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TV1 lays off execs

Pay TV channel TV1 has retrenched several of its executives following a review of its business operations.

Pay TV channel TV1 has retrenched several of its executives following a review of its business operations.

Those impacted by the restructure are Selena Crowley Director Programming and Acquisitions, Will Usic Creative Director, Michael Shephard Publicity Director and Catherine Field Marketing Director.

In a statement released yesterday, the company, which also operates SF (formerly SciFi), said all four had been integral in the channel’s growth and would be missed personally and professionally.

“Following significant reviews of all aspects of the TV1 business, the decision has been made to streamline the operating structure, resulting in immediate reduction in employee numbers,” it said.

“The decision does not reflect on individual performance or capability, rather positions the channel strongly to meet future challenges.

“The restructure will deliver greater operating efficiencies and provide our channels the platform to continue to invest in content and brand.”

SciFi recently rebranded as SF while TV1 is dominated by nostalgic TV and several crime franchises including CSI, Law & Order and NCIS.

The channel says there are no other planned redundancies.

4 Responses

  1. @ mc – I brought up FX as roughly a year ago when a new entertainment channel was needed that focused on action/male-oriented programming I looked at the owners of the current entertainment channels and found that the best option was AXN (as TV1 General Entertainment Group had the rights to it due to it’s 33% shareholder Sony) and TNT (with Turner Broadcasting wanting to launch another channel in Australia for years – Google the TV Tonight article on Tru TV and Adult Swim wanitng to launch in late 2000’s – 07 off the top of my head). This was a time when programs such as: the CSI franchise, Criminal Minds, The Walking Dead, Franklin & Bash, etc. were not currently being broadcast in Australian STV. Now that FX has launched, and TV1 has increased in ‘new-er’ content, there isn’t enough content for another entertainment channel without a serious amount of overlapping repeats.

  2. TV1 is CBS+Sony+NBCUniversal.

    FX is News Corp, so it can launch regardless of what TV1 does.

    AXN is Sony, so it launching would likely strip TV1 of a good slice of it’s programming.

  3. Well seems though TV1 is a leading entertainment channel, I can only take “provide our channels the platform to continue to invest in content and brand” as meaning they are planning on making changes in the near future. I know for a long time there has been a cry for SF to have a HD feed, and a lot of TV1’s primetime content is in HD so potentially they could be on the short list of new HD channels to launch in the coming months. Otherwise I can’t see what else could happen as the TV1 brand is fairly stable in that if they rebrand they would lose half their content, and SF has just had a make over resulting in a refocus on programming, so perhaps the only other option is launching of a new channel? If FX hadn’t launched this year I would say they could have launched AXN, but this is the only real great internationally owned channel they could launch. Either way, I’m betting its going to be an interesting second half of the year.

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