sorted by: recent | see : popular

Content Tagged with Industry + moves

Discovery laid off more three percent of its workforce today, about 200 total. The WP reports that the company, based in Silver Springs, that the U.S. networks brand group, Discovery education (on top of 84 jobs cut late last year), corporate communications and corporate affairs lost about 20 percent of their staffs. But the company also would be hiring in digital media with laid-off employees getting preference and the first chance at new jobs; a memo from new CEO David Zaslav also said more layoffs and and hires are likely. Zaslav told the WP: “It’s always difficult to restructure and reorganize, but we’re really focused on trying to build the biggest and strongest and most competitive non-fiction media company in the world.”
As the WP notes, the move comes one day before Zaslav ends his first 100 days on the job. Discovery held its upfront last week, announcing a new network and a new broadband initiative called iPremieres. (via LostRemote.)
MultichannelNews: This round is the second phase of Zaslav’s restructuring. The first was the departure of several senior execs in early February. From the company’s prepared statement: “The savings accrued from today’s actions are not intended to drop to the bottom line. We will be investing back in original programming, the marketing of our brands and digital-media extensions.”
Related:
-- Discovery New Media Plans Include Online Premieres
-- Discovery In Major Reorg; Wolzien, Berman On Board As Advisors

-- Yahoo has promoted two of its (now non-existent) media group VPs to SVPs. Scott Moore and Vince Broady are now SVPs and report to Jeff Weiner, EVP of the Network Division. Their responsibilities of overlooking various sub-divisions remain the same.
-- Cinemanow president Bruce Eisen has left the company, and has started his own consultancy firm Digital Advisors. He was with the online movie service for eight years.
-- Netflix has appointed Cisco’s heir-apparent, Charlie Giancarlo to its board. “It’s a sign of both the need for Netflix to move more of its video distribution onto the Web - and Cisco’s increased focus on hooking up with content providers, and not just providing hardware and software to enterprises and service providers.”
-- Ogilvy North America has recruited Jean-Philippe Maheu, a former CEO of Razorfish, to take on the newly created post of chief digital officer. Maheu spent six years at Razorfish, retiring in 2003 after guiding the sale of the company to SBI (which itself was acquired by aQuantive in 2004).
-- Glam Media has appointed Jennifer Salant to head its business development. She was formerly the VPof operations and strategic partnerships at iVillage/NBC.

Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig was left without a seat in the musical chairs game Yahoo played late last year. Today, his last official day at the company, he sent an email farewell to the troops filled with the obligatory exclamation points at the end of every Yahoo and then some. It’s too bad he couldn’t leave on an exclamation point, instead departing as the company regroups to handle increased tough competition and to deal with its own internal issues. He doesn’t leave empty handed, though—his severance package is worth $4 million.
From his up-with-people email: “For the last 5 years, we have accomplished much as a team – more than most people or companies will in a lifetime. But most meaningful to me is that we have led while others have followed. We have endured while others have succumbed. Under the leadership of Terry, Jerry and David, Yahoos have created a universe of opportunities that others can only envy. Yahoo! is not just a company… it’s an idea.  Yahoo! is what is possible, what is right, and what is worth doing.  It’s what others aspire to. Yahoo! is a collection of GREAT people with BIG hearts and even bigger dreams…and it is fun! As I make the move ..., I just want you to know that I am grateful to all of you for what you have accomplished and excited to see what you do next. Thank you for caring about what you do and what it means to the people you do it for.  I will always be proud to be a Yahoo! Yodel loud and proud!”

Osder leaving: Farther down the Yahoo food chain, coincidentally today is also Elizabeth Osder’s last day at Yahoo. We were first to report her hiring in July 2005 as senior director, social media reporting to Neil Budde at Yahoo News and now we note her return to consulting; she’ll also continue teaching at USC Annenberg. 

Conspiracy theories welcome: Microsoft has appointed Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to its board, as a director, increasing its board to 10 directors from nine. Hastings will also sit on the board’s finance committee. As Eric says, considering that MSFT leans towards big company execs this is surprising, to say the least.
More details on his appointment here.
WSJ has a Q&A with Hastings and asks about online movie service and if Netflix is late to the game: “During the Internet bubble, Blockbuster was very disciplined. Their primary competitor, Hollywood Video, bought a video sales company for $100 million—Reel.com—and then plunged another $200 million of losses into it and ultimately cratered Hollywood’s balance sheet on a business selling VHS online. It’s conventional to say, “only the paranoid survive” but that’s not true. The paranoid die because the paranoid take all threats as serious and get very distracted.”

Akimbo, the IP VOD service, has appointed a new CEO and longtime CEO JOsh Goldman will stay on as a board member and advisor. Thomas Frank has joined the company as president and CEO...Frank has been the COO of RealNetworks previously. Prior to Real Networks, he ran program development and key productions at Dick Clark Productions.
Related:
-- Movielink Amasses Stake in Video Service Akimbo; Blockbuster’s Triple Play Of Sorts?
-- All About the Benjamins: Who’s Making Money with Web-Based Video?

