Like most publishers, Newsy wants to reach consumers on every type of screen out there. But it\u2019s particularly fixed on being on the biggest screens, as in the living room. And if it can disrupt the likes of CNN along the way, all the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big picture for us is really moving toward the big screen, no matter what that big screen is,\u201d says Newsy GM Blake Sabatinelli. \u201cReally giving people that ten-foot screen and saying, \u2018lean back, watch the news and learn something and get a better understanding of the world around you.\u2019 That\u2019s our big goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearing its ninth anniversary, Newsy knows it needs to gain a deep foothold with over-the-top viewers \u201cbecause that\u2019s where the industry is heading and you\u2019ll have huge amounts of penetration in the next five to seven years,\u201d Sabatinelli says in this interview with Beet.TV at the Digital Content NewFronts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Newsy just announced three new series, a new two-hour, live news show, several new advertising deals and a new partnership with Tru Optik for advertiser performance guarantees, as ADWEEK reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year the company owned by The E.W. Scripps Company branched out beyond OTT by cutting its first cable channel deal <\/a>with Cincinnati Bell. Newsy was one of the first digital natives on the Sling TV platform. \u201cThey were looking if there was an opportunity to do something that could supplement a CNN or disrupt a CNN, and we were looking to see if we could do something that could supplement cable news or disrupt something like a headline news,\u201d says Sabatinelli.<\/p>\n

Looking solely within the digital space, Sabatinelli sees it \u201cflooded with news competitors,\u201d but in the OTT space \u201cit\u2019s really us, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. That\u2019s really it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having run the company for the past 18 months, Sabatinelli describes his tenure to date as \u201can incredibly crazy ride.\u201d Newsy has gone from 34 people to \u201cninety something\u201d this year, plans to open a West Coast bureau and hasn’t ruled out going international.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe describe ourselves as the better alternative. If you want to watch what people have been doing for the past 50 years, you have plenty of options,\u201d Sabatinelli says.<\/p>\n

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB’s Digital Content NewFronts 2017. The series is sponsored by the IAB. For more videos from the #NewFronts, please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like most publishers, Newsy wants to reach consumers on every type of screen out there. But it\u2019s particularly fixed on being on the biggest screens, as in the living room. And if it can disrupt the likes of CNN along the way, all the better. \u201cThe big picture for us is really moving toward 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":[6368],"tags":[3437,3959,5922,6250,6389,6450,6451,6452],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46009"}],"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=46009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}