As access to unique sounds is becoming a competitive advantage for social apps, Snapchat announced today it’s inked a deal with NBCUniversal to give users access to licensed audio clips from various NBCU movies and TV shows. With this latest launch, users can add to their Snaps audio clips from fan favorites such as “Saturday Night Live” and “The Office,” then send them to other users or post them to Snapchat Spotlight.
When someone sends you a Snap with a sound, you’ll be able to swipe up to view the title of the movie or TV series from which the audio originated. A “Play This Sound” link will open a webpage that will display the streaming platforms where you can watch whichever movie or TV show the audio is from.
The audio catalog includes popular TV shows and movies like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Back to the Future,” “Billy Madison,” “Bridesmaids,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Happy Gilmore,” “Scarface,” “Shrek,” “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Law & Order,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “30 Rock,” “Friday Night Lights” and others. The deal additionally includes audio from Peacock Originals, like “Saved by the Bell,” “Girls5eva,” and “A.P. Bio.”
“NBCUniversal has an iconic catalog and we know Snapchatters will love adding quotes from their favorite movies and series to their Snaps to help perfectly express the moment,” said Ben Schwerin, Snap’s senior vice president of content and partnerships, in a statement.
It’s worth noting that Snapchat also has partnerships with numerous studios and companies within the music industry, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, NMPA, Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, Kobalt, BMG and more.
Snapchat has been looking to compete with TikTok, which has popularized short-form video sharing with posts set to music from a large catalog. For Snapchat, giving users access to different sounds is an important part of its efforts to compete with TikTok. Last year, the company launched Sounds, a music-powered feature that allows users to set their Snaps to music. Snap says that since launching Sounds, videos created with music from Sounds have resulted in 521 million videos created and 31 billion views, the company said.
But Sounds aren’t just used to help fuel Snap’s TikTok competitor. Since Sounds’ launch, nearly 45% of all Snapchat videos created with Sounds (across sends, posts and saves) were sent via direct message.
The new catalog of NBCU Sounds will be made available to Snapchat users globally, across iOS and Android.