Microsoft is still looking for the right formula when it comes to search and advertising. Wednesday the company announced a batch of changes including a new Search and Ad Platform Group in the Platform Services Division. This follows news that Christopher Payne and Blake Irving are leaving the company.
-- Satya Nadella will head the Search and Ad Platform Group, which now combines both under a single R&D head, as the announcement explains. Nadella’s current job is leader of Microsoft Dynamics; the transition should occur by April 19.  From the memo: “Aligning Search and our Ad Platform efforts under a single R&D leader is essential as we drive advances in our search, commerce, and payments infrastructure, and evaluate change-the-playing-field opportunities.”
-- Tami Reller, corporate vice president of Microsoft Dynamics, will be the acting leader of that group reporting to Jeff Raikes, president, Microsoft Business Division.
-- Harry Shum adds the responsibilities of chief scientist for the new group to his current role the leader of Microsoft Research Asia. He will coordinate short and long-term technology investments in “this key area across the company.”
Update: Mary Jo Foley explains the MSFT politics: the move takes Microsoft Live Search engineering and development away from the Windows Live family and SVP Steven Sinofsky. Instead it’s paired with Microsoft adCenter. She also has the rest of the direct report structure, including Rick Thompson, corporate VP in charge of the Windows Live Advertising and Monetization Platform—and the GMs of MSN Marketplaces, Microsoft search, search and mapping, search content acquisition. 

John Antioco, Blockbuster’s chairman and CEO for the past decade, has agreed to leave the movie rental company by the end of this year, the company said. Release. Blockbuster has struggled with competition from Netflix and the like as well as the transition to digital; as we just reported, an acquisition of MovieLink may be announced soon. The move follows a compromise with Blockbuster’s board of directors over his 2006 bonus. Though he said he’d met the performance goals qualifying him for a $7.7 million bonus, Antioco has accepted a $3.1 million amount instead. That amount is still higher than the $2.3 million initially offered by the board, according to the WSJ. The board, led by Carl Icahn, apparently felt Antioco’s desired bonus was too extravagant.

As I hinted in the new office-post last week, we have a new top operations exec. Please join us in welcoming Jordan Posell as COO of our company ContentNext Media Inc. Jordan brings over 18 years of operational and financial management experience in a variety of industries, and will help us manage, develop and expand the business.
He was most recently the CFO of Neven Vision, an image recognition software company acquired by Google last year.  Prior to that, he was the VP, Finance & Administration for GameFly, the subscription-based online video game rental service.  Previously, Jordan has held executive-level roles at LivePlanet, eToys, Idealab, Gemstar, Lone Eagle Publishing, and CS First Boston. He has lived and worked extensively in Europe and Asia. He holds an MBA from the University of Virginia and a BA from the University of California at Berkeley. Jordan lives with his wife, two children, and dog in Santa Monica. You can contact him at jposell AT contentnext DOT com.
Jordan takes over from Jeff Stern, who as our interim COO and board member for the last year, has done a great job helping us become a company and in our expansion. He will help with the transition through April, then will remain as a member of our board and in a consulting capacity. Jeff’s e-mail remains jstern AT contentnext DOT com.
This comes on the eve of our first conference, so it’s an especially exciting time for us.
Related:
-- Our Debut World Headquarters
-- The Next Big Step: Announcing Our Funding, from Patricof’s Greycroft Partners
-- Announcing Our New Director/COO: Jeffrey Stern

A very interesting development in this blog media world: Gigaom reports that Heather Harde, SVP of M&A at Fox Interactive Media is all set to join as the new CEO at the tech blog media site and company Techcrunch. This adds to a more professional turn to the meteoric rise of the influential tech blog (and its spinoffs), and hopefully will give the founder Mike Arrington more time to focus on editorial and strategy. This may also mean the company will do some blog media M&A this year, as the expertise comes in-house.
Updated: Mike officially announces it on Techcrunch.
Staci adds: Harde was heavily involved in the recent deal to acquire Strategic Data Corp. She’s particularly a good choice if Arrington decides to go further with complicating his business by adding more micro-verticals, as expected, and with angel investing. She has a strong interest in platforms, I’m told, so that would be one place to look for acquisitions.

Former Times publisher Johnson takes job with Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos.: An interesting move for former LAT publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson, who joins the private equity firm headed by would-be LAT investor Ron Burkle. Johnson was forced out after he publicly defied Tribune Co. demands for deeper cuts. The LAT reports that he will be a principal in the firm and that he oversee existing media interests like the investment in Current TV while leading efforts “to explore additional media investment opportunities.” (Burkle was interviewed for Sunday’s NYT Magazine.)

Safa Rashtchy Leaving Piper Jaffray: After 10 years, influential tech analyst Safa Rashtchy is retiring from the sell side, as he put it in a client note reported on by Danny Sullivan. His last official day is June 30. He has yet to decide on the next step. The new internet and China team includes Aaron Kessler and Gene Munster. 

Discovery is continuing with its restructuring and new appointments: Bruce Campbell is leaving NBCU, where he was EVP-business development, for Discovery and is being appointed to the new post of president of digital media, emerging networks and business development. Campbell joins his former boss, David Zaslav, who departed NBCU in January to become CEO.
The newly created position will give Campbell oversight of all major business transactions at Discovery, from acquisitions to new-media services.
Discovery also promoted Clint Stinchcomb to EVP/GM of the emerging-networks group from EVP/GM of HDTV and new media. The emerging networks that report to Stinchcomb are Discovery HD Theater, Discovery Times, the Military Channel, Discovery Home, Discovery on Demand, Discovery Mobile and Turbo. (via WSJ and Variety)
THR: With Campbell aboard, Zaslav could be positioning Discovery to add to its portfolio. In his 10 years at NBCU, Campbell played an instrument role in key acquisitions including the 2004 absorption of Vivendi Universal Entertainment for $14 billion and the 2006 purchase of iVillage for $600 million.
Related: Discovery In Major Reorg; Wolzien, Berman On Board As Advisors