Virgin Media's strategy head Andrew Barron has been named chief operating officer.Barron joined Virgin Media in March 2008 and since then has led the company’s strategy development and, more recently, overseen a reorganisation of the company’s customer operations and network teams. Before joining Virgin, he was previously chief executive of pan-Scandinavia pay-TV broadcaster Viasat, and […]

Discovery Communications has turned to a Hollywood marketing executive to lead its joint ventures with Oprah Winfrey and Hasbro. Peter Liguori, the former Fox Broadcasting chairman, will take over as Discovery's chief operating officer, replacing Mark Hollinger, who took over the group's international networks last week. The former HBO and FX Networks executive confirmed he […]

DirecTV has named Michael White as its new President and CEO. White announced in September that he will retire later this year from his current position as vice chairman of PepsiCo. He will assume his new role at DirecTV beginning January 1st, 2010.

Targeted ad firm Phorm has lost its UK managing director Nick Barnett. With none of Phorm's initially-announced three interested UK ISPs having gone ahead with rollout it seems the company has chosen to focus on international opportunities. South Korea's KT has begun a trial. European potential customers have been put off by privacy concerns and […]

ITV has confirmed Archie Norman, the former chief executive of supermarket group Asda, as its new chairman. The appointment of Norman, 55, a former Tory MP, will bring to an end a seven-month search for the commercial broadcaster as it sought to replace Michael Grade, its executive chairman. ITV is expected to see its fortunes […]

Guardian Media Group has has appointed Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett as a non-executive director. Berkett has been VMED CEO since 2008 and was appointed COO of the company's precursor NTL in 2005. GMG will hope his experience can help steer its Guardian News & Media division, which houses The Guardian and Guardian.co.uk, back towards […]

SeeSaw, Arquiva's VoD service based on Kangaroo technology, has appointed Channel 4’s Matt Rennie as commercial director. Previously, Rennie worked in a business development role at Channel 4, where he led content distribution, managing commercial relations with distribution partners such as YouTube and Virgin Media. He joins a senior SeeSaw management team that includes chief […]

Ofcom has confirmed that Lord Burns will be the next chairman of Channel 4, and will join the broadcaster’s board immediately for a handover period before Luke Johnson’s departure in January. He will join Channel 4 immediately as chairman-designate, working with Johnson to find a new chief executive to replace Andy Duncan. Duncan is expected […]

Jonathan Sykes has left his role as managing director of Tiscali TV, the IPTV service acquired by The Carphone Warehouse. Sykes held the role of managing director, content strategy at HomeChoice, the IPTV service that is the basis of Tiscali TV.

COO John Cresswell, named interim CEO on Tuesday, has scrapped the sale of its DTT multiplex SDN and is looking instead to transfer its ownership to ITV's pension fund as an asset that will plug a growing hole there. ITV paid £134m (E143m) for SDN to a consortium including S4C, United News & Media and […]