TRT World -Turkey Wants to Win Over U.S. Online Video Viewers

American cable news networks are about to get some unlikely competition online. No, it’s not another news site pivoting to video. Instead, it’s Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT, which has quietly begun to target U.S. audiences with its English-language offshoot TRT World.

The network released apps for video streaming devices like Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV as well as smart speakers in the past couple of weeks. Soon, TRT World plans to unveil a whole new brand to target a post-cable-news audience with a global perspective — and an approach that goes beyond talking-head pundits and short social clips with large fonts.

“We’re seeing that people want more,” said Riyaad Minty, who leads digital strategy for TRT World. “There is so much noise out there at the moment, and we want to build something where people are able to pause, watch, and learn something new.”

TRT World officially launched a little more than two years ago with 24/7 English-language news programming. The network is being carried by some satellites, but doesn’t currently have any carriage agreements with U.S. pay-TV providers. Absent of those, TRT World broadcasts its live stream on YouTube, and occasionally also goes live on Facebook and Twitter’s Periscope.