ITV turns to Telegraph chief
ITV has poached Annelies van den Belt to run its broadband division just seven months after she joined the Telegraph Media Group as director of new media.
Van den Belt, who will be managing director of ITV’s broadband team, will report to ITV Consumer director Jeff Henry. She joined the Telegraph Media Group from News International, where she helped launch the Times Online, in May last year.
Late last year, ITV announced a radical overhaul of its Web portal. The new service will offer simulcasts, previews and catch-up of programming within a 30-day window, with the majority of content free to view. Some premium content, such as sporting events, will be available through pay per view.
The site will also offer 1,000 hours of content from the ITV archives and the broadband media player will be on every page.
Van den Belt will be responsible for all aspects of commercial and operational delivery for the broadband site, including advertising and transactional revenues, content production and commissioning.
The broadcaster has also announced the appointment of Tanya Lidstone as head of customer experience and Steve White as head of technology for broadband. Lidstone joins from Opodo and will be responsible for content strategy, online customer proposition and ITV.com’s customer relationships. White was previously development manager for Web gaming specialist Gamesys.
ITV Consumer was established in 2005 to exploit new media channels and revenues. Its businesses include Friends Reunited, ITV Mobile, ITV.com and transactional quiz channel ITV Play.