Foxtel has announced a series of new executive appointments, designed to streamline the management structure of the business.
As part of the changes, Steve Crawley has been promoted to the role of Executive Director, Fox Sports, while Amanda Laing has been promoted to a new role that will see her oversee all content across Foxtel, Kayo and Binge.
Announcing the changes Foxtel CEO, Patrick Delany told staff;
“We have repositioned Foxtel as Australia’s premium aggregator of content and entertainment services “all in one place” and made progress in maintaining Foxtel’s customer base with the lowest retail churn in 2-years.
For those that want Foxtel without a set-top, we have Foxtel Now. And customer engagement with our entertainment and sports content has been a highlight in recent months.
We have established growth businesses in Kayo and Binge for those Australian who prefer streaming and already have over 800,000 subscribers.
We’ve created a leaner, more efficient company by right-sizing our cost-base and by doing smart content deals in entertainment and sports.”
Amanda Laing’s role has been broadened as Chief Commercial and Content Officer. Amanda will take Group-wide responsibility for entertainment and sports including our Entertainment and Sports divisions (including Fox Sports).
Delany welcomed Amanda to the new expanded role stating,
“These changes recognise that entertainment and sports content is core to everything we do and that we are now “leveraging” Group assets across the Foxtel, Kayo and BINGE businesses to reach more subscribers than ever before and make forward-looking investment and operational decisions.
So, it is a natural progression to bring entertainment and sports together, so we approach content decisions and investments for the Group’s future, without being caught up in structures and silos of the past.”
Steve Crawley will lead Fox Sports and its brands nationwide including Fox Footy Melbourne. He will be responsible for the running of Fox Sports including all sports production, programming, budgets, logistics, and of course editorial for Fox Sports channels and digital – which together have experienced record ratings for the NRL and AFL 2020 season.
Additional changes today are:
Brian Walsh takes on a Group-wide responsibility, leading a newly created Foxtel Originals division, spearheading all local production commissions across Australian drama, lifestyle, factual and entertainment production. This new role highlights the increasing importance of our Australian-produced entertainment content in the Group’s strategy, building on the success of series such as Wentworth, Upright, Gogglebox, Selling Houses Australia and Real Housewives of Melbourne.
Kieren Cooney – Chief Customer, Marketing and Sales Officer, Foxtel. Kieren will have end-to-end responsibility for all customer interactions including service and loyalty, marketing and publicity, creative services as well as residential and commercial sales.
This group’s shared objective is to maximise revenue from the loyal premium customers of the Foxtel branded business. Kieran will have accountability for management and delivery of this vital revenue to the Group.
Julian Ogrin continues as CEO, Kayo and BINGE responsible for the Group’s new streaming business. It is his responsibility to rapidly grow these streaming businesses and maximise their contribution to Group EBITDA. To ensure Kayo and BINGE develop as distinctive customer propositions, each business will have a leader responsible for brand and growth momentum.
New appointments in Julian’s team are Ant Hearne as Executive Director of sports streaming service Kayo, and Alison Hurbert-Burns as Executive Director, BINGE.
According to data released this month, Kayo now has 590,000 active customers (542,000 paying); while the recently launched Binge entertainment platform has 217,000 active customers (185,000 paying).
Previous head of Fox Sports, Peter Campbell is moving to a new role within Product & Strategy, as Executive Director, Transformation Implementation. This role builds on Peter’s successful track-record of transformation and delivery at Fox Sports, by providing additional executive leadership to drive the next phase of performance improvement across the Foxtel Group, including the introduction of new ways of working.
