Quote/Unquote
Rachel Jacobson is the chief executive officer at Reach TV, which owns and operates a nationwide network of airport televisions and is part of a broader group of media properties owned by the agency Stagwell.
Jacobson is new to the role, having only joined Reach three months ago following her time as the president of the Drone Racing League, which was acquired in May 2024. I met up with Jacobson on Thursday in the Financial District to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the company as consumer habits shift and airports evolve.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: What was the appeal of the Reach TV job, following two decades in-house at the NBA and your time with the DRL?
Rachel Jacobson: Media was always the throughline in my previous roles—everything comes down to eyeballs and distribution. But at this point in my career, I didn’t want to go back to central casting. I wanted a business with all the ingredients I know, where I could do what I do: come in, see what other people don’t see, execute, and grow the platform.
Mark: How do the economics of Reach TV work?
Rachel: For one, these are not standard TVs—there is no changing the channel, and all of the programming is very deliberately chosen. We have Bloomberg in the morning, a lot of live sports, and even a slate of original series. It’s basically one feed to all the airports, and the only thing we geo-target is sports. For those, we acquire rights from partners like FOX Sports, FIFA, NFL, NBA, and WNBA and sell advertising against the feed.
Mark: How do you navigate the fact that travelers now have their own screens and are less of a captive audience?
Rachel: It’s all about the programming slate. Who is the traveler at 4 a.m. versus midday versus at night, and what are their passion points? We lean hard into live sports because they’re Teflon, and every marketer wants in. The data shows that even when people are multitasking, an engaged airport audience is also buying, which opens up subscription and commerce plays with partners.
Mark: You mentioned original programming. What does that look like?
Rachel: We lean into travelers’ passion points, like food and shopping. Our team was just in Los Angeles and Seattle shooting multiple segments for original series, which we own and sell sponsorship against. These not only deliver engaging content we know our audience cares about, they also provide unique opportunities for brands to be fully integrated into the programming.
Mark: Is there room to program differently depending on where you are in the airport, like exclusive lounges versus baggage claim?
Rachel: Concessions is a feed, lounges is a feed, gates is a feed, baggage claim is a feed—we can target all of them differently. We ran an experiment putting screens up in baggage claim, and early data shows that customer satisfaction improved. Lounges are the one I’m most interested in, because they’re about exclusivity—the airport traveler already skews affluent, but some areas are even more desirable, and that’s where I’m talking to airlines and credit card companies.
