Lynnwood Bibbens, CEO of Reach TV

All right. Cool. All right. And it is all right, welcome to out-of-home insider. The loudest voice in out of home today's guest is complete first. He comes highly requested, not just by listeners and supporters of the show, but by actual guests of the show, they said, Tim, you got to have Lynnwood Bivins on.

Uh, so he's been gracious enough to come hang out today. If you're not familiar with Mr. Bevins, he's the CEO of reach TV, which isn't changing the game in the way we consume media, rather changing the rules of how we're shown media. That presents an entirely new opportunity and the way brands interact with the people they want to connect with.

And frankly, I want reach TV in my house and probably by the end of this episode, you're going to feel the same way. What are you welcome to the. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on a big fan of it and been able to watch it watch multiple. So I'm excited. Well, thank you. And, and, you know, as I mentioned, you have been requested by not just multiple supporters of the show, multiple guests of the show, uh, which is, is totally a first.

So I'm excited to dive in. Tell us, tell us about, we were catching up a little bit before we started the recording here, but give us your. Origin story. Cause it's pretty interesting. You were a.com guy before.com was even. Yeah. I mean, I think I came from a world of, um, um, hardware and consumer electronics.

And then that world, the way we sold that was I started off in a company right out of college, uh, where we sold a Rhea mail order and, and trade shows. And then we sold that company and I learned the more, the B2B side of the business wholesale into other companies. Um, and while I was there, I started looking at what's this thing called the internet, and I wanted to go back to directly to the consumer.

Um, and.

You know, we did B to C there within three years in 18 months, we, we merged with our biggest supplier and then we sold that combined company in 99. Um, it was a conglomerate of all internet roll-up companies. And then back in 2000, uh, again, where I relaunched, um, a B2B. Uh, all wholesale, uh, reverse logistics EDI, which most people didn't understand what EDI was.

So we were one of the biggest vendors for Walmart, um, staples, um, uh, uh, BJ's office Depot CDW, because we invested in the logistics in the back end. So I was able to do a special deals. I learned a lot about how other people's companies. And what's important to them. Um, and then in that sign, one of the companies we work with from an end-user standpoint was a company called woot.com.

And what I learned from loot was, um, and I got to get, get to know Amazon really well because they were an investor as well. Um, well, I got to learn about them was three words, content drives commerce. And, and what next circa, what year was this? 2004. Wow. Wow. So that's like, I mean the, the dawning days of the internet.

Yeah. Like you were just starting to get to scale, like, you know, you're talking to a couple of hundred million dollars in scale. Um, CDW was one of my biggest clients. They were about $7 billion. So, you know, sort of looking around and watching how these guys all operated, um, and our small part in that.

Right. Um, and then, um, I S I, we ran new England technology. I founded it started in 2000 and we scaled it up to 250 million a year run rate. We were doing really well. We still are. Uh, I, I left, um, I was just tired of seeing computers. I had started, you know, like he's like, dude, I've been in computers for 20 years now.

Um, and the funnier story about that is I had learned, I wanted to pursue. Other things could do those three words, content driving commerce. So I'm invested in, um, concert companies. Some things worked, some things didn't, um, even created my own studio to, uh, produce short form content for people that I knew had excess impressions on a digital platforms, but they didn't have the ability to produce content for that number.

That made sense interested that partnership was with like CBS. I created a show called three minute update. It was really two and a half minutes when a 32nd ad embedded love. And we produced, um, six shows on a daily basis. We then would syndicate those up in our tech platform. So that MCB, if it was CBS news, it would pull that show.

If it was sports, it would pull our sport show that was business, but a business show. And then we had a hundred million impressions guaranteed a month and we had our ad built in. Right. So just to really create a web. Um, and I learned a lot about news and how important it is. And I also learned a lot about what people do when they travel, right?

When you're out of your home, to things you want to know is you want to be informed, informed, informed, informed, and then entertained. So how do you combine those two things? So I'm kind of, that has been on my plate. That was only my mind of what we're doing. And then when it came down to this, I started about four years ago.

I also invested in. Uh, let's see what else I did did to get to before I got to this, I did financing of film and television. So I learned a lot about content. I really wanted to understand it and, uh, I spend time with, uh, some of the biggest companies in the world from universal to, uh, Lionsgate, to Fremantle and demo.

