ITV

Tag: CNN Digital

  • CNN Digital appoints new head of CNN Digital Asia

    CNN Digital appoints new head of CNN Digital Asia

    MUMBAI: CNN Digital has appointed Brett McKeehan as Director, CNN Digital Asia. Based in Hong Kong, McKeehan will lead the Asia-Pacific team and have editorial responsibility for content coming from teams across the region for CNN Digital’s global audience. McKeehan will work closely with CNN’s digital teams in London, Abu Dhabi, New York and Atlanta.

    McKeehan will build on and strengthen the robust and impactful journalism already produced by the Hong Kong bureau. He will lead an audience and data centric approach to editorial strategy and maintain CNN’s Digital reputation as the world’s most trusted news source.

    Before joining CNN, McKeehan worked at South China Morning Post as the Online Editor where he greatly expanded the team and substantially increased the reach of SCMP both in its home market and abroad. He also led the design, build and rollout of multi-platform editorial CMS for content production. Before that he was with NewsCorp in Australia after a stint with The Sun newspaper in the UK.

    Executive Editor of CNN Digital, International Inga Thordar: “Brett’s editorial experience, understanding of the region and dedication to putting the audience at the core of everything we do, positions him for great success leading our Asia-Pacific region. His multi-platform skills perfectly complement the approach we are taking at CNN Digital internationally, and we are thrilled to have him join our team.”

  • CNN Digital debuts CNNVR virtual reality unit

    MUMBAI: CNN has launched a new immersive journalism unit and virtual reality platform within CNN Digital. CNNVR will transport the audience closer than ever before on every device available.

    The global team with footprints in New York, Atlanta, London, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Dubai, Johannesburg, Tokyo, and Beijing, will cover major news events in stunning 360 video, transport users to the front row of global events through VR live streams, and produce weekly virtual reality experiences – starting today with a mesmerizing journey into the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

    Over the past year, CNN has experimented with VR, producing more than 50 news stories in high-quality 360 video, giving viewers a deeper understanding of the devastation of Aleppo, a front row view of the U.S. Inauguration and a chance to experience the thrill of skydiving – in total, generating more than 30 million views of 360 content on Facebook alone.

    The new team is committed to harnessing the power of virtual reality to transport the audience inside the stories we tell all around the globe.

    Through CNNVR, viewers can get access to dynamic storytelling medium on every device, including:

    Mobile

    CNN’s iOS and Androidapps are now activating 360 video, making CNN the third largest mobile VR app – behind only Facebook and YouTube.

    Desktop

    CNN.com/VR now showcases journeys to Indonesia, Tibet, Iraq and beyond, opening up VR content on the #1 digital news site.

    VR headsets

    CNNVR’s groundbreaking 360 content is distributed across all major headsets: Samsung GearVR, Oculus Rift and Google Daydream – a combined audience of over five million users.

  • CNNMoney new section will be about the fastest growing economy; MoneyStream app launched

    CNNMoney new section will be about the fastest growing economy; MoneyStream app launched

    MUMBAI: Attracting 1.8 million average monthly page views, witnessing a 37 per cent growth in video consumption and 16 per cent in unique browsers month-on-month from India in less than a year’s time is not smooth. In its ambitious plan of global expansion, CNN Digital is leaving no stone unturned to sustain its growth in the Indian market. Started as an experiment 12 months back, the team wanted to check out the appetite for additional coverage of India among their global audience.

    After observing mammoth success, as its next step, CNNMoney International will develop a separate sub-section on India.

    “We were very pleased with the results. So, when we relaunched CNNMoney International in February this year, we were committed to India. Having a sub-section devoted to a country on CNN International is a pretty big deal for us. This is a reflection of our commitment to tell the global audience about which is the world’s fastest growing economy,” says CNN Money managing editor Mark Thompson.

    Thompson admits that the growth is slowing in the developed world, in many emerging markets but it seemingly is not the case in India. “At least, the people I speak to suggest that these impressive rates of growth are sustainable for some considerable period of time which provides new opportunities for entrepreneurs. There is an increase in gaining attention of global companies who want to do business here and be successful. So, there is a fascinating story to tell about the dynamism, the momentum that exists in India,” adds Thompson.

    The new section will launch by next month with more focus on young entrepreneurs in India, on imagining the economy of the country by 2020, and will dive deep in certain sectors of the Indian business.

    With CNNMoney, the team plans to tell the stories of India. Thompson asserts, “We are still working on that. We are fortunate enough to have the support of CNN Network so that we have the bureau resources here. I am currently looking at how we can make sure we got the right level of resources and at right places to support the new content.”

