I feel that I have a link with countries like Puerto Rico and Colombia because of my mother. My mother is from Puerto Rico and my father is from Colombia, but I have lived my whole life in the United States, and I feel American, and we feel so American. I feel very privileged to be able to do such fantastic projects in this network, like “Angeles” — I’m doing a reality show for CNN with this Latina girl. My mother and father and my siblings all live here. When I’m in Puerto Rico, I spend some time with them, but I will be in Colombia for a while next year for work. I want to show people what it is like to be Colombian in the U.S. It’s good to come back. I have been staying in Punta Cana, getting ready for the shoot in Barranquilla. I was going to have it big but at the last minute I decided I needed to get closer to my family to help me with Puerto Rico. So I came back to New York and I went to the Regency Hotel — I wanted to be closer to my family. I go to see them all the time. [I saw] my family in Cancun. My whole family, three grandparents, five sisters and two brothers, and I went to dinner with them, and I’m so thrilled. They were very happy to have me back home.
“Victoria” and CNN are part of Turner’s global news division and were launched at Turner headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia in 1998. This includes CNN’s channels around the world. The network launched in the United States in 2001 and reaches 70 million homes. Its market share on U.S. cable-TV systems is 19 percent.
When CNN launched, there were four networks in the United States, and each one of them had a broad appeal for its genre. They were all different in that they targeted viewers — one in Latin America and another in Asia, while another focused on black viewers. Now there are five networks in the United States. Being able to create content that touches on all those genres allows us to make a better story. To be able to cross-reference that demographic, to hit those different groups in the audience … it’s an opportunity to develop a story that’s meaningful to everybody. We have a lot of channels around the world, but this is part of the core business. This is what will enhance the network’s value proposition to viewers.
One of the most difficult years has been the last couple of years. It was an 18-month process to stop the bleeding. This year we’ll finally start to see the results. It’s been a tough 18 months. It’s been all about coming out of the turnaround mode, to be back in growth mode. The first round of results will be part of the development cycle. If the turnaround becomes a success, we will continue to build from that. It’s going to be a slow process. I want to be realistic. Next year, depending on how we perform in the ratings and across all our platforms — the U.S. and abroad — you’ll see us continue to expand both the print and the online, and then to see what we can do on TV.
With regard to ads and sponsors, we’re working with advertisers who use this [material] across television and digital. I’m working with people who use the programming on CNN en Español as part of their brand. But if you want to reach a consumer, you want them to become part of your message and to interact with your brand, and the content is important. We’re on the verge of getting to be multiplatform and multiscreen. Some of the deals we’re in with advertisers, including in digital, are open on a worldwide basis, and we’re meeting to talk about what this means for our overall strategy, for our brand, and this network. Some of them might be national and international, some will be local and regional, and some will be global, and all of them will have an advantage and advantage to marketers. The advertising models we’re working with now are almost closed in terms of agencies, but as the environment changes, we’ll be working with agencies and other partners to create new models.