I mean, I've worked with every one of them. I work with the biggest banks from SunTrust bank to JP Morgan's Wells Fargo's on their, uh, film and television investment side structured probably over a billion dollars in debt deals for film and television. And one of the things I learned was the rights windows between those things on the content side.

Um, and, uh, you know, one funny story is back in 2000 God, five and six, there was a company that was blue when yellow does gaudy colors and they sold, um, you know, CDs and DVDs. It's called Netflix. Right. And there's a guy, Jose and Ted, those guys, Ted was like the first employee in LA. I used to sell to them, fly out to LA once a month, and then I'd go up to San Francisco and I would buy as DVDs.

My movies went to Walmart. My games went to Netflix. Wow. So I knew them a long time ago when they were DVD company. Right. When the internet came in the mail. Yeah. And fast fast-forward to, I was investing in digital signage companies and I kept seeing. My w I'm a research guy. And what I was seeing was that 72% of your, our time is spent not at home.

Right? Right. So when I look at that, I'm going to wait a minute. If that's the case, how do we capture that person? And what I saw was when I was talking to my sign is guys, I would go, yo, you got to get more content. They're sitting there for 15 minutes. They can't just see a loop of ads. You've got to help them out.

And most of them didn't understand what I said by content. The loop more and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean like really good get good content. And it was like, um, I, a couple of CEO's I'm on the board of their companies. They were like, leave me alone. Finally, one of my buddies called me and said, dude, why don't you just do it?

And that's how we started reach. And, um, before I, before, when I founded it wrote the business plan came up with it. But one of the things that I focused on right from the beginning was how was I going to get enough? To properly entertain the audience we are going after. And, and who is that audience for?

Uh, tastemakers. We wanted to go after the taste-makers of the world, the most influential people, whether they have five people or 500, these are the people that drive. What people do next. So not being everything to everyone, you, you have a very specific focus. I want it to have higher win. Most sought after audience of tastemakers, um, broken down by three different people.

Like the hustler, that business traveler, who's a foodie who, you know, you really, they need to know information quick. They need tidbits. They need things. Cause they use them. Um, every closing of every deal, they're the ones that need to know the best steak house in every seat. So that person, and then I wanted the global citizen who immerses themselves in every culture to go into.

They need to know to museums. They want to know the great things, why this was built, what it means. That's that, that person that's always traveling that frequent travel. To own that person. And then you have the millennials or the explorers, I call them where they go on a business trip, but then they extend it for the weekend so they can go hang out in the city.

Right. But that audience is very particular because what they'll do is see something, they notice advertising more than anybody, but what they do is go to their phone. And if you're a mobile experience sucks, you just lost them. Re re re rewind that last part. There's so much money that gets spent at the top of the funnel.

And then we never consider what happens after they see this. Why do you think that is, um, Uh, the people selling it are, are asking their clients. What's the next part, right? It's almost like I came from a hardware world. I came from selling directly to end-users. So I was always taught to ask, what are you trying to do with this?

Right. And then when you understand what somebody, what they're trying to do with it, then you know what solution to give them. When I look at somebody saying, I want to advertise on your network, I'll go. What is your goal? You know, and then, well, wait a minute, I just looked at your website. It doesn't make sense.

Right. And I just, what did you, where's your shoppable so I can ship it to my house. What's your partnerships so that I can make sure it's delivered or you have an Amazon. Can I do it prime? Like, especially if you're going after a younger audience, they will shop, uh, I'll give you a perfect example. They will shop in the airport and they will ship it to their house.

So if you don't have that capability, you. That's. Yeah, that's it, you know, it's, it's interesting because something I've started doing traveling is if I forget something or if I don't want to carry something on, I'll have it sent to where I'm staying to the Airbnb, to the hotel. So it's there when I get there, I don't have to worry about putting in my bag, forgetting it, this and that.

Uh, yeah, that, that, that connecting the dots. Yeah. When we have conversations about attribution, we need to consider what's in between me seeing your ad and then me ultimately deciding to do business with you. So, I mean, it, going back to when we launched, we spent nine months before we even launched the launch in any location, building our platform and going to every studio and securing our rights window.