    Talking about its target audience, CNNMoney’s global audience would be younger than average; tends to be more educated than the average and are more affluent than average whereas the Indian audience is similar but it’s slightly younger than the global audience. The average of CNNMoney audience in India is 36, and the average age in global audience is 40. “We have very high representation of senior managers and top level executives as our audience. They are typically pretty aggressive toward investments in the context of their profession.”

    The three areas that stand out with money’s audience are — technology, economy and market content.

    The business of technology, innovation, etc. is a huge thing which the team loves to do. The second most popular area for them is about the stories of the Indian and the global economy. The third area is their market content. “We have a lot of data on markets. We do quite a lot of reporting from New York, London, Hong Kong, etc. about how the big shifts in global market impact the economy, businesses and the investors. We are not into day-to-day market movements. We introduce some of that but typically what my international team tries to do is identify the trends and the big shifts like what happened to the price of oil since 2014 as its still resonating and reverberating the global economy. We look at the impacts these big shifts have in countries, businesses and investments.”

    Thompson recollects his journey from the time he joined CNN in 2012. With the mission to build up CNNMoney International, the team has grown from two in London, to now reporters in Hong Kong, Delhi and recently in Dubai.

    “Team-wise, we have grown to about five times, operating jointly. We are based across different time zones but we constantly share our ideas or stories. We operate as an integrated team,” he said.

    CNNMoney International follows the same process as other portals. The reporters pitch the story idea to the editor followed by a discussion about whether it has merit to be covered, and then how should it be told. “We work on the highest journalistic standards at CNN. Journalism drives our stories. Then, we have to think about how to promote the stories. Then, it comes down to the visual element of the stories which is with the design team that works with us to create fantastic images, illustrations and graphics. To maximize the impact of the stories, video is an incredibly important part of the proposition. “We are fortunate to have a wealth of video resources which we can use for digital purposes in addition to having strong and growing digital video team at CNN itself. We are always thinking about how best to present the stories on mobile and also on other social platform. So, there are lots of different processes to go into the final day that it is published,” he added.

    With a majority of CNNMoney audience using mobile devices, Thompson expects a growth in consumption after complete 4G roll-out in India. “Well 4G in India is a fascinating story for us and we will follow it. I don’t know what is going to happen next. It is inevitable that, at some point in time, the infrastructure will develop. From a consumer perspective, India is the second biggest global market for active smartphone users, which can only grow. Since we relaunched CNNMoney, we saw steady growth in India. A 37 per cent monthly video consumption and a 16 per cent increase in monthly visitors, video is growing stronger. If you need to deliver video to mobile, you need that robust infrastructure and network to serve the audience,” Thompson said.

    Talking about the importance of CNNMoney in its overall contribution to CNN, Thompson explained that it has received significant investments last year to flourish and grow as one of the top business websites in the world. “Reports suggest that our audiences are more than ‘The Wall Street Journal’ online or Bloomberg online. With 14 million unique visitors a month, we are a successful portal. We hope to replicate it across the world. India is a very important part of it. So far, it is so good,” adds Thompson.

    When it comes to alerting the viewers about breaking news, CNNMoney uses a variety of ways to serve the need. Their CNNMoneyStream will replace CNNMoney’s existing app and is a personalized business news experience available to iOS and Android users. Inspired by Turner’s Team Stream, it enables users to follow companies, businesses, topics, and market data just like they follow teams and players through Bleacher Report’s app.

    E*TRADE and SAP are the official launch sponsors of CNNMoneyStream.

    “We use CNN alerts for the global audience. We have a new app, CNNMoney Stream, that allows user to personalize their experience of CNNMoney content. You can choose to follow streams of content which relate to a particular company or region; you can follow as many and as few. The app will generate content accordingly. Its crated based on the technology which Turner developed for sports app that we have. And, we are very happy with the response,” concludes Thompson.

  • CNNMoney new section will be about the fastest growing economy; MoneyStream app launched

    CNNMoney new section will be about the fastest growing economy; MoneyStream app launched

    MUMBAI: Attracting 1.8 million average monthly page views, witnessing a 37 per cent growth in video consumption and 16 per cent in unique browsers month-on-month from India in less than a year’s time is not smooth. In its ambitious plan of global expansion, CNN Digital is leaving no stone unturned to sustain its growth in the Indian market. Started as an experiment 12 months back, the team wanted to check out the appetite for additional coverage of India among their global audience.

    After observing mammoth success, as its next step, CNNMoney International will develop a separate sub-section on India.

