AT&T and actress Reese Witherspoon are working together to establish a multimedia startup aimed at sharing the stories of women.
As reported by Fortune, the new media venture will be called Hello Sunshine. The company will focus on women and the stories they have to tell. The objective of Hello Sunshine is to create and discover "powerful content by and for women across all platforms".
The project will take on different shapes. It will run on short video clips posted on social media networks, television shows, and even films. It will provide a venue for more women to make a mark in the industry traditionally dominated by men. In fact, according to USC-Annenberg, only 28.4 percent of speaking roles in 2012 movies involved female characters while only 16.7 percent of directors, writers and producers involved in 2012 films are female.
According to Reuters, Hello Sunshine is actually a partnership between Witherspoon's production company, Pacific Standard, and Otter Media of AT&T.
Pacific Standard is the company behind the new HBO series "Big Little Lies" and films such as "Gone Girl" and "Wild" which starred Witherspoon. Otter Media is the brainchild of influential businessman and media executive Peter Chernin who has also produced films such as "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" and the Planet of the Apes film series, along with TV's "New Girl".
Hello Sunshine has already hired Kerry Tucker as its CEO. Tucker, a veteran in the tech and media industry, will be handling operations and strategy. She is tailored fit to run the new media venture as she has garnered vast experience in the industry having been busy with various projects including sitting as COO of the Video Genome Project and acting as marketing head of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia aside from serving as the executive vice president and chief of marketing of Victoria's Secret.
AT&T has been expanding its reach recently with plans to acquire Time Warner Inc. and the successful purchase of DirecTV.