Very much. I took the playbook from Netflix. Netflix had, um, they came out and they were selling the licensed content and they realized they couldn't afford. To be in the TV window. They didn't want to be in a digital window. So they created their own window called the ASFAD Avon window. I looked at the digital window.

I'm not going to beat YouTube, Facebook, whatever, not going to beat Netflix on it as fraud. And I'm not going to beat your traditional television. I wanted to sit at the table with. Um, so I created my own window to the right of that called closed circuit rights. Okay. And we went with DLA Piper, with every studio, got them to sign-off licensed content that I had nowhere to put it yet, but just to exercise that window of content rights and what does it, the window of content rights, that means like, I take it, you take a show like this is us for I'm using fictitious, but let's say the show.

This is us. There's windows in which you could license at. So somebody might license that internationally. Somebody else let's just say NBC wanted to sell. If they didn't have peacock and they wanted to sell those rights to Netflix for the second window, they could write what I do digitally on. I don't know YouTube.

Right? YouTube. What I said is going to be the closed circuit rights, which is airport retail, hotels. In-flight globally and this little window to the right of digital. So I can't afford the big prices, but I'm over here. And did that, did that exist or was this no, there was something called non theatrical, which is the biggest confusing rights window I've ever read.

And all the film and television finance I did for almost seven years. Every time I asked somebody, nobody actually knew it was. So I knew that there was an opportunity to create my window because nobody knew what the other one was. There there's opportunity in the heart and complex things that haven't been made easy to understand.

Uh, my goal in life is whenever I start something is how can I simplify. What's out there or create something superior. Cause sometimes just simplifying makes everything easy. Right? Like it's like, okay. When they knew a closed circuit, right. He was very black and white. This is all it is. They were like, okay, cool.

We'll put something in there. Right. And, um, fast forward to today. I mean, the reason why I bring that up is to me, you can't properly. Entertain our audience without having enough content. You know, our audience wants information once, once things wants to be entertained, um, and entertainment is we focus on being truth and positivity.

We don't do negative stuff. We don't do negative news. We don't. Oh, we have to give you news and information. So just to give you an idea of how scaled up we are. On a monthly basis. Right now we're bringing in 198 hours of content. Wow. 11,900 minutes every single month. And what's like the average length of a piece of content.

So average length is about, about seven minutes. And you said 190. Ours are 98 hours, 11,900 minutes of content on a monthly basis. Last year, we'll we'll surpass 24, 2300 plus 2300 hours of content will come into our, added to our library this year alone. That's incredible. Right. And, and, and so we've got, we've got this plethora of content in this really easily digestible format.

How does it fit into the out-of-home ecosystem if you will. Where we decided to go first to get to that audience. Right? So again, focusing on the audience, where is that audience? So I should have research and work. Can I find that audience in scale? Right. The number one places to find it was airports makes so much sense.

Right? And the reason I knew that is I tried to buy a company called lodge net, uh, back in 2007, eight, I tried to buy this company raised 600 million bucks. And I, when I lost, they took my partner at the time to be there. CRO what I got was the data. And what I found is that the average person who goes to a airport spends 30 days a year in a hotel.

When I said, wait a minute, what? So when I saw that higher month, yeah, so they spend, the average person goes to a hotel, spends 30 days a year in a whole job. So an average of, you know, a couple for three to four trips, three days here, five days there. And when I looked at that, I said, whoa, if I can't own a hotel area, maybe I can flip it and go the other way and then get back to them.

So we launched in the airports in January of 17, in three years. Um, fast forward to today, we're in 90 airports in the us Canada. Uh, we have contracts to go to, um, uh, UK where in the UK with Virgin Atlantic lounges. Um, what we're in, we have contracts for 140 locations in UK, Australia, Ireland, Dubai, Singapore, Africa, we're working, you know, we're, we're going to globally expand our entire network.

Um, We are, like I told you about the number of hours, but the focus has been now, how do we entertain that, that, that, that audience in particular. And so we tag our content based on the different types. We programmed short form and moving quickly. Um, we have QR integrations. We were really being creative.

We just did a rebrand. So we rebranded our entire dinner, soften up our brand a little bit more and make it more about the content before we had to stop you to let you know it was us. Now we're trying to make, you know, recognize our content more. Um, so, you know, it's, the out-of-home part of it is, is where we are.