    “We were very pleased with the results. So, when we relaunched CNNMoney International in February this year, we were committed to India. Having a sub-section devoted to a country on CNN International is a pretty big deal for us. This is a reflection of our commitment to tell the global audience about which is the world’s fastest growing economy,” says CNN Money managing editor Mark Thompson.

    Thompson admits that the growth is slowing in the developed world, in many emerging markets but it seemingly is not the case in India. “At least, the people I speak to suggest that these impressive rates of growth are sustainable for some considerable period of time which provides new opportunities for entrepreneurs. There is an increase in gaining attention of global companies who want to do business here and be successful. So, there is a fascinating story to tell about the dynamism, the momentum that exists in India,” adds Thompson.

    The new section will launch by next month with more focus on young entrepreneurs in India, on imagining the economy of the country by 2020, and will dive deep in certain sectors of the Indian business.

    With CNNMoney, the team plans to tell the stories of India. Thompson asserts, “We are still working on that. We are fortunate enough to have the support of CNN Network so that we have the bureau resources here. I am currently looking at how we can make sure we got the right level of resources and at right places to support the new content.”

    Talking about its target audience, CNNMoney’s global audience would be younger than average; tends to be more educated than the average and are more affluent than average whereas the Indian audience is similar but it’s slightly younger than the global audience. The average of CNNMoney audience in India is 36, and the average age in global audience is 40. “We have very high representation of senior managers and top level executives as our audience. They are typically pretty aggressive toward investments in the context of their profession.”

    The three areas that stand out with money’s audience are — technology, economy and market content.

    The business of technology, innovation, etc. is a huge thing which the team loves to do. The second most popular area for them is about the stories of the Indian and the global economy. The third area is their market content. “We have a lot of data on markets. We do quite a lot of reporting from New York, London, Hong Kong, etc. about how the big shifts in global market impact the economy, businesses and the investors. We are not into day-to-day market movements. We introduce some of that but typically what my international team tries to do is identify the trends and the big shifts like what happened to the price of oil since 2014 as its still resonating and reverberating the global economy. We look at the impacts these big shifts have in countries, businesses and investments.”

    Thompson recollects his journey from the time he joined CNN in 2012. With the mission to build up CNNMoney International, the team has grown from two in London, to now reporters in Hong Kong, Delhi and recently in Dubai.

    “Team-wise, we have grown to about five times, operating jointly. We are based across different time zones but we constantly share our ideas or stories. We operate as an integrated team,” he said.

    CNNMoney International follows the same process as other portals. The reporters pitch the story idea to the editor followed by a discussion about whether it has merit to be covered, and then how should it be told. “We work on the highest journalistic standards at CNN. Journalism drives our stories. Then, we have to think about how to promote the stories. Then, it comes down to the visual element of the stories which is with the design team that works with us to create fantastic images, illustrations and graphics. To maximize the impact of the stories, video is an incredibly important part of the proposition. “We are fortunate to have a wealth of video resources which we can use for digital purposes in addition to having strong and growing digital video team at CNN itself. We are always thinking about how best to present the stories on mobile and also on other social platform. So, there are lots of different processes to go into the final day that it is published,” he added.

    With a majority of CNNMoney audience using mobile devices, Thompson expects a growth in consumption after complete 4G roll-out in India. “Well 4G in India is a fascinating story for us and we will follow it. I don’t know what is going to happen next. It is inevitable that, at some point in time, the infrastructure will develop. From a consumer perspective, India is the second biggest global market for active smartphone users, which can only grow. Since we relaunched CNNMoney, we saw steady growth in India. A 37 per cent monthly video consumption and a 16 per cent increase in monthly visitors, video is growing stronger. If you need to deliver video to mobile, you need that robust infrastructure and network to serve the audience,” Thompson said.

    Talking about the importance of CNNMoney in its overall contribution to CNN, Thompson explained that it has received significant investments last year to flourish and grow as one of the top business websites in the world. “Reports suggest that our audiences are more than ‘The Wall Street Journal’ online or Bloomberg online. With 14 million unique visitors a month, we are a successful portal. We hope to replicate it across the world. India is a very important part of it. So far, it is so good,” adds Thompson.

    When it comes to alerting the viewers about breaking news, CNNMoney uses a variety of ways to serve the need. Their CNNMoneyStream will replace CNNMoney’s existing app and is a personalized business news experience available to iOS and Android users. Inspired by Turner’s Team Stream, it enables users to follow companies, businesses, topics, and market data just like they follow teams and players through Bleacher Report’s app.

