aTwist Launches With 10 Microseries, Free Ad-Supported Episodes, and Hollywood Veterans at the Helm
A new streaming platform called aTwist launched on 3 September with a first slate of 10 original microseries — short-form, vertical-format shows designed for phone viewing — spanning comedy, drama, horror, romance and animation (Variety, Reuters).
The platform is available in eight countries: Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States. Viewers can watch at aTwist.com or through its app in major app stores. New series drop on Thursdays. Episodes are free with ads; full seasons can be unlocked either with virtual coins or a subscription (Variety).
Behind the venture are three names with deep television resumes. Jana Winograde, aTwist's chief executive officer, is a former president of Showtime. Susan Rovner, the chief creative officer, is a former chairman of NBC Entertainment. Lloyd Braun, who co-founded the company, is a former chairman of the talent agency WME (Paramount Press Express, LA Times).
The company was not always called aTwist. It launched in August 2025 as MicroCo, a short-form content venture co-founded by Braun alongside Chris McGurk, with Winograde as CEO and Rovner as chief content officer. It has since rebranded (LA Times, Variety, 2025). aTwist describes itself on its website as "the home of micro series built for macro feels" and invites visitors to "start joy scrolling" (aTwist.com).
The launch slate leans into the heightened melodrama that the microseries format favours. "Buried Alive, Back For Revenge" follows a blind heiress buried alive on her wedding day who claws out of her grave to reclaim her company. "I Swiped Right on a Serial Killer" and "My Book Boyfriend Came To Life" mine romance-adjacent thriller territory. "My Billionaire Kidney," a scripted spoof produced by Jonathan Stern of Abominable Pictures, brings comedy. On the unscripted side, "Cash Out" gives a heartbroken woman and two friends $50,000 for 24 hours of experiences in Las Vegas. The animated title "I Fell in Love with a Dragon Prince" rounds out the slate (Variety).
Bradley Bell, the veteran producer behind the daytime soap "The Bold and the Beautiful," produced "Hollywood Starlet," one of the launch titles. It was filmed on the "Bold & The Beautiful" sets and the Sunset Studios back lot — a sign that established production infrastructure is being repurposed for the vertical format (Variety).
aTwist has also lined up distribution and development partners beyond its own app. BET has a deal to develop and distribute microseries across both linear television and vertical platforms (Paramount Press Express). Kevin Hart's production company Hartbeat is also on board as a programming partner. And National CineMedia, the company that produces pre-show content in US cinema chains, will showcase aTwist's vertical series on the big screen before movie trailers roll, with brands able to sponsor the content (The Wrap).
For viewers, the model is straightforward: open the app on a Thursday, watch ad-supported episodes for free, or pay to binge a full season. The bet behind it is that enough people will do exactly that.
