BARCELONA \u2013 As Turner continues to reinvent itself from the inside out, its Chairman and CEO sees the media giant becoming a \u201cfan engagement company\u201d to better monetize content. In this interview with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress, John Martin discusses Turner\u2019s ongoing investments in data-enabling technology, partnerships with new distribution players and the potential impact of an AT&T-Time Warner merger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has never been a time with more challenges, but there\u2019s never been a more intellectually interesting time to be in the business,\u201d Martin says in a reference to the explosion of both content and consumer choices for consuming it.<\/p>\n

Turner has set an ambition for itself to \u201cliterally reinvent the company from the inside out.\u201d While it intends to dominate its core businesses with premium content, Turner also knows it must keep abreast of shifting distribution venues, according to Martin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these new distribution mechanisms and with so much choice available for consumers, we really want to be a fan engagement company,\u201d he says. This is because engaging with fans \u201cwho come back over and over and over again are the easiest people to monetize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such engagement needs to span all age groups. While the average age of a CNN viewer on linear TV in the U.S. is 58, the equivalent figure on Snapchat is early 20\u2019s. \u201cNobody would have thought that people in their early twenties would have been interested in CNN, but that\u2019s not true,\u201d Martin says.<\/p>\n

“Massive investments” in technology have enabled Turner to reach these varied audiences, in addition to new distribution partnerships, according to Martin.<\/p>\n

And then there is the proposed merger with AT&T, which Seeking Alpha believes<\/a> is on a track toward approval. Martin sees the deal as being able to \u201csupercharge our growth\u201d with the addition of 25 million DIRECTV subscribers and AT&T\u2019s 130 million mobile customers.<\/p>\n

While Turner won\u2019t offer its content exclusively to AT&T\u2019s customers \u201cbecause we make money by being agnostic, we\u2019re going to be able to learn a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin is optimistic about this year\u2019s Upfronts<\/a> and Newfronts negotiations with media buyers, given its lightened commercial loads and the improved quality of ads on its networks. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing really great early success and I\u2019m quite confident going into the Upfront this year. I think it\u2019s going to be healthy,\u201d Martin says.<\/p>\n

This video was produced in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2017.\u00a0 The series is sponsored by Turner.\u00a0 Please visit this page<\/a> <\/b>for additional segments from MWC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BARCELONA \u2013 As Turner continues to reinvent itself from the inside out, its Chairman and CEO sees the media giant becoming a \u201cfan engagement company\u201d to better monetize content. In this interview with Beet.TV at the Mobile World Congress, John Martin discusses Turner\u2019s ongoing investments in data-enabling technology, partnerships with new distribution players and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[6229],"tags":[3884,3898,4071,4445,4628,5191,6236,6237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}