Watson to replace Marks as BT Vision CEO
Marc Watson, director of content and business development at BT, is to replace Dan Marks as CEO of BT Vision when he steps down at the end of June.
Marks, who’s also deputy MD of BT Consumer, joined the telecoms and media company from Universal Studios in 2005, and has been a Hollywood director and producer.
He was responsible for launching BT Vision in December 2006, which had a target of attracting between 2m and 3m subscribers by 2012. new media age understands these targets have since been refined down as the TV-over-broadband service has struggled to build a mass-market pay-TV service, signing up just 500,000 customers to date.
Marks told The Telegraph this could be attributed in part to BSkyB’s dominance of premium content, such as Premiership football, and that there was “frustration across BT that Ofcom has failed to engage the dominance of Sky in live Premiership football”.
He was also responsible for BT’s role in Project Canvas, the joint-venture IPTV service with the BBC and ITV, which is currently being scrutinised by the BBC Trust (nma 4 June 2009).
Watson joined BT as commercial director of BT Vision in 2006 (nma 31 July 2006) he was promoted to his current role in late 2008 (nma 6 November 2008).
This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk
