CNN International has hired a senior director in a move to drive revenue from content sales and partnerships across Asia Pacific.
David Collet, who will be based in Singapore, will join later this week from digital sports network Perform where for the past 20 months he managed the content sales division in Singapore.
Collet previously worked in the UK for sports data company Opta, which was acquired by Perform in 2013 for S$77.5m.
CNNI has previously described content deals, partnerships and licensing agreements as a “critical component” of diversifying its revenue streams as it looks to obtain “greater value from existing intellectual property”.
CNN vice president of content sales and partnerships, Greg Beitchman, said Collet will be charged with everything from growing the number of syndicate deals in the region – the supply of CNN content to broadcast and digital publishers – to expanding branded partnerships such as those in Indonesia, Philippines, India and Japan.
He said digital will be a continuing focus for CNN, with Collet’s experience regarded as key in driving deals with online publishers.
“David’s digital background and focus are going to be critical for us because we see an awful lot of growth in digital,” Beitchman told Mumbrell Asia. “It is the largest area of growth that we have, particularly outside the US.
“Where I think he will have particular opportunity is that we are creating a lot of native content for digital. We have launched a digital studio, built teams that create video content for our verticals CNN Politics, CNN Style and CNN Money and we have Great Big Story, which is a new vertical adjacent to CNN which is creating content native for mobile phones.
“You add all that together and David has got quite a bit of stuff to play with in APAC. A lot of this content today isn’t necessarily being seen so his mission will be to drive distribution and grow the monetisation of it.”
CNN has around 60 broadcast and digital affiliates around Asia Pacific with Beitchman aiming to expand across the region.
“I wouldn’t say we have enough. We’d like more and we are hoping David will deliver,” he said. “We will look to markets that are growing. We have strong relationships in Japan and Korea and in those markets we want to be more in digital.
“But aside from probably Indonesia and the Philippines where we have very strong partnerships, there are no markets where I think we are fully saturated. Beyond those two I think we can do more.”
Beitchman claimed CNN’s transition to digital platforms is continuing to evolve as the network looks to produce content for a multitude of channels.
He said 200 global roles are being created, many in the digital arena.
“It’s a learning curve for everyone inside CNN to understand a market that changes every day. It’s not like you can open a text book and see the exact model you need, so you need develop agility and the ability to change and I think CNN has done a really good job of it,” he said, adding that CNN is outstripping competitors in terms of video streams and viewers, unique visitors and minutes spent on its various platforms.
