At midnight Tuesday, CNN and Turner flipped the switch on “Great Big Story,” a startup storytelling network. “It was conceived as a way to reach new audiences in new ways, with an authentic and original voice,” said co-founder Andrew Morse, who oversees digital and newsgathering for CNN.
“GBS is not a ‘news’ network,” Morse writes in a note to colleagues, obtained by TVNewser. “It won’t cover breaking stories or news of the day. Turner already has a powerful network that does that better than anyone in the world. It’s called CNN.”
GBS launches with a website and apps for iOS and Android. The aim is to push its content to consumers socially, landing videos wherever the audience will find them–Facebook, YouTube, Apple News, Roku or Apple TV.
GBS will operate as a startup with support from CNN, but free to do its own thing. The staff of 30 is headquartered not at CNN’s Time Warner Center, but its own space near Union Square. In a release on the launch, the network describes CNN as “a sugar daddy we see on the weekends.”