    E*TRADE and SAP are the official launch sponsors of CNNMoneyStream.

    “We use CNN alerts for the global audience. We have a new app, CNNMoney Stream, that allows user to personalize their experience of CNNMoney content. You can choose to follow streams of content which relate to a particular company or region; you can follow as many and as few. The app will generate content accordingly. Its crated based on the technology which Turner developed for sports app that we have. And, we are very happy with the response,” concludes Thompson.

  • “CNN Digital’s goal for 2015 is to create personal & engaging mobile news experience:” Etan Horowitz

    “CNN Digital’s goal for 2015 is to create personal & engaging mobile news experience:” Etan Horowitz

    A former journalist, with experience in print, broadcast, online and mobile, Etan Horowitz is currently serving as CNN Digital senior mobile editor. Horowitz, throughout his career, has combined his love of technology with his passion for journalism.

     

    As the editorial lead for all of CNN’s mobile products, Horowitz works closely with CNN editorial teams to plan and publish news and information optimized for phones, tablets and other mobile devices. As a key member of the homepage team, Horowitz also drives awareness of mobile audience behavior through increased training and the use of analytics tools.

     

    He works closely with the mobile product, business and design teams on setting CNN’s global mobile strategy and updating CNN’s mobile apps. He also oversees CNN’s editorial strategy on news reading app Flipboard. During Horowitz’s tenure, CNN has continued to show substantial growth in mobile.

     

    Before CNN Digital, Horowitz worked as a digital media producer for CNN International. While there, he was responsible for producing content for TV that originated on digital or social platforms. He played an important role in the coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Arab Spring and the Royal Wedding.

     

    In a t?te-?-t?te with Indiantelevision.com, Horowitz talks about the journey of CNN apps so far, building of the mobile audience for CNN and more…

     

    Excerpts:

     

    What initiatives did CNN Digital undertake to cross the 50 per cent mobile audience mark?

     

    We had a three-part strategy focused on awareness, analytics and action. Awareness meant making sure our staffers were constantly looking at our mobile products as they did their jobs. So we made sure to put live views of our mobile website and apps on everyone’s computers as well as on big monitors throughout the newsroom. At key meetings, we made sure to always show our mobile products. We even devoted an entire week in May 2014 to raising awareness among the staff, which was a big success. 

     

    Once we had more people looking at our mobile site and apps, we focused on analytics to get a better understanding of how our audience was consuming our journalism on mobile devices. We made sure to have the same reports for mobile that we’ve always had for desktop and we also explored mobile only analytics reports, such as data on how many people tap on a breaking news app alert from the CNN apps. A big takeaway from this exercise was that our peak usage times for our desktop and mobile sites are different. Specifically, in the United States, between noon and 1 pm ET is the biggest usage period for our desktop website, while between about 8 and 11 pm ET is the peak usage time for our mobile site. These learnings helped us to focus our staffing and efforts appropriately. 

     

    Finally, “action” meant making sure that all of our staffers had the knowledge and skills to make changes and tweaks to our mobile platforms to ensure we were delivering the highest quality journalism to our audience. Without the awareness or analytics, this would not have been possible. When stories are commissioned or when headlines are being written, we keep the mobile audience at the top of our minds and always ask ourselves “what’s the best way to tell this story to someone reading it on a phone?”

     

    What happened after crossing that mark and what are CNN’s ongoing investments in mobile?

     

    Globally, we crossed the 50 per cent mark in the summer of 2014. Since we had already been preparing our staff for crossing that mark, nothing special happened once we passed it. However, passing that mark and our continued mobile growth has helped keep everyone focused on providing the best experience for our mobile users. Our executives have made mobile our top digital priority and we often share metrics and numbers to keep everyone up to date about our mobile growth. 

     

    Is there any special strategy to create editorial content primarily aimed at mobile audiences?

     

    The best strategy is to put yourself in the shoes of someone seeking news and information on a phone and thinking about what you would need. So mobile app push alerts are incredibly important to our strategy because they deliver important news to your pocket. This year we’ve been focusing even more on mobile-native storytelling with projects like Snapchat Discover and John Sutter’s Poor Kids of Silicon Valley interactive, both of which were designed primarily for a mobile audience. Video is a big focus for CNN and something that has been very popular with our mobile audience, so we always try to incorporate video into our mobile storytelling efforts.

     

     

    Personalization is a big focus for us this year, as evidenced by our recent CNN App for Apple Watch, which lets users choose the news sections they want to see. 

