ITV has restructured its audience analytics and data science into a single team led by Neil Mortensen, who has been appointed director of a new ITV Insights Group.
The UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster said the team is supposed to bring together specialisms in market, media research, analytics and data science to create audience-centric insights for all of ITV’s teams.
That means the Data and Research teams have been “blended”. ITV has pledged to increase insight “capabilities” to drive understanding of audiences who watch content across different platforms, as well as analytics techniques to make informed predictions for audience strategy.
Mortensen’s new role was advertised in a presentation about ITV’s streaming service ITVX last month, but today marks the first time ITV has confirmed the restructured team.
‘Boosting collaboration’
Mortensen, who was previously director of audiences, has become director of the ITV Insights Group. He is seen by ITV as a key part of it content, streaming and broadcast strategy, and is working his second stint (nine years) at the company, having also worked at agencies and commercial TV trade body Thinkbox.
Mortensen said: “Integration of our Insights team aligns goals, encourages knowledge sharing, and boosts collaboration across the whole of ITV. I’m really excited to be leading this multi-skilled team to create better, quicker business decisions for the business.”
As part of the Insights Group leadership team, Lara Izlan becomes director of Insights and will continue to drive ITV’s data and insights transformation, having led on some of the development of addressable advertising platform Planet V.
There are also new roles for Mike Leverington (director of Insight Capability) and Paul Craigen becomes head of Central Insight.
The ITV Insights Group will report to Jane Stiller, ITV’s chief marketing officer.
Stiller added: “In creating the ITV Insights Group we’re continuing to build on our strong data foundations with a rich tapestry of methodological expertise, spanning diverse disciplines and informed by the latest thinking in the field, to enable informed decision making across ITV and shape the future of our business.”
ITV CEO Carolyn McCall spoke about the first year of ITVX and the broadcaster’s future plans for streaming, ITV Studios, and Planet V at our Future of TV Advertising Global event in London today. Watch this space for more from FTVA Global.
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