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As AT&T's president of content, Dan York has helped grow the U-Verse brand to a significant cable competitor--and silenced many skeptics in the process. CableFAX contributor Cathy Applefeld Olson sat down with this powerful telco gatekeeper to find out how the multiplatform negotiating landscape has altered priorities and affected how AT&T approaches content deals. What inroads is U-verse making in the multiplatform, multi-screen distribution realm? What we've done at AT&T is build an industry-leading product set with U-verse TV, the Web site, and our mobile offering. U-verse Online offers tens of thousands of content assets in front of the wall and authenticated content available behind the wall. We are a leader in adding mobile platforms, with U-verse Mobile, where you can access content whether it's been authenticated or not and have download and portability rights to your mobile devices with several smart phones that are available now with a variety of operating systems. We are bringing a converged, multi-screen, truly integrated experience and levering our all-IP network. And as the content ecosystem continues to evolve more toward platforms where AT&T is a larger player, and more toward interactivity--that plays to our strengths. Speaking of the content ecosystem, how's the negotiating climate these days? The climate? Icy cold... The nature of the conversation is very much about trying to find models that work for all the participants in the content distribution ecosystem. For us it starts with the consumers. We want to deliver them a seamless anywhere, any-device content experience with ease of use and a great customer experience. In working with the content providers, we're trying to figure out ways to make it effective technically to protect their content to find business models that work for everyone. We believe consumers should be able to access content on all the devices any time, anywhere as part of their single subscription. How is the U-verse advertising model shaping up? We are relatively new to the ad sales space. We have advertising avails we sell, given our all-IP platform there are more opportunities to be more efficient with use and targeting. Do you think cable is underestimating U-verse? I can't speak to what our competitors estimate or not, but AT&T has proven since we entered the market that we are a legitimate, viable choice for consumers, which is evidenced by being the fastest-growing video provider for the last five reporter quarters, according to J.D. Power. What's the biggest benefit to being the new, vs. the incumbent, provider? The real opportunity is having a new platform and not necessarily being burdened with legacy technology and legacy content agreements, which allows us to innovate. And technically, fiber to the node has proven to be the right decision. - Cathy Applefeld Olson [Next in our special telco gatekeeper series, CableFAX sits down with Verizon's Terry Denson]