     

    Is there a special analysis to understand how CNN’s mobile consumption is different from consumption on other platforms and to implement plans based on audience patterns and habits?

     

    Yes, as mentioned earlier, we rely heavily on audience analytics to tell us how mobile audiences consume our journalism. For instance, users of our mobile apps tend to consume more stories and videos per visit than users of our other digital platforms.

     

    Are the mobile app push alerts a key driver when it comes to the long sustainability of apps?

     

    Mobile app push alerts are incredibly important to our mobile strategy as they serve as a utility for users of our apps. This year we are working to improve the alerts experience to offer more control and personalization to users of our apps.

     

    Don’t you think it is highly important to have journalists who understand the mobile platform?

     

    Any journalist working today needs to understand the rapidly changing ways that users are accessing news and information. We work hard to make sure our staffers know how our mobile sites and apps work, how users are consuming our content on them and what the latest trends in content consumption and delivery are. 

     

    How do mobile apps fit into your overall mobile strategy, especially when you have a responsive website?

     

    In January of this year we re-launched CNN.com as a responsive site. This was a huge improvement because it meant that all of our content was easily accessible to users on any device. Now that we have the responsive site, we are putting a lot of effort into rethinking our mobile apps to focus on being more engaging and personal. A top strategic pillar in 2015 for CNN Digital is to “create the world’s most personal and engaging mobile news experience,” and we think our mobile apps will play a big role in meeting that goal.  

     

    What role does social media play when it comes to content creation? Is it important to have a good social media base?

     

    Social media and mobile consumption are very closely linked together because the majority of social media consumption happens on mobile devices. So when someone taps on a link to a CNN.com story on Facebook, they are often opening our mobile website because they are using Facebook on a phone. Stories that perform well for us on social media also perform well for us on our mobile sites.

     

    We’ve recently added some features to our mobile site to further strengthen this connection. For instance, when you read a CNN.com article on your phone, we now have an icon to share that story directly to the WhatsApp messaging app. 

     

    Do you see mobile apps as the future when it comes to platforms for news gathering?

     

    There are many examples of journalists using mobile devices today to capture news as it is breaking. CNN does a great job of placing journalists in the field around the world, and our team is often well positioned to both live report through their mobile devices and connect with others who are capturing content. We have a Social Discovery department dedicated to finding and verifying content because it can be the first window into a story.

     

    Every news agency has a mobile app now. What is your strategy to stay ahead of the others?

     

    CNN’s mobile apps have been downloaded tens of millions of times and are widely praised as a top app to download across devices. We are really focusing on making our apps even more personal and engaging. One recent innovation was the launch of CNNgo in our CNN App for iPad, which puts users in control of how they watch CNN TV and offers related content to the stories they are watching. We’re also making a big push onto wearable devices, as evidenced by the launch of our CNN App for Apple Watch. CNN was the only news provider featured on stage by Apple as the company unveiled the Apple Watch.

  • Andrew Demaria upped to CNN Digital International VP & managing editor

    Andrew Demaria upped to CNN Digital International VP & managing editor

    MUMBAI: CNN Digital has elevated Andrew Demaria from CNN Digital Asia executive producer to CNN Digital International vice president and managing editor. As part of the new role, he will be responsible for leading all editorial efforts and new initiatives across CNN’s digital platforms and CNN Arabic. He will officially take over the new role at the beginning of April. 

     

    While Demaria has spent the last few years in Hong Kong; as part of the new role, he will relocate to London in the coming months. 

     

    In addition to being a senior leader for CNN Digital, CNN International and beyond, Demaria will work closely with CNN International newsgathering TV and digital senior vice president Deborah Rayner’s newsgathering editors and managers around the world, thus leading the network to more distinctive digital work on the biggest stories of the day.

     

    “He will also collaborate with the sales teams to generate features and specials that appeal to both audiences and advertisers. He’ll also help identify new audiences and opportunities in new markets, working with teams across CNN Worldwide to seize what we all believe is a huge global digital potential for CNN across mobile, social and desktop,” said CNN Digital editor in chief Meredith Artley.

     

    Demaria was earlier the CNN Travel editor in chief, where he launched and led a vertical that showcased creative work produced in five languages resulting in gangbuster growth. He’s spent time as a producer on the TV side, was part of the launch teams for CNN.com Asia and later CNN.com International and has had stints at the BBC and ABC (in Australia). 

     

    “Demaria’s scope and teams span the world. To that end, he will be spotted very often in London, Atlanta/NYC, Dubai and other corners, including Hong Kong, where he will be based for the next several months as he prepares to relocate to London,” added Artley.