Project-Nerd Is Ready for Prime Time

The Denver-based nerd and pop-culture brand Project-Nerd began, as most innovations of history have, with a bunch of nerds getting together to talk about what interests them. In this case, founder Iggy Michniacki started a pop-culture blog back in 2012, which quickly turned into a podcast called The Nerdcast. Currently clocking in at 254 episodes, that podcast is still going strong today. And while it's gotten more focused over time, featuring theme episodes with authors and artists and creators from the vast nerd world out there, it's also remained what it was at the beginning: a scattershot conversation among friends about the stuff they love. Movies, TV, comics, genre lit and cosplay have made up those geek-centric conversations over the last decade, putting the Project-Nerd brand on the map.

The website has burgeoned over the years to publish and curate not only blogs and podcasts, but also web series, original productions, cosplaying and prop-making resources, gaming how-tos, an apparel store and much more. Over the last decade, Project-Nerd has grown both its partnerships in the various hobbies — cosplay, prop-craft, general fandom and much more — and the back catalogue of its own productions and those to which it has licensed access.

The exponential growth is probably good, considering the goal for the project is no less than world domination. It says so right there on its website. And if that's referring to the nerd world, Project-Nerd might just have a shot.

On March 4, Project-Nerd makes a big step toward that goal: It's taking on TV. The app will be available on Roku, mobile and the web, and will be much like Crackle or Tubi, but focused on Project-Nerd's very specific and significant niche audience.

“Project-Nerd TV [PNTV] will launch with over 200 hours of content, including existing original podcasts and new television shows created by Project-Nerd, as well as a curated collection of partner series and films,” says Michniacki. "We’ll have programming that will be filmed right here in Denver, with Colorado-based guests. [Viewers will] see a lot of people they know from the community — the people they see at the conventions and festivals they attend.”

The local programs include a cooking show called "Let’s Eat," which focuses on a Project-Nerd personality inviting a special guest to come in and cook a favorite — all while talking about the latest nerd news and pop-culture touchstones. Another show is filmed in Colorado Springs: "ePlay," an ongoing e-sports and video-game talk show. It’s “a little bit of old-school, a dash of next-gen, some competition coverage, and a large amount of personality,” according to the press materials.
Michniacki says he’s especially excited about the cult-classic, B-movie offerings PNTV has and plans to add. “I almost hate to call them B-movies,” he says. “For those that are Generation X through late millennial, we’ll be taking them back to the video rental store, that local place where you'd go in on a Friday night and there’s that weird guy working the counter, and you ask him what out-there stuff he’d recommend. What he’d tell you to check out is exactly the sort of stuff you’ll find on PNTV.”

Project-Nerd only just recently announced that it had finalized a streaming deal with indie filmmaker Jason Trost to include his entire media library on PNTV. Trost is perhaps best known for his off-the-wall film series The FP, which tells the post-apocalyptic story of a turf war between two gangs in Frazier Park, who duel it out through the use of the game Dance Dance Revolution. “I’ve always considered myself a nerd, and so this collaboration just felt natural,” says Trost. “There’s no better feeling than knowing you’re working with a group of people who really enjoy the art you make.”
PNTV will be free to download and free to use — no subscriptions necessary. Instead, the programming will be ad-supported, but in a new way that Michniacki hopes will be more user-friendly to the target audience. “We’re working with small brands, small companies, offering small ad-impression packages, so instead of seeing the usual nationwide corporate commercials that you see everywhere, we want to spotlight the small video-game companies, the geeky product lines, the prop-maker who wants to advertise," he says. "Things that won’t hinder the experience. There’s nothing worse than a fan trying to watch a cosplay show and having to watch five consecutive Progressive [insurance] ads.”

PNTV is even launching a program meant to support non-profits, not-for-profits and charities in their ad stream, by offering a way for their viewers to donate a certain amount of money so as to pay for the ad time for their favorite causes and organizations. “Those are the types of ads we want,” Michniacki says, “so we’ll be ad-driven, but we want to make that experience very different and a lot better than what they’ve seen on all the other apps out there.”

That policy, in turn, will allow PNTV to attract more partner content. “We share all the ad revenue with the creators in question,” Michniacki says. “So it’s tough to put up a PSA and tell a creator that they’re not making anything for their work. This allows us to do both — support the causes and the creators both at the same time.”

Seems like a pretty strong — and benevolent — bid for world domination, starting up this March.

PNTV launches on March 4 on Roku, we, and mobile devices. For more information, see the Project-Nerd website.