Right, right. So we're at the airport, we're in a million hotel rooms, you know, we're, we're, we're connecting to that in flight. My problem sometimes, or. I love the out of home world. I think that the agencies and so forth, make it a little bit more complicated, right? Because they want to put you in a box. Um, if I was, you know, when I talk, when people ask me to speak, a lot of times, they ask me to speak about TV everywhere.

Cause I'm on 98% of my screens are 55 inches to 75 inch television screens. And I'm in bars, restaurants, lounges, you know what I mean? I'm in clubs. So when you, when you're at it, our whole goal is in a laid back experience, lean back experience. You know what I mean? We're focusing on you. We entertaining you when you're in our location.

Given another example, we use mobile device data, right? To find out where, how many people come through, what their habits are, traffic patterns. The average person is going through our airports even today, 108 minutes is the total dwell time in the airport to spend at 58 minutes in front of reach TV screens.

We're using their mobile device with our pups. We put up, we call it a pockets of media player behind every single screen. Two weeks of we do that. Number one, I can push a button from my phone right now and program nationally by DMA, by airport, by terminal, by location, by screen, come on drive. So we have that flexibility because we invested, it was a lot more expensive to do it.

This way I could have simply did a server and then sent out one feed and that would have been easy. But then it gave me no flexibility. Right? So, you know, I think the out-of-home world is once people understand it better and able to calculate a better, I think it's the best way, best place to reach those people.

Because of what I said in the beginning, I spent we'll all spend 72% of our time outside of our. Not withstanding what we're in right now, you know, most normal circumstances, but that's, that's where you catch me and you know what I'm. Same with the hotel. I look at shit. I would never stop. I would never look at right, right, right, right.

It must be more interesting because it's not my house. So I've traveled a, you know, a handful of times over the last few months. And, uh, I mean, I personally, I love the travel experiences during this time because I like less crowds of people. Uh, but it, but what a great opportunity to, like you said, to be able to control the content that.

Engaging these audiences with, we know where they are in the, in the physical, in the real world. And then you have control from anywhere in the world. It's something that, uh, you know, our boys, Sam from one screen, one of the reasons I'm super excited to join the one screen team is to give media owners and advertisers control.

How valuable has that component, Ben, uh, brands, even our partners in the airports. So help them promote stuff that they're doing. Right. What are you trying to. What do you want our, what do you want our audience to know about your brand and how do we articulate that either integrating into content or what message you want to send, where you want to push that portion?

Um, I think what, you know, with like Sam and one screen and others, I think there's a merger. Am I being an old tech guy. I love where we're going with it is, or you've seen it happen before. Yeah. And I, and I'm a fan of like, I think always going to need some kind of human touch, but I think one of the things is we automate our entire, uh, programming process and, and the machine learning part of that is understanding what brands you're, you're what brand you're about to run.

Versus what content you're about to run, make sure that it's contextual. So I want to run something for imperfect foods, but I want to talk about a restaurant, right? So it it's contextual. So somebody can see that right. Versus running a doll, you know, running my sport, staying, and then imperfect foods. It could be, but it's even more on point to run where Hollywood eats.

Then when my imperfect foods add, right, like show contextual nature. Is always there. We're lucky because it would still work because we're in restaurants and bars anyway. Right. So people are seeing that seeing food, right. So, you know, it's, it's a natural fit. Um, but I think where we're going to go, uh, over the next year, 12 months, I think, I think.

This out of home gets put into a better bucket and able to be bought easier. I think that the focus is going to be, how do we make sure that people understand that we're a content network first? Yeah, because they're used to just billboards and signs. When I told. Uh, an agency or a company or anybody that we did get a 198 hours of content.

We add to our library every month, they all stopped open their mouth wide and go, I didn't realize you were like NBC, that you were like a real network. I just thought you were some digital signage. I'm like, no, no, no, no. There's I have no problem with digital signage. Television network. We're entertaining people and we're running 44 minutes of content every hour.

Our job is to make the travel experience cool and fun and, and a nice pace. And I think that is a change. You're going to see more and more opportunities to tell your story. Uh, and I'm going to say not your story. I'm saying to a brand, their story to our audience. And I think the bigger question is. Is it, is it, is it simply a 15, second or 32nd?

