Gen Z audiences who may never have watched 'Big Brother' in its original broadcast incarnation. Whether this constitutes creative innovation or aggressive extraction remains very much open for debate.
