Discovery Digital Networks is extending its Seeker online network brand with the launch of Seeker VR, a VR and 360-degree content network focused on science and exploration.
Hosted on YouTube, it will offer content from digital storytellers, including Juan-Peter (JP) Schulze, Jason Silva and Louis Cole, supported by Seeker’s production teams. Seeker VR content can be viewed with Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift VR headsets.
“Seeker is dedicated to producing and empowering the most interesting, engaging and thought-provoking content in science and exploration. One of the great ways to achieve that mission is to employ every storytelling technology we can, and that certainly includes VR,” said Suzanne Kolb, executive vp and general manager, Discovery Digital Networks.
“We’re thrilled to bring original VR programming produced by our outstanding team and our talented creative partners to Seeker’s 46-million-plus subscribers while also attracting new viewers.”
Launch content includes Edge of the Earth, an experience that brings viewers alongside a weather balloon, propelling them 114,000 feet above Earth and breaking through a rain cloud that is audibly sleeting before emerging into the upper atmosphere.
Additional experiences now available are Rhinos on the Move, which follows Nepalese rhinos; Surf School With Kyle Thiermann, a tutorial with the pro surfer; Inside the Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault, set on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard; and Hearing Color, which features violinist Kaitlyn Hova and what she experiences with synesthesia, a neurological condition of “joined senses.”
Discovery had already been producing VR, offering content based on its programming, including Deadliest Catch and Shark Week.