ITV restructures commercial and online business
ITV plans to transform its commercial and online division as part of CEO Adam Crozier’s five-year plan. (See the video highlights from Crozier’s interview with Ray Snoddy at MediaTel’s TV Summit in November).
The commercial and online business will now focus more closely on customers, advertisers and consumers in a bid to ensure ITV evolves as a ‘global multi-platform company’ and continues to grow its TV sales business.
“ITV’s goal is to become a global, multi-platform media company with a revenue base that balances both the UK and international markets, free and pay TV as well as linear and non-linear viewing,” Crozier said. “A key part of the transformation is to ensure that we have the right teams in place, across every aspect of ITV’s business, to deliver on this strategy.”
Fru Hazlitt, ITV managing director of commercial and online, said one of ITV’s four priorities is to maximise the share of the company’s existing advertising business “by outperforming the market”, but that ITV also had to focus on growing its multiplatform and partnerships business to bring in new revenue streams. “We have to make the business future proof and not rely on a cyclical advertising market,” she said.
ITV’s creative and commercial divisions will be expected to work more closely as a result of the changes and Hazlitt said it will be crucial for TV sales and multi-platform and partnerships to become a seamless operation.
“The team will not only help to deliver the creative and commercial convergence that ITV is striving to achieve overall but also the broadband and broadcast convergence that is inevitable in the market as well as the division’s own convergence between TV sales and multiplatform and partnerships. The ultimate aim is to deliver as well in broadband as we currently do in broadcast,” she said.
Robin Pembrooke, the newly appointed managing director of online and on-demand, has the job of redefining ITV.com. The ITV Player launched on Sony’s PS3 before Christmas and is already driving on-demand viewers. The focus now is to deliver high-quality viewing experiences across mobile, PC and gaming platforms with recommendations, social integration and targeted ads.
ITV has also developed a Total Value Creation initiative in a bid to maximise commercial value from ITV programmes.
The changes will see a restructure of the commercial management team and two new appointments. Kelly Williams, the former Channel 5 sales director, will take on the role of director of TV sales, while Simon Daglish will be ITV’s director of multiplatform and partnerships. He joins from Fox Interactive Media. Both Williams and Daglish will report to Hazlitt.
In December, Christy Swords moved from his role as ITV commercial projects director into the commercial and online team as director of operations and strategy. And last week, Martin Goswami joined ITV as a consultant. He will be working with the team to help drive ITV’s pay strategy specifically within the broadcast wholesale pay TV area as part of the plan.
The restructure will see Gary Digby, group commercial sales director, leave ITV, as well as Simon Lent, trading director; Jeremy Lawrence, commercial director; Simon Orpin, creative solutions director; David Croft, director of regional sales, and Simon Poole, commercial director (sales) for ITV Breakfast.