CNN has long been a pioneer in TV, becoming the first 24-hour news channel when it launched in 1980. Now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the channel is available in over 200 countries, and in 2023 launched its free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel in Europe.
In this edition of the Sell-Side View, Faisal Karmali, Vice President, Digital Business Operations at CNN International Commercial, discusses the power of the CNN brand in the crowded FAST market, the value that original equipment manufacturers (OEM) bring to the business, and the changing role of distribution in the world of CTV.
What is the greatest challenge facing CTV publishers today?
We’ve seen the amount of content and different content verticals that are distributed on FAST grow and grow. From our perspective on that side, we just focus on making sure our brand stands out, because our content is so good quality, fact-checked and vetted that it needs to stand out more in terms of the really cluttered ecosystem.
But I think there’s an opportunity with CTV as a whole, to make it a bit more transparent, as other forms of media have maybe not been as much in the last 10 years, and reduce as much arbitrage as we can as well. I think that’s become a bit of a sticking point in a lot of other types of media. CTV is already showing signs of that, and I think it is a challenge. But I think we have an opportunity as bigger content producers to help control that a bit.
Which ad tech vendors deliver the most value to your business?
The OEMs have all built good platform sales teams, and I think they’ve done a really good job in market, raising the profile of quality content, and also being able to define what the verticals will look like. I think there’s a bit of a way to go from a targeting productisation perspective, which is why we still have a focus on direct sales when it comes to our CTV footprint. But the platforms have helped us for sure in terms of testing and learning as we’ve launched new products, and we’ll keep on iterating.
We’re in a good place in terms of our CNN live channel and FAST channel. CNN Fast is a clip-based channel that has a non-news piece of content before every ad break, to look at how we productise better. And again, the platforms have been good to help us test and learn with that, to look at success and help us when it comes to trying to measure appetite for it as well.
If you could change one thing about the buy side, what would it be?
I think there’s been some hesitancy from the TV side and the digital side to really own this space, because at the moment, some budgets still sit in TV, and some are digital. I think from a seller perspective, we know that we potentially need a commercial story with both lenses on it. So there’s not something that I would change about that, but as it becomes a bit clearer about where those responsibilities lie, I think that will be a positive for the CTV trading industry as a whole.
I think direct clients generally don’t delineate as much, they buy as a bundle. So it’s more about the distribution, which actually is a nice model, and means that where we have TV viewership – and we’re actually increasing that viewership with CTV – it just becomes a bigger product, rather than trying to figure out how you do both. So that’s maybe where we’ve seen some positives, but it would be good when they start to delineate that a little bit.
Which content types and ad formats work best for you today?
From a FAST perspective, it’s simple things like bumper ads that are working really well within live ad breaks, as well as an avenue for distributing our commercial content that we produce for clients. Clip-based content on CNN Fast was also an innovation that’s really helped us. There is space for both, and that’s what we found from distributing both on the same platforms, and we find that consumption is slightly different. The aim of all of that really is to find as wide a breadth of audience as possible, and they potentially can service two different audiences. So that’s where we’ve found some success.
What is your company’s strongest USP?
The strength and power of the CNN brand really helps us stand out, and given the amount of content not just on CTV but on FAST specifically, our global reach and the fact that we are influential and fact-checked, and we have a really engaged audience. But we are always evolving as a brand as well, so that’s really where we try to stand out.
What does your data strategy look like, and what targeting capabilities are you having the most success with?
For live content classification, it’s a bit more black and white in terms of defining a vertical. For clips-based content, being able to target if it’s a piece of business sport or travel content, that allows us to create a following ad break and target that.
But obviously as part of WBD we have a lot of owned and operated platforms, and a lot of very good data sets in terms of engagement across all of the brands. So we have a brand called WBD AIM, or Olli in the US, which is our targeting solution. That takes the power of all the first-party data we have internally to make that targetable on CTV. We also created a marketplace for WBD inventory as a whole, called WBD Connect, and that’s been a real positive as well.
Outside of advertising, which revenue streams you having the most success with?
Obviously distribution is a big one, because we produce a lot of quality content that we want to find spaces for, both commercial and residential. CNN Fast is in 17 countries in Europe, 24 countries across the Middle East and Africa, plus New Zealand and Canada. We also have a sizeable content sales and strategic partnerships team, with news affiliates in many regions, where we license CNN content. And something a bit different that’s really relevant to CNN is our CNN Academy where we train young, aspiring journalists. We currently have seven of these programmes running around the world, it’s been a really good initiative.
Which platforms work best for you in terms of distribution, engagement and revenue generation?
All the big OEMs have done a really good job, they’ve had the best numbers in terms of viewership. We launched our live and FAST channels in 2023 and it was a big splash. I think we were the number one channel on many of them for a while. Obviously the news cycle as it is has lent itself to that in the last 18 months, but at the same time, I think having that brand really helped us stick out.
We generally look at revenue per 1000 hours viewed as a good success metric, and that also helps us define when we need to reproductise. We’re actually looking at new markets, that allows us to look at where to really engage a bit more, and how we distribute. The engagement of the market in CTV buying is a big metric as well. But the OEMs really have been the ones that have helped us keep this up.
Which person in the industry inspires you the most today?
With the amount of things we’ve mentioned, I would have to say my team. The fact that I do throw all these new platforms and these new ways of distributing, how do we create a data product on something, how do we innovate in terms of ensuring brand suitability within ad breaks on CTV and FAST? It can become a challenge so they’ve really done a great job in terms of constantly evolving and creating.
What does the future hold for CTV publishers?
The trajectory is amazing, how fast it’s growing in terms of viewership, and the fact it’s so measurable means you can really show that success and create new products based on the back of that. I think utilisation of historical content is going to be a big thing for any content producer, not just broadcasters. Again, the clips-based channel that we created could be done by a lot of different verticals, whether that’s print or press or wherever that is, I think there is an opportunity to use any video content to create channels.
I would say in one word, it would be growth. I think it’s only going to get bigger. I think content discoverability will really evolve in the next couple of years, for sure. And I’m going to say AI, more in terms of machine learning, is going to really help power that content discoverability. Obviously there are algorithms or ways of doing that for every platform that’s out there; Netflix have their own, Amazon Prime have their own, everyone has their own. But in terms of a content library for everything, how do we make that more discoverable? I think the OEMs are going to have a space in that for sure, but I think that’s probably where it’s going for publishers.
Follow VideoWeek on Twitter and LinkedIn.
