Turner Broadcasting, Intel and Mark Burnett Join Forces
On Massive, Innovation-Driven Content Partnership
To Discover the Next Smart Connected Consumer Device
Mark Burnett to Launch New TBS Series America’s Greatest Makers (working title),
With Extensive Content to be Powered Across Turner’s Portfolio of Leading Brands
Compelling branded storytelling, strategic content distribution and advanced advertising are the pillars of a partnership announced today between Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and Intel Corporation during the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. In 2016, the two companies will team up with Emmy®-winning executive producer Mark Burnett (Survivor, Shark Tank, The Voice) to launch a brand new TBS original series – America’s Greatest Makers (working title). Building on the success of last year’s Intel ‘Make It Wearable’ challenge, the series will be an entertainment event spanning the breadth and scope of the Turner portfolio, across multiple screens and levels of engagement.
At the core of the series, Burnett will encourage makers to develop the next big innovation. Innovators will be tasked with producing breakthrough technology that is built on the Intel® Curie™, a highly integrated hardware module that can power a range of wearable and smart connected consumer devices.
Digital and socially driven content will kick off the early stages of the challenge leading up to the announcement of the semifinalists. TBS will then launch the series America’s Greatest Makers, which will showcase the excitement of the semifinals. The series will debut with a kick-off special introducing the semifinalist teams who are determined to create the next big innovation in wearable technology.
Turner and Burnett will immerse viewers in the America’s Greatest Makers experience through long and short-form content presented across Turner’s multi-screen portfolio of leading brands. TBS’s chronicle of the high-stakes semifinals will be joined by an array of short-form, sharable content that will expand the storytelling to brands like TNT, Adult Swim, truTV, HLN, CNN and Bleacher Report. Produced in the style and voice of each brand, the short-form content will feature various lifestyle innovations that resonate with the brand’s particular audience.
In addition to the content elements, the partnership will utilize Turner Broadcasting’s leading position in advanced advertising capabilities by aligning around Sociology, a new marketing capability that allows brands to engage key segments of Turner’s massive social media following.
“This first-of-its-kind partnership starts with a compelling content idea, then uses Turner’s capabilities to distribute that storytelling at scale, across all of our premium properties and platforms,” said Dan Riess, executive vice president of integrated marketing and branded content for Turner Broadcasting Ad Sales. “As we embark on this new partnership with Intel and Mark Burnett, we have the opportunity to encourage innovative spirit, empower and inspire viewers to share content, reach the right audiences and, in the end, drive business results that matter.”
“This is much more than just a linear TV series. This is the next evolution of storytelling, told simultaneously across many platforms and in many different ways. This is the future. Intel drove the past from ‘inside,’ and now we will watch it drive the future from both ‘inside AND OUTSIDE!'” said executive producer Mark Burnett.
“Through this exciting collaboration with Intel, we are celebrating the spirit of innovation across the Turner portfolio,” said David Eilenberg, senior vice president of unscripted development, late night and specials for TBS and TNT. “We look forward to working with Intel and Mark Burnett on America’s Greatest Makers and can’t wait to see the truly awesome technology that emerges from it.”
“The next big technology innovation may be just a concept in someone’s mind or an invention being built in someone’s garage,” said Steve Fund, Intel’s chief marketing officer. “Intel welcomes America’s inventors, makers and entrepreneurs to inspire us all with their ideas on this new and powerful stage provided by Turner Broadcasting and the imagination of Mark Burnett.”
America’s Greatest Makers (www.AmericasGreatestMakers.com) is a key component of Intel’s global initiative to inspire ideas and fuel innovation. It encourages makers to create groundbreaking wearable technology and smart connected consumer electronics that are fresh, exciting and practical. Last year’s challenge winners created a drone camera that can wrap around a person’s wrist and a cost-effective prosthetic hand created using a 3D printer.
About Turner Broadcasting and TBS
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company. Turner Broadcasting creates and programs branded news; entertainment; kids and young adult; and sports media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.
TBS is basic cable’s #1 entertainment network among young adults in primetime. Available in 96 million households, TBS features such original comedies as American Dad!, Clipped and the upcoming Angie Tribeca, The Detour and Wrecked, along with unscripted originals like Funny Or Die Presents America’s Next Weatherman, Meet the Smiths and the upcoming Separation Anxiety and America’s Greatest Makers (working title). In late night TBS is home to the Emmy®-winning series CONAN , starring Conan O’Brien. The TBS lineup also includes the popular contemporary comedies The Big Bang Theory and Family Guy; blockbuster movies; and championship sports coverage of Major League Baseball’s regular and post-season play and the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.
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About United Artists Media Group
United Artists Media Group (The Voice, Shark Tank, Celebrity Apprentice, Survivor, People’s Choice Awards, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Lucha Underground, 500 Questions) is a joint media venture among MGM, Mark Burnett, Roma Downey and Hearst Corporation, focused on developing, producing, financing and distributing premium content across all platforms, including scripted and non-scripted television programs, sports, motion pictures and digital content.