Is there, is there some more messaging? Is there some more creativity? The nice thing about being at home space that we should take more advantage of is how do we connect that person's mobile device? How do we, how do we talk to that person and help them help them with an action? Right? How do we make that process easier?

When I talked about earlier the shopping experience, how do we make sure that that's correct? You know, a lot of people will get mad about asking that question because I feel like it may be more work at the end of the day. You want to, you want to drive that attribution for that client so that they win and you win.

Everybody wins when you can clear paths where the attribution is. That's one of the reasons I love Craig because I get a creative, he's very detailed on that part of the business. Um, he he's like me. I'm an old school POS, like to look at the data and understand what's going on, guy. And, um, I'm going to talk to Craig.

We're always vibing about that part of the business, because I think it's. Right. As an advertiser myself, I want to know what I get back from that. So when we look at how do we, um, one make our, our, our audience entertain and make them want to come back and sit in front of our screens to how do we make our brands get better?

ROI three. How do we keep bringing on great content? And that's why we're so focused on that. We're a content driven, uh, That focuses on the audience that we're trying to entertain. And we'll worry about the brands that want to come on afterwards, but we got to focus on that. Otherwise we won't have an audience.

Right. Um, and that it's important for us to entertain them. Right. And really beyond it all the time. And it's funny. I think people forget when you're traveling, you want new. But you want it truth and positivity. I don't need to see like, just the facts. Just people shot in New York. I get that. Let somebody else tell you that.

I want to tell you that, you know, the stock market's doing this, uh, you know what movies are coming out. Um, what things are, what, what new drugs are in the market and, you know, give you some info, inform you, entertain you. Um, but we have a moniker in our holding is truth and positivity truth, the positivity.

And, you know, we'll tell you the truth, but we're just not going to have any, we don't do political. We don't give opinions on politics. We focus and, and I think it's, the people are telling us how much they love it, our partners, how much they love it. Um, our expansion companies come into Austin expand as how much they love it.

And. I know, even on recent partnership announced with screen vision that was born on content, right. It was creating a new show. We called, um, being a film and TV guy. I'm a film. I'm a, I love films, right? I'm not really a film buff. And, um, I I'm, I'm, I'm one of those guys that the nutcase that would look at the EPK and look at where they shot and why I like to look at the directors.

And then when I talk to people about it, they're like, dude, I would love that too. Let's create that. So we're trading a show called from the set where we actually do, um, why they shot, where they shot background on mall, the cities and where they're all shot. So screen vision happens to be one of the places we're going to distribute that, but we're also working on deals to sell that up to traditional television, as well as reach as well as globally, because everybody loves.

I thought it was just me. Right? Like we all want to be the guy or gal at the party with the cool fact, like, Hey, did you know that this is shot here and exactly for years? Yeah. I mean, I find that one or two, a little facts, and those are my Louie shot, like in Newark, New Jersey that you would never know because what is that?

It was all shot there. Um, because I did so much of the film and television. I knew about the tax credits. So I knew that people were shooting in Vancouver, but calling it New York, people were shooting in new Orleans and that was supposed to be like Miami. I'm like, whoa, let's talk about why you shot there.

Right. That's cool. You know what I mean? Like, just because you may have certain looks that gives you that people would never know. Right. It's it's. To me. It's fascinating. Yeah. People want to be educated and entertained. So I've, I, this is an interesting conversation that, um, has been coming up more and even on the show, how.

Important or how great of an opportunity is being contextually relevant for brand. And the point that I'm trying to articulate is that right now we buy things on impressions and we try to measure, you know, an action, but it sounds like to be contextually relevant with your ad, that there's an exponential growth factors that we maybe haven't even considered.

Yeah, I think you think about it this way. Go, go. Think about it a different way. I think about it this way. If I'm a brand, I want my brand next to content that says something about my brand, right? That, that relevance relevant to what my brand stands for. Right. Um, we did a deal with Belvedere while back Rodney Williams is a great friend.

Um, but they were doing a series on creative. Let me have Janell Monae. And she was doing these interview series that was on YouTube. Right. And she was talking to people about the creative process. I said, well, what does that do it on YouTube? You know, you need it in our airport. I don't want just your, I don't want the content.

