Members attending the EBU 73rd General Assembly in Geneva elected the remaining nine members of the EBU Executive Board which will lead the European broadcasting community for the next two years. The fifth board will be guided by incumbent president Jean-Paul Philippot, (RTBF Belgium), who was re-elected at the Summer General Assembly in Naples along with Anna-Maria Tarantola, (RAI Italy), who replaces Claudio Cappon, (RAI Italy) as vice president. Mr Cappon is stepping down after seven years of service. Petr Dvořák, who was made director general of CT Czech Republic in 2011 joins the board for his first mandate. The remaining eight members were re-elected from the outgoing board.
BBC Studios and Post Production has appointed Keith Nicholas as its new head of operations for its award-winning Digital Media Services division, which provides end-to-end content digitisation, restoration, remastering, compliance, storage, hosting, distribution and archive services.
Nick Hornby (pictured), commissioning editor for features at Channel 4, is joining Blast! Films as head of programmes to help steer the company through its next period of expansion. Hornby joins the company from Channel 4 where he’s been for the last three years, commissioning factual entertainment before moving to features. His credits include Bodyshockers: My Tattoo Hell, Jamie’s Comfort Food and Blast!’s own Supervet series.
UK television execs Darren Smith and Jack Cheshire have joined international producer and distributor DLT Entertainment’s expanding development team. Smith and Cheshire will be charged with driving DLT’s comedy production through the development of scripted and non-scripted content and format adaptation as well as developing new entertainment programming for UK and international broadcasters.
EBS has further expanded its team with the appointments of Andree Lüke as managing editor and Neville Stratton as new business manager. Lüke, who has worked in the TV listings industry for more than nine years, joins EBS from Global Listings. Stratton has held roles in both the television and publishing sectors, including 12 years at ITV, where he held the position of sales operations group head.
Lifestyle sport and culture content business has recruited ex Bullseye TV and Discovery exec Dee Smith (pictured) to the newly appointed role of director of content. “Factory Media is one of those rare gems where established content, audience and platform meet and the combination is virtually unexploited. What I’m here to do is connect up brands, broadcasters and publishing for 360 delivery,” said Smith.
Alan Bright has been appointed director of engineering at IMG Studios. Bright, who will take up his new role at IMG in January 2015, joins from Presteigne Broadcast Hire where he is currently director of operations and also responsible for the RF and special projects department, which counts the BBC and Sky Sports among its clients.
Intelsat has announced that current Intelsat president and chief commercial officer Stephen Spengler has been promoted to deputy chief executive officer. Spengler has been with Intelsat in various executive positions since 2003, and has nearly 30 years’ experience in the satellite and telecommunications industry.
David Pattison (pictured) has been appointed as chair of the board of Keo Films. He follows Zam Baring, who is stepping down after two and a half-years in the role. After ten years with the company, non-executive director Rob Love is leaving the Keo Board to concentrