Les Wigan steps down from Foxtel’s Hubbl after six months. What’s next for the service and its users?
SMH reports Les Wigan, the managing director of Hubbl, left his position at Foxtel Group last month, following six months at the helm of the newly launched service. His departure came just prior to an unrelated technical issue that disrupted Hubbl for users last week.
Following his exit, Wigan has taken on a new role as Strategic Advisor for Fox and Venu Sports. He will be involved in the launch of a cutting-edge sports streaming platform tailored to the US market.
A spokesperson for Foxtel confirmed Wigan’s departure but clarified that it was not connected to Hubbl’s market reception.
Wigan, who had held the role of managing director since July 2023, was instrumental in overseeing Hubbl’s operations during its initial months. Prior to this, he had a long tenure at Foxtel in several senior roles, including Chief Product, Technology, and Operations Officer.
He also previously served as Chief Operating Officer across Kayo, Binge, Flash, and as COO/Director of Digital, Technology, and Broadcast Operations for FOX Sports.
The timing of Wigan’s departure preceded a significant technical fault that left users unable to access their Hubbl devices for an extended period. In response to the outage, Foxtel issued affected customers a $25 voucher to be used toward their subscription as compensation. The company emphasised that this failure was not linked to Wigan’s exit.
Foxtel invested approximately $77 million in the launch of Hubbl, offering the device at a discounted rate of $79 (down from the standard price of $99) and bundling three months of Binge with the purchase. However, questions around the product’s market uptake have surfaced. Ben Willee, from advertising agency Spinach, noted that Foxtel has remained “very quiet” about Hubbl’s performance since its debut.
SOURCE – SMH
When I worked for a large IT company, if they wanted to kill off a product, they would announce it was ‘functionally stabilised’. Of course they meant ‘no more enhancements or updates’ 😇, but everyone knew what that really meant. Not talking about the bloke here, but it looks like the HUBBL product family is on the way to becoming functionally stabilised. I don’t know a single person who has one or even talks about it. A solution looking for a problem that virtually no-one had.