Yahoo greenlights Simon Cowell’s Ulitmate DJ

Yahoo has ordered Ultimate DJ, a new music competition series from Simon Cowell.

Got Talent and X Factor supremo Cowell will exec produce the new show, in which DJs will compete for a music contract with Sony and a slot at a major music festival.

Cowell and Sony prodco Syco has been working on the format for several years and digital platform Yahoo is the first to commit. Will Smith’s prodco, Overbrook, was involved at one point, but the format in that form was scrapped in 2012.

Yahoo announced the pick up at its Digital Content NewFronts presentation in New York yesterday. It was one of 18 new originals that will be part of Yahoo’s video slate.

Other new offerings include comedy series The Pursuit, billed as ‘Friends for the digital era’. Yahoo said: “The Pursuit is about what it means to be in your late twenties in 2015 in Manhattan, with an edgier, twenty-first century take on Friends in the era of social media.”

Kathy Savitt, chief marketing officer and head of media at Yahoo told the advertisers gathered at the NewFront event: “Over the last year we’ve made strategic investments in our three digital content pillars, Yahoo Live, Yahoo Digital Magazines and Yahoo Originals.”

She added: “We’re pleased to be extending those investments into premium video content offerings to guide our users to the best, most relevant content and the world’s best storytellers to our global audience.”