Dave Bernath/Wurl Spotlight:
Dave Bernath is Vice President Sales & Partnerships, Americas at Wurl – the leader in data-driven solutions for CTV. With over 20 years of experience growing audiences for top content brands across traditional and emerging platforms, Dave brings a wealth of programming and digital media expertise to Wurl. Prior to joining Wurl, he was an accomplished television programmer and digital media entrepreneur, including General Manager of Comedy Central, where he helped drive key programming decisions and oversaw the network’s transformation from a linear cable channel to a truly multiplatform content brand.
What his colleagues are saying:
"Dave is one of the coolest and most knowledgeable people I know. His personal stature paired with his deep background in the TV and FAST space brings a fantastic perspective to all the new tech and processes we implement at Wurl. I am truly lucky to work alongside him at such an exciting time in our industry." - Amanda Fell, VP, Business Operations, Wurl
"Dave is a great partner for us internally here at Wurl. When we want to lean in to better understand our audiences and the things they care about, he is always there to share his knowledge. Dave is incredibly genuine and sincerely cares about each of his content publishing partners, and wants to help them be successful." - Nicole Fuselier, VP, Marketing, Wurl
Streaming industry Q&A:
What Streaming services do you subscribe to?:
Netflix, Hulu, HBOMax, Amazon Prime, Apple+, Disney+, ESPN+.
Describe your biggest career highlight so far.:
From my time in cable, bringing Futurama back into original production for Comedy Central, producing 52 new episodes, and winning an Emmy was pretty cool. In the streaming space, launching the successful Cinevault Movie channel portfolio in FAST was incredibly gratifying, and also led me to Wurl.
What has been your biggest career learning experience?:
My failed startup, Laugh Exchange, after Comedy Central is what comes to mind. I partnered with some experienced and successful founders, and we tried for a year to get our app and platform off the ground. Although we didn’t make it, I learned a tremendous amount and I think it helped me later on move into streaming.
What’s next for you in terms of new challenges in streaming TV?:
How the viewing experience will evolve beyond the EPG model we know from cable to something entirely new is a big question for the FAST platforms. Can we scale up channel offerings and not strand viewers in an old UX, lost and overwhelmed by choice? As awesome as the growth in available content in streaming has been, generally speaking, finding what you want to watch can be tedious. Connecting the right audience to the right content is a key challenge facing all of us. At Wurl, we’re squarely focused on this audience-content connection problem. We recently launched ContentDiscovery – our machine learning-powered advertising platform to attract, engage, and retain viewers at scale. When audiences get connected to content they value and enjoy, streamers and publishers in turn can continue to engage and retain them effectively. It’s a big challenge, but an even greater business opportunity when done right.