And so it makes sense. Right? So there's contextual content with the brand and now it's connected. Right. And those are the kinds of things that we focus on. We look at how do we bring both things together so that when I'm sitting there and I'm entertained by this creativity, and I'm getting to understand that process.

I know what, what this brand Belvedere stands for. You know, one of the things that's cool about the Belvedere partnership was I never knew what Belvedere. Did you know, beautiful to see this, like it's like insane. Like, I, we were like, what, like we were literally going what's right, right wise don't know that nobody knew it.

And, and Belvedere had become that brand that people knew, but just kind of forgot about, and we made it relevant to get, to bring that brand. Um, and to talk about it as something that was really cool and hip. So we, we had a, we were able to drive sales sales increased, uh, by 260% in our, in our, uh, 21 airports that we ran his brand, ran his campaign in with the content.

And in a side note, we had been in drove another 18% into duty free. Unbeknownst to us, because that was something that they called us and told us about, right. Because they did not now. And I think, and we also increased our distribution by 40% because they weren't in certain places that once they saw this, they wanted a millionaire.

Wow. Right. So, um, our ongoing benefit is now they've expanded from three places in Chicago to eight and you know, two places here to four and. You know, I, I w I'd rather spend the time and wrote the sleaze and look at the brands, um, and think about what, what they want to accomplish, what we want to say and what they want to say about their brand.

Um, I think the bigger question that's coming up for me a lot, and I get asked about this a lot, and people are asking me to jump on other shows or talk about it is programmatic. Yeah. And, and I think that I look at programmatic and two different. I think that a lot of, um, if you asked somebody programmatics going do this and do that and do this, it's like the old school way of the internet.

And you know, it was always the automated, everything automated, everything automated. The truth is, um, programmatic to me is just an automated way. It's not quite where that's going to be taking over your budgets. It's relationships directly. And you made, you may, uh, Actually, um, execute programmatically, but there's still a relationship first, right?

Um, I think that maybe in time that will move over more and more as we get fully integrated, uh, platforms like I'm encouraged by, uh, NBC is one platform I'm encouraged by multiple companies merging together. I think Zander will be a good company as. Do the full integration. I see the trade desk. Who's done the full integration.

Not sure if that's driving, you know, just massive thing yet, but I think it will well as people understand what they're buying. Yeah. Because reach is different than something else. Right. And I think once we, they can see that TV, TVs, TV, and this is this, you know, so they can make sure that they're buying apples to apples.

It'll allow that programmatic to actually flow. I think right now there's a lot of confusion on what is, because we use the word out-of-home for everything that happens to be not at your house. It's confusing as hell. Like, I don't even know what that billboards out of home and receive these out of home.

That doesn't make sense. Right. The sign I'm going to go put on a telephone pole letters also out of home. Exactly. It's like, wait a minute, hold on. You know what I mean? Like it's. It's like, you just wouldn't do that. Right? Like you sent me a mailer at my house. You don't call that TV. Right. It's like, wait a minute.

I got that in my house. It gotta be TV. Right. Maybe, maybe it's out of home because you got it out of your mailbox. It's just, that's what I'm saying. It's like, there's so much confusion and, or just not clarity. And once they start to be able to tie in TV and TV, Right. I mean, next to me is ESPN. Who's fighting to cume up all their things next to me, CNN mean gay right on, certainly guys.

Right. And, and we're all TV right now. How do you tune out up and allow people to buy this TV everywhere? Right. And that, and that's, that's where I think when programmatic is able to, to figure that out, you know, and really tie that up together as one platform, then I think we'll get scale on the programmatic side.

I like what one screen does because it takes, um, It takes the process out of somebodies hands and allows them to buy based on mobile and based on audience and based on the same way they buy YouTube. Right. And so they are, there's a, there's a preconceived, I buy YouTube this way. If you can do that for me, I can buy you that.

Right. I think that is, that is a, taking a one to many and breaking it down to one-to-one and as we get closer and closer to that, I think to scale, we'll see. We'll be here from the programmatic side. Um, we focused on, obviously even we're focused on making sure the pipes are there. Uh, but you know what I mean?

