The growing vertical video landscape has potential far beyond microdramas. Two TV veterans just built the studio to take vertical premium all the way with true crime, dating reality formats, scripted drama, and a 12-step AI process to get there.

This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast with Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet features Guy Hameiri and Lior Friedman, co-founders of RoseBerry, a vertical premium television studio built on the belief that mobile is the new cable. Guy comes from 25 years in traditional TV production (Survivor, X Factor, Shtisel on Netflix). Lior comes from Amagi and the commercial side of streaming media. Together they're building a start-to-end studio producing originals, repurposing legacy TV catalogs for vertical, and distributing through their own first-party app, Epis.

The episode covers RoseBerry's full model: deals already signed with Fremantle, Banijay, All3Media, and A&E to repurpose existing catalog IP into vertical short-form; a proprietary 12-step AI-assisted conversion tool called Red Snapper; originals; and EPIS as a test-and-learn platformt. The Neighbors case study (an 18-year-old Fremantle soap reformatted for vertical featuring a young Margot Robbie) is presented live on the pod as proof of concept.

Key Takeaways:

1. Beyond Microdrama
The current vertical market is dominated by melodrama tropes with high churn and low retention. RoseBerry is betting on genre expansion including true crime, dating reality, soap, and scripted, to target an underserved audience. Paywall conversion on top-performing shows is already exceeding 50%, with 70% of those converting to subscribers.

2. Red Snapper
RoseBerry's proprietary 12-step AI-assisted conversion tool takes horizontal long-form TV and reformats it for vertical. It handles frame cropping, pacing, graphics, storyline focus, and music rights. The process started manually with human editors to establish craft standards, then was automated at scale. It's the core IP that makes repurposing 5,000-episode catalogs commercially viable.

3. Epis as a Data Engine
Their app Epis exists primarily as a first-party data platform, not just a distribution channel. It lets RoseBerry track user-level behavior across genres, sessions, and geographies. Subscribers on EPIS are now spending over an hour per session on top-performing content.

4. The Library Opportunity
Guy's "10,000 for 10,000" framework is if a rights holder monetizes 10,000 hours of catalog content at $10,000 per hour per year, that's $100 million in new annual revenue from IP that is otherwise sitting dormant. RoseBerry's pitch to Fremantle, Banijay, All3Media, and A&E is a new monetization window for libraries that traditional streaming cannot fully exploit.

5. Mobile as the New Cable
Guy's biggest claim: mobile will replace what cable was with movies, series, true crime, and reality available on-demand in vertical format. Netflix, Disney, Peacock, and Paramount are all launching vertical feeds, creating a coming demand for premium vertical content that RoseBerry is positioning to supply.

Thank you Lior Friedman and Guy Hameiri for joining the pod!

Thank you Lior Friedman and Guy Hameiri for joining the pod!

Lior Frieman -https://www.linkedin.com/in/lior-friedman-94958939/ 

Guy Hameiri - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-hameiri-/ 

Interested in sponsorship? https://forms.gle/2LCWfX2HBNT8mtpx8  

Connect with us on Linkedin:

Evan Shapiro - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshap-media-cartographer/  

Marion Ranchet - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marionranchet/  

The Media Odyssey Podcast - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-media-odyssey-podcast    

• (00:00) - Heatwave and Setup