Dating app Tinder is reportedly getting into the original video content business.
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Tinder apparently has a story to tell, but it’s not a love story, at least not this time. The mobile dating app is experimenting with original scripted video content and has just wrapped up filming on its first TV series, Reuters reports.
The series centers on an “apocalyptic” storyline, but there is a relationship subplot, a source tells the news agency. Tinder declined to comment but told Reuters that the series is the first step toward something larger the company plans to reveal in the near future. The production is reportedly Tinder’s first effort toward creating an online platform for scripted video content.
Offering original programming has become an increasingly popular way to attract and retain customers. Walmart is reportedly developing a subscription video platform to go up against Netflix and e-commerce rival Amazon. Airbnb is also said to be working to enter the original content business.
But producing original content to lure new customers can be challenging. In 2015, Tinder made a handful of high-profile hires to bolster a project to produce original content called Snapchat Channel, but the effort was shuttered just a few months later. A year earlier, Microsoft abandoned its original content ambitions when it announced the closure of its 2-year-old Xbox Entertainment Studios, the studio responsible for bringing original video programming to the Xbox gaming platform.