Fireside Chat: Free, Ad-Supported, and Worth It: How The CW Decides What to Build vs. Buy

Session details:

The CW has been streaming since 2006 with no subscription, no login, and no credit card on file, which makes every product decision a question of build it, or buy it. Head of Product & Data Zach Mannon walks through the real calls behind running a free, ad-supported network at scale: keeping a 20,000- title catalog current with AI, metadata, and languages without hiring an army; using better metadata to keep viewers watching when you know almost nothing about them; and the monetization math behind betting on free over a paywall. A candid, operator-to-operator look at balancing engagement against economics, with a decision framework you can take back to your own roadmap.