The final three parts of Ezra Edelman's five-part "30 for 30" miniseries "O.J.: Made in America" are "being made available for streaming online before they air on ESPN," according to Stephen Battaglio of the L.A. TIMES. It is a "significant first for the Disney/ABC-owned channel, recognizing the migration of viewers to streaming services." ESPN believes that it can "play on the same field as those digital players with the help of the Simpson documentary, a high-profile, prestige project." Starting Tuesday, all five parts "will be available online exclusively on WatchESPN," the platform whose streams are up 37% in '16 compared with last year and now reach 7.4 million unique devices a month. Adding streaming episodes of “O.J.: Made in America” is an "attempt to expand that WatchESPN audience to include the 'Netflix and chill' crowd." If the experiment works, ESPN "could put up its entire library of '30 for 30' documentary films available for streaming" on WatchESPN. It can also "create other programming out of the thousands of hours of studio shows it produces each year." Media consultant Preston Beckman said, "Everybody is starting to realize that people are consuming this stuff in all kinds of ways. If you want to monetize your shows, you have to ask yourself why are you not doing this" (L.A. TIMES, 6/10).
