Warner Bros. Discovery US Networks Group Chair & Chief Content Officer Kathleen Finch is “focusing on TNT and TBS’ existing success with male viewers to seek out originals around sports,” according to a Q&A with Mikey O'Connell of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Below are excerpts from a Q&A with Finch and WBD US Networks Group CMO Karen Bronzo, some of which have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Six months into the new portfolio, where do you see the biggest growth opportunities?
Finch: With the sports audience that we have, we have all these men coming to us. We have to figure out how what can we do to hold those men. Because now, we have two giant pools -- one of mostly female-skewing networks and then another of mostly male-skewing networks.
Bronzo: That’s an opportunity to promote the key franchises that we have on the US networks but also some of our big Warner Brothers Discovery priorities from the theatrical division as well as HBO.
Q: Is audience the only difference between the different networks?
Finch: Brands like TNT and TBS aren’t one thing, at least the way that HGTV, ID and TLC are. They are many things -- sports, comedy, drama, movies. What they have in common is incredibly loyal, male-skewing audiences. ... So what can we create on both of those networks that will keep those men coming back night to night, just the way they do on Discovery or Food Network? How can we push the viewers from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday with a more defined brand lens?
Q: How do you do that?
Finch: We really play in the sports space. One of the things that we’re doing around sports is creating shoulder programming to hold onto those fans. AEW [All Elite Wrestling] pulls huge numbers, so we are working with the wrestling team to figure out what new kind of content can we build that’s not in a wrestling ring.
Bronzo: We’re looking very closely at the duplication of the audiences between a sports and our other networks. We know that people who watch the Major League Baseball watch "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." That’s a real opportunity for not only "Triple D" but for other Food Network programming.
Finch: Including with talent. Will we put Charles Barkley on an episode of "Celebrity IOU"? Will we have Guy Fieri calling a baseball game? There are just lots of opportunities to take our household names, seed them across platforms and pull those audiences back and forth (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 10/12).
