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Sofia Vergara's Latest Series Will Launch On... Snapchat?

This article is more than 8 years old.

TV's highest paid actress, Sofia Vergara, is set to premier a new series. Unlike Modern Family, this will not air on ABC, but will find a brief home on disappearing video and photo sharing app, Snapchat.

Vergara will be the subject of a shortform, six-episode series co-produced by Fusion and Vergara’s talent management and entertainment marketing firm, Latin World Entertainment. Dubbed Vergaraland, the videos will be a tongue-in-cheek look at Vergara's career from the perspective of her 22-year-old son, Manolo González Vergara. They will be available for 24 hours after they debut on the platform.

“Manolo finally graduated, and I am very happy for his alliance with Fusion to create such an innovative series,” Sofia Vergara, 42, said in a statement.

Vergara earned an estimated $37 million before taxes and fees between June 1 2013 and June 1 2014, making her the world's highest-paid TV actress for the third year in a row. In an industry where men frequently out-earn women, Vergara is an exception to the rule: she made $11 million more in the same period than our top-earning TV actor, Ashton Kutcher.

Along with the rest of her Modern Family cast members, the Colombian-born Vergara earns a reported $325,000 per episode, but the bulk of her earnings come from her lucrative endorsements and licensing deals. The subject of our 2012 cover story, Vergara is the face of Diet Pepsi , CoverGirl, Head & Shoulders, AT&T T -0.69%, and recently ended her 12 year-long licensing deal with Kmart to go global. Vergara has put her cash to use, cofounding Latin World Entertainment, which recently teamed up with CNET to launch a Spanish-language tech news site.

While Vergara has ruled the small screen, her turns on the silver screen have been lukewarm - recent roles include 2014's forgettable Chef and the Reese Witherspoon comedic misfire, Hot Pursuit. By dialing down to handheld devices, Vergara will be delivered to audiences at her most potent and engaging - or so the producers hope.

Fusion, a joint venture of ABC News and Univision Communications, was among the media companies that launched on the Snapchat Discover service in January. Snapchat's Discover features lets news outlets post video that is available for 24 hours, just like the personal stories Snapchat users post. CNN uses it to post news updates comprised of headlines with pictures and moving graphics, with relevant clips below. Vice prefers headlines, images and videos that look more native to Snapchat, which can be pulled up to reveal a full-text story. (A current Vice Discover headline: "The Invisible Labor Economy Behind Pirated Japanese Comics".)

Fusion already produces minute-long news updates, “News in a Snap,” for Snapchat in several languages in Portugese, French and Spanish. Fusion's Discover channel has yet to be made available in the U.S.

The Vergara series will not be the first scripted original series to premiere on Snapchat. Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn, daughters of director Steven Spielberg and producer John Goldwyn, launched Literally Can't Even on the platform in January to tepid reviews. AT&T, meanwhile, has written a 12-episode superhero Snapchat series called SnapperHero. No viewer numbers for these series have been been released yet, while reports peg Snapchat's monthly userbase at some $100 billion.

Snapchat's cofounders, themselves the focus of a 2014 Forbes cover story, joined the billionaire ranking in 2015 thanks to the escalating value of their tech company which was birthed in a Stanford frat house.

Vergaraland will debut this summer on Snapchat.

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