Loading ...Freesat, the UK’s free-to-air digital satellite television service, today announced the appointment of a new Chairman.
Following his appointment as the BBC’s Director of Audio and Music, Tim Davie, currently Freesat’s Chairman, is to stand down from his role at the service in September 2008 and is to be succeeded as Chairman by Carolyn Fairbairn, ITV’s Director of Group Development and Strategy. Davie, currently the BBC’s Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences, is to take up a new role as BBC Director of Audio and Music in September this year. The Chairmanship of Freesat alternates between the two broadcasters annually and this is the first time that ITV has taken up the role.
Commenting on the transition of the Chairmanship, Emma Scott, Freesat’s MD said;
Carolyn is a highly regarded industry figure and I’m certain that the strong strategic skills and expertise she continues to demonstrate at ITV will be of huge benefit to Freesat. I’m delighted that she has agreed to become Chairman of Freesat. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Tim for the great support and wise counsel he has provided during Freesat’s development and launch.
Carolyn Fairbairn said:
Freesat plays a crucial role in ensuring that UK viewers have access to free-to-air digital and high definition television. After a successful launch earlier this year, the service has already proved itself to be popular with consumers and I’m delighted to be taking on the Chairmanship.
Carolyn Fairbairn joined ITV as Director of Group Development and Strategy in March 2007. Prior to that she was a partner at McKinsey & Company, specialising in media. From 1997–2004 she was at the BBC; her most recent role there was as Director of Strategy & Distribution and a member of the BBC’s Executive Board, with responsibility for strategic planning and the distribution of BBC services. In this role she was particularly involved in the development of the BBC’s digital strategy and was one of the principal architects of Freeview. Carolyn’s previous roles have included being a member of the Downing Street Policy Unit and working as a financial journalist on The Economist.
In addition, Richard Lindsay-Davies, the service’s Commercial Development Director is to leave Freesat at the beginning of October. After aiding the launch of the service he is making a planned return to his role as Director General at the Digital Television Group. Richard’s position will be filled shortly following a recruitment process.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:20 am
“After a successful launch”
Hahahahaha! What?
I’d hate to see an unsuccessful launch ..
July 31st, 2008 at 9:52 am
(admin - keep it clean pls Matt)
July 31st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Can’t believe they have appointed someone from ITV - they don’t even know what an HD channel is!
July 31st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Here we go again more knockers. It was a successful launch.
Good appointment Freesat.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:14 am
According to reports elsewhere, the chairmanship alternates yearly between BBC and ITV.
Outside the echo chamber of the internet, I’d say the launch was pretty successful - lots of positive publicity in the press and other media. Very little negative. Sure, it would have been better to have more channels, and the PVR. But with some folk complaining about it being delayed already, and the Olympics and Euro 2008 coming up, they doubtless wanted to promote those in HD.
Freesat themselves couldn’t do much about the number of channels at launch, or availability of equipment. It was, in marketing terms, a fairly soft launch, and at a time of year when lots of people aren’t traditionally watching a lot of TV.
By the time of the christmas pre-sales period, they will have lots more channels, most of the boxes will have been through a few iterations of software, and things will be a lot more stable.
Remember that even pretty big companies can have supply issues to start with, like Apple with the iPhone and Microsoft with Vista (and their massively botched upgrade voucher scheme).
Freesat will hopefully have got over all the teething problems, and have pretty stable software in all their receivers, in time for the pre-Christmas sales increase, and hopefully a bit more HD in the autumn schedules too.
Far better, I think, to have done what they did back in May, and be in a strong position, than to have waited for more kit, and more channels, and then launch - and possibly only then discover the supply issues, firmware problems, and so on, with little time to solve them before Christmas. “Freesat ruins Xmas films with poor HD lip-sync” would not be good publicity.
Some people online have been hoping that Freesat would deliver a knock-out blow to Sky, but that was never the point, and never going to happen. But in terms of the man in the street, yes the launch did what it needed to do - it got in the back of their mind that if they want HD, or satellite, they don’t need to pay.
And when they go to the shops this autumn to buy, there’ll be a much more mature, and debugged service, for them.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:34 am
My fear is Itv being in charge, their hd has not been very good.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:37 am
It has to be positive ITV taking their turn. The fact that they are right up there in the firing line can only be good news towards improving their HD service.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I don’t watch ITV that often and when I have I’ve never seen the red button option appear on the screen. How do you know in advance what programmes will be screened in HD on ITV? thanks!
July 31st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
At the moment, it’s more or less pot luck, frankly.
But if you use Digiguide, you can search in programme descriptions, and they seem to use “High Definition on Freesat” to indicate ones that will be; searching on that right now comes up with tonight’s Harley Street, next Thursday’s edition, and The Scorpion King at 1745 on Saturday.
Hopefully, with the autumn/winter season they’ll have a little more in HD, but we’ll probably have to wait until they unveil their schedules.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Matt, you have hit the nail on the head with that one, ITV need a dedicated HD guide like the BBC have. Maybe someone from Freesat/ITV reading this might actually do something.
ITV.com used to mention HD but I can’t find anything about it now. The ITV TV guide does not even highlight Harley Street as being HD anymore!.
I did email ITV to mention this some time ago, but never received a reply.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
The BBC can get away with a dedicated HD listing; even though there are quite a few repeats, at least there’s hours of material each night.
If ITV put up a listing with just those three programmes in the next week, people would point at it and giggle.
I don’t think they’ll do much until they have a lot more content - but in the meantime an icon on the main TV guide or ‘also in HD’ as part of the description would help.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
‘If ITV put up a listing with just those three programmes in the next week, people would point at it and giggle.’………………………actually I think that would be a 100% improvement to what they have done so far!