National Geographic Channel CEO Courteney Monroe talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how the iconic magazine and TV brand is trying to shift its business "from reverence to relevance." Initially unimpressed with NatGeo's TV programming, Monroe — an HBO veteran — was tasked by 21st Century Fox with imagining a more ambitious HBO-esque lineup. Its first scripted series, "Genius," is directed by Ron Howard and will adapt Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein. She says the company is thinking like a scrappy startup within Fox's media empire, investing much more heavily in marketing and social media to attract eyeballs to a cable channel that many viewers may not know they get.

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