So there, they put me in coach. We're ready. Yeah. We spent, we spent the money up front to build it this way because we had, you know, we can, we can do it now. It's a question of when will the actual dollar demand be there. Right. And then when will people understand. We're video and television and we, you know, we movement, we can't just throw a stole sign.

Right. Like, you know, so, you know, I still get stuff that comes to me as this static thing. I'm like, dude, it's like, I go from running a show about where Hollywood eats to a static symbol. This, this is like out of my church's newsletter. Like yeah, just what's going on here. You know? And, and I, I, I would say that it's like the at-home world is getting more.

Complex and a good, I mean, more sophisticated, more creative, more tied into mobile, more tied into data, more tied into everything. I think that's a great thing. Like I, I'm excited about that. I think the passing through. Uh, what content is playing VR. You know what I mean? So that people understand how contextual they can be.

Uh, being able to reverse that, Hey, I want to run this this time. What content are you playing? What you guys are solving that's to me, that's you mungus. I look at the display. There's 10 people sitting there and I want to have customized content for. I could do so. Right. I could create a customized playlist based on the people sitting in that bar, that lounge, that what have you, based on those, those mobile device IDs, mobile devices and the PR in the description of around them, I can re customize my own playlist.

Our entire playlist we've already turned into an automated system. And now, because we've automated. We now have the ability to create, to drop AI into it. Um, it's like Amazon, right? Like your Amazon looks different than mine, right. But Amazon knows, Hey, we need to re you would never go into BARR, Barnes and noble wouldn't reorganize the store each time one of us walked in, but Amazon does.

And it sounds like what? Reach TV. I mean, incredible. Amazon has been a big inspiration to us. And then, then you're talking about the future, the future to me. Shoppable. I want to, I, you know, when I first launched reach, I was going to call it sky mall, teammate. I went, I went out and did a deal with the guys that own sky mall.

I'll try to do a deal with them and somebody has been ridiculous hired me. But, um, the reason I did it was back to the original part is just meet this, uh, this interview. Content drives commerce. And I was a person that flew all the time and I bought the coffee table with the fish tank. I bought the different things.

I bought the backyard, patio stuff, data, I think it was called. I bought all that stuff. Right. So like I knew that. Where'd I go, I want that back. So, you know, I think there's opportunity in our investor. You know, we, we were self-funded self-funded all the way up until last year. Our partnership with a company called ink, I N K, um, 25 year old, uh, Um, in flight entertainment, uh, magazine production, editing, advertising firm.

Wow. Look at the partnership in flight in airport. It makes sense for, for partnership. And so we, we all talked, we got, I mean, 24 hours, we were like, yo, let's partner up together because we both did the same philosophy. How do we drive commerce? Right. And you know, one of the brands that, you know, when I look at them, I look at 'em untucking I remember seeing every magazine I'm like, no one has guys killing it.

Like all the guys that fly are their customers. Right. Cause I sit down, I don't want my shit cut. Yeah. It was like, it couldn't be more perfect brand in, in a, in an airline magazine and UNTUCKit right. Like, it was, it was like, okay, now I get it. Right. Like I even get it more. So now I look around, I see, um, I see endless possibilities opportunities.

I think that the out-of-home world is going to be, needs to be looked at just like every other part of it. I think we're just as important as the television world. I think we're starting to get more and more where we're considered a premium digital, which I'm okay with that because it's getting closer to a, it allows for extensive.

Right. So I can now run the same, um, partner in, on television, on digital and this premium digital platform everywhere else. And because at the end of the day, they're not only buying against the content contextually, but they're also going toward that audience. And I'll put our audience against anybody's audience because our audience is, you know, in my opinion, we have the most sought out.

You know, and sometimes I say inside of our internal meetings, if they don't want to buy our audience, they don't, they shouldn't be an advertisement. Right.

That's just the honest truth. Yeah. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I can't think of any part that wouldn't want it. You know, I was laughing. I was with the guy from Lowe's and I said to him, I said, do you understand that our audience is the number one indexing people would second homes. And what are you do with a second home second homes?

And then everybody's doing backyards is extra rooms is redoing that it's DYI is probably one of them. Booming industries around and, you know, we have lumber liquidators, and you know, all these companies are now understanding, this is where you get that person right. To grab them. Right. So a lot of those brands are coming to us to create new shows.

