00:00First of all, tell me, who are you? What do you do for a living?
00:02David Levy, president of Turner, which is a part of the family of Warner Media.
00:07You're president of Turner. I mean, you guys have so much IP.
00:10Tell me about some of the brands that we're familiar with.
00:13So what runs through my organization or underneath me is all the network brands except CNN.
00:20All ad sales, distribution, marketing, sports.
00:23So TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, True TV, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights.
00:33All great brands. All great IP. Glad I have them.
00:36You mentioned Turner Classic Movies.
00:37What is going to happen with Filmstruck now that that dissolved?
00:43Are we going to see that just sort of folded into the upcoming streaming service?
00:47I think you saw we're launching, I think, a new destination for our direct consumer product yet to be named.
00:53But ultimately, you're going to have all those great films, the Criterion Library, all the classic MGMs are all going
01:00to roll up through our new direct-to-consumer product,
01:02which launches in the fourth quarter of 2019. Very exciting.
01:06I've been talking to a few people up here about this.
01:09I feel like the landscape is about to change, the streaming landscape, in a big way, especially for Netflix now
01:15that we have Disney Plus and the is yet to be named.
01:18Talk about, do you think that it's going to disrupt it as much as I think and a lot of
01:23other people think it will?
01:24Well, I think the existing ecosystem that we play in today, you know, we want to make sure it stays
01:29vibrant and healthy as it can.
01:31But I think there's a strong reasons for each media company to want to go out and have a one
01:36-on-one relationship with the consumer itself,
01:39be able to understand what kind of likes, what kind of programming they have to personalize it a little bit
01:44and to have an interface with them that we can control.
01:48But, you know, I do believe there's only going to be room for so many.
01:54And so you're going to need strong content, strong premium content, I think Warner Media has, and with HBO and
02:02Warner Brothers himself, and then Turner.
02:04So I think you need quality premium programming to compete in this marketplace, and I think we're going to be
02:09one of them.
02:09Why do you think that? Why is Turner and Warner this?
02:12Just because the content we have, the capabilities, the data, the platforms, the mobility of AT&T, the distribution platforms
02:19of DirecTV and AT&T Universe,
02:22the brands that Turner has, the recognition, the IP, all of that, the sports.
02:27I think this whole consumption of the kind of quality content that we have is going to play well in
02:33the direct-to-consumer landscape.
02:35So what keeps you up at night?
02:37What do you worry about the most in terms of challenges or adversity that you have to, the problems you
02:42have to solve?
02:43You know, I sleep well at night.
02:46We've got good people managing these businesses.
02:49I think we are constantly innovating as a company.
02:52And I think the thing that keeps me up at night, if anything at all, is just how fast can
02:57we move?
02:58Can we move quicker?
02:59I think this industry has to move quicker.
03:01I think one of the things that we're not moving fast enough is addressable advertising and television.
03:07I think we need to move faster.
03:09I think the clients need to understand to move quicker in that area.
03:13I think they did a great job on the digital side, and we do very well with addressability and digital.
03:17But we haven't moved fast enough.
03:19The products aren't there yet for the addressability in a larger scale for the television.
03:24Sorry, addressability, addressable advertising.
03:26Addressability, addressable advertising would be that you would get a different ad than I would get a different ad,
03:29both watching Rick and Morty together.
03:31You may be sitting at your house.
03:33I'm sitting at my house.
03:33You may be getting a beer ad.
03:35I may be getting an automotive ad.
03:36Why is that so important right now?
03:39Because that's where the industry is going.
03:41That's where advertisers want to get more granule.
03:43They don't want to have waste.
03:44They used to have this saying that 50% of the advertising works, 50% doesn't work.
03:48You just don't know which half works and which doesn't.
03:50It's an opportunity to actually target the actual clients you want to reach.
03:53So if you're an auto attender or if you're somebody who wants to travel overseas or needs insurance,
03:58if I'm able to target that, there's not a lot of waste.
04:01And I can use the rest of that inventory that's not being targeted to insurance people to sell to potato
04:06chip lovers.
04:07And so you're actually maximizing your inventory in a much better way.
04:11What are you most excited about in terms of this new streaming product that's coming out later in 2019?
04:16What do you think people should be most excited about, the potential customers?
04:21I just think having the opportunity to have a one-on-one relationship with the consumer itself,
04:25to understand what the likes and dislikes are, to be able to produce better content,
04:29not just for our direct-to-consumer product, but even for all of our product.
04:32You know, just make sure the direct-to-consumer product is just one piece of an overall puzzle.
04:37Yeah, we want to be in that puzzle piece, but you need all the other puzzle pieces to work, right?
04:42You need great studios to produce great content.
04:45You need great producers and writers and showrunners.
04:47You need great brands.
04:49And that all filters in to funneling content into a lot of different platforms.
04:54It funnels into our HBO platforms.
04:56It funnels into our new direct-to-consumer platform.
04:58It funnels into our brands that we have on TBS and TNT and Cartoon Network.
05:04And it funnels into maybe for other networks, if we're producing content like Warner Brothers does,
05:09for the television unit, for other brands.
05:11What can you tell us about the future of the Boomerang product?
05:13Is that, like Filmstruck, going to sort of be absorbed by the product?
05:18To be determined.
05:19We haven't really decided.
05:20But ultimately, right now, Boomerang is a standalone direct-to-consumer product.
05:24We also have an over-the-air cable network as well called Boomerang.
05:31Very small, similar relationship.
05:33About 20% of the content is running on both.
05:36There's original content on Boomerang, the streaming service.
05:40And I can definitely see that we know for a fact in the research that we've done,
05:44kids is an important genre to have in a direct-to-consumer product
05:48because sometimes it's almost an automatic babysitter.
05:51You hand the iPad to a four- or five-year-old and go out of the room for a
05:55couple hours.
05:56And I think the library of content that we have in this organization,
06:00and I'm not just talking Turner, but Warner Brothers in itself,
06:02we have the Hanna-Barbera library, DC Comics, Looney Tunes,
06:08and then some of our original Cartoon Network product.
06:11You bundle that all together.
06:12It's a pretty, pretty compelling offer.
06:15So I'm speaking to you as a customer, as a fan.
06:20There's never been this destination to go to just find that comprehensive library of Looney Tunes content.
06:27Why does the company withhold access to the comprehensive libraries like that?
06:32Is that something that could change?
06:34And why do you think companies do that, companies with IP like that?
06:39You know, listen, I can't speak for other companies, and I'm saying I'm sure we've held our content back in
06:43so many shapes or forms.
06:44But I would say to answer your question, possibly, is more doesn't always mean better, right?
06:49Sometimes, you know, you don't want to overplay the product and then have it not worth anything.
06:54So there's timing issues.
06:56There's scheduling issues.
06:58But I think the libraries and the deep libraries that a lot of these SVOD products have today,
07:04and you can go to Boomerang Night right now and see a large portion of the Looney Tunes library sitting
07:08there.
07:09So give us your $4.99, and you don't have any problems anymore.
07:13Well, I look forward to seeing how it's all going to come together with the new service.
07:19I know we have to wait a while, but I think it's going to be a really exciting look forward
07:22to covering it more.
07:23Yeah.
07:24All right.
07:24Thank you so much.
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