CableFAX Digital Hot List 2012 Matthew Hong – Turner Sports

When you oversee operations for the division that airs events from Major League Baseball, the NBA, NASCAR, professional golf, and the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament across TNT, TBS, truTV and NBA TV, you’d better be on your game. A consummate deal broker and all around good sport, Hong also oversees various Turner digital businesses, including NASCAR.com, PGA.com, NCAA.com and the Turner Sports alliance with Yahoo! Sports. He’s an advisory member of the board of NC State’s Poole College of Management and serves on the board of the Atlanta Tipoff Club, the organization that presents the Naismith Awards each year to the nation’s top high school and college basketball players and coaches.

 

The biggest challenge with TV Everywhere/authentication is…The biggest challenge, and the biggest opportunity, is increasing consumer awareness. That’s why using tent-pole events like March Madness to grow such awareness is important. Additional programmers continue to come on board as well, and the increased volume of content made available via TVE will also speed adoption rates.

 

If you were wearing Google’s new Project Glass eyewear right now, what would be on your screen? Video chat with my wife and kids (or my buddies) which allows them to see live video images of my travels and various venues. And sadly, probably a virtual email client, too.

 

Without social media, the world would be just a little bit… More out of touch with each other on some level, but perhaps more in touch with a tighter group of friends and family at the same time.

 

What digital strategy mistake must cable avoid at all costs? Forgetting that consumers, as opposed to corporations, determine who wins in the digital marketplace. We have to make sure we’re always balancing the complexities of distributor or programmer concerns, as important as they are, with the absolute best user experience possible.