We did a show last year called work in the room with Sotheby's. Just like integrated into this show, you could shop Sotheby's homes, a little things there over a ton of traffic to Sotheby's home. I never even knew Sotheby's not a home department. Right? So like, those are the things that I think it's exciting that our network was launching, that we did that in partnership with.

So, not only did we do it with them, we also did it with, you know, what you people call traditional television because they saw how great the partnership would be backwards and forward because of our audience at the end of the day, you want this audience and you're, you're going after an audience with that content and what those brands and, you know, combined with Annie's.

Um, they had called homemade block. They do on Wednesday nights and Saturday night. Targeting that audience hoping to draw that audience in. And then we were the push to that audience because they're already here. You have the direct plug, so you draw it in one way, you push it to any other. So it's interesting.

I find I'm excited about what one screen is doing. I'm excited about the industry at whole. I'm excited about the fact that things are merging. So there's going to be no more silos. Yeah. Um, and I think, uh, you know, guys like Craig at a creative is working on ways to do combined buys across everything from a connected TV to a in-home to digital, to it doesn't matter.

That's right. We just, we just talked about creative connect the other day and he's like, I got another package going. I'm like, let's go. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's gonna help. He's gonna help transition people. Yeah. People got it. That transition. You need to help bridge that gap, building the bridges. Absolutely.

And he's walking, he's walking folks right over and that's great for the entire. Yeah. And I would, I would employ, I'm going to ask you a favor please. Um, I've already talked to mark kids. Andy CereVe is, uh, that a bunch of guys in his world. Sean McCaffrey, talk to Craig. Um, we're talking about doing something called the out-front right.

Instead of allow it, allow us to get in front of these people and talk about. What we are, right? Because maybe that's the other part. Right? Some people don't note that I'm bringing in, um, 198 hours of content added to our library on a monthly basis. We're not even understanding how do I use that right. To, for my brand, for my advertiser.

Correct. It just, you know, I think it's sun that we present it to them the right way where we're not doing. You know, don't when people not television us to tell him he's doing a great job, they're focusing on what they're doing for that, for their, their average charges. We got to do the same thing for our app.

Just tell them why we're doing it, tell them how we can help them along the way and not just, you know, I think there is a story to be told there. Right. And we're not telling it what I would like to. And I, and I don't feel I'm in competition with anybody in this world. I think we're all complimentary to each other.

Couldn't agree more. I get along with every single person. You heard me to say all those names and CNN airport. And I talked to them all the time. I have. You know, there are a news organization. Um, they do what they do. We're an entertainment network. You know, we do what we do. We're short form entertainment or they're what they are.

I know, I know my lane, so I'm very comfortable in our lane. I think. It was an opportunity for all of us to collaborate together, just like television collaborate together and they do it all together. And everybody kind of has the same verbiage. We just got to get to that for sure. For sure. Couldn't agree more.

Let's talk about more offline. What he give everybody a movie recommendation for this coming, you know, one of the most underrated. Okay. I'll give you two movie recommendations. One of my favorite movies, and I think that, um, uh, It's probably relevant now for people's brain was collateral beauty with will Smith.

I think, I think that it was underrated for him. Um, um, I'm just a big fan of collateral beauty, his acting ranges he's he always talked. Everybody talks about the blockbusters. They don't talk about the things that he does. It takes a little bit more of his town. That was a star Casto and ed Norton. Um, uh, I think it was like Kate Hudson.

I think of what's her name? What's her name? There was someone that there was a bunch of good people in there. Michael Pena. It was a good cat. Don't get me wrong. Um, but it's a beautiful movie, just a really thoughtful movie. Where should people go to find you connect with you? Learn more about reach TV and what it is that you guys do.

Reach tv.com, stevie.com. And you're pretty active on LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. You can add me on LinkedIn Linwood. Bivins um, you know, I'm, I'm always active. I'm always open I'm on a, I'm also part of a mentorship group, uh, with black and brilliant where we're focusing on helping mentor people from middle management.

I'm just trying to mentor and help the next generation move along, uh, and open the doors up for. Very cool. Very cool. Well, we're excited for the opportunities ahead. If you found this helpful, please share it with somebody who could benefit as always make sure to smash that subscribe button down there in the corner.