Dan Darling, CIO, Turner Broadcasting System

Larry Dignan: Dan, thanks for joining me.

Dan Darling: It's a pleasure to be here today, Larry.

Larry Dignan: You're CIO of some of the very popular cable network franchises, including CNN, TBS, and TNT. Tell us about the size and scope of your operations.

Dan Darling: Those are just a few--TBS, TNT, and CNN. You know we have a lot of the great brands like Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, True TV in New York--again the list goes on, even in the broadband space with CNN.com. We're very proud, they're all very large brands, and great brands, and as you look at Turner as an organization, we are extended throughout the world. We have operations in Buenos Aires, and London, and Hong Kong, and facilities there. We are a very very large global organization.

Larry Dignan: Let's walk through some of those brands. You oversee technology groups that support a gamut of companies under the Turner Broadcasting umbrella. How do you manage the different technology needs of both the new and mature business units?

Dan Darling: What I think we've done as a company is we've put together research and development as one sphere. We're always looking at new technologies and how to grow our existing technologies, as well as to think about new business products. We also have a new business group basically focused on what emerging technologies it could transcend into some of our existing businesses, or creation of, again, new ideas and new businesses or revenue streams.

Larry Dignan: How do you define and measure innovation at a large media conglomerate?

Dan Darling: You know, innovation at Turner is--I think it's been the hallmark of our success, even back in the early days of Ted. We're a very innovative company. You look at our brands and it's been great ideas over the years and being able to extend those brands worldwide. So innovation--you ask about how to measure that? You look at the products that we deliver, and you look at our revenue streams and things like that, and that all determines what innovation means to us.

Larry Dignan: What are your big concerns for 2009?

Dan Darling: I think, like any CIO, cost containment would be number one given the economy. Workforce efficiency, process improvement, just driving down cost. Those are top of mind elements within our business. We will continue to grow and as a company we will continue to grow. I think that is our job right now, to really just look at how do we continue be more efficient with what we have.

Larry Dignan: What emerging technology do you see as most important to TBS as a whole right now?

Dan Darling: As a business, collaboration and innovation are two of the hallmarks that we are constantly focused on. So when you look at telepresence, one of the new rooms that we just put in basically allows us full duplex of audio, allows us to really experience like we're in the room with someone else. I think those are key elements in driving some of our success. As we think about diverse thoughts of our ideas around the world and bringing those back and how those change our products, I think we need these types of environments to bring people together worldwide to really talk about things, and it's been a great collaboration tool.

Larry Dignan: What were the results from some of that telepresence rollout?

Dan Darling: One of the things is the fact that we're able to articulate as we've built facilities worldwide. Our engineering group here in Atlanta and the one in Buenos Aires were able to collaborate in a much more detailed style through telepresence and through HD video conference and really did a great job building that facility. But again, a lot of the share that happens within Turner throughout our engineering and technology groups is just that--we share, we don't silo divisions and say, look you're on this, are you going to build this on your own? We take past lessons learned and we share those and we share the newest technologies so collaboration is key to whatever we do here at Turner.

Larry Dignan: Can you give me a little more sense of your systems internally? Do you use open source or proprietary systems?

Dan Darling: We use a mixture of both. We're moving in, really, vying with a lot of our vendors. Open source is the way to go. Again, I think we use a bit of both right now.

Larry Dignan: How has your infrastructure evolved to support high-definition TV and taking on new broadcasting events, such as your expanding sports coverage?

Dan Darling: I think when you look at--we were one of the first entries into high-definition years ago with TNT. We've learned a lot over the years and with the recent build here in Atlanta, we've just moved the NBA out of Secaucus down to Atlanta, so we do all the origination and production here. So out of that we expanded our studios--we built a large facility or a new studio in high-def and we continue to upgrade our facilities, which is almost now all high-def. We continue to build out these facilities here in Atlanta and worldwide, at Time-Warner Center, at CNN Center, downtown. We continue to move toward that direction.

Larry Dignan: Finally, tell me about some of the green initiatives going on at TBS.

Dan Darling: I think most companies are very green cognitive right now. When you look at our data centers, our production facilities, the equipment that we buy, we're putting a lot of pressure on vendors to be green in every way, shape, or form. From power consumption--that's probably one of the biggest benefactors is power consumption in data centers. So we have a council here at Turner, as well as at Time Warner that is looking at everything that we buy, and everything that we build with green in mind.

Larry Dignan: Dan, thanks for your insights today.

Dan Darling: You're welcome. Pleasure to be here.

Larry Dignan: I've been speaking with Dan Darling, CIO of Turner Broadcasting. For CIO Sessions I'm Larry Dignan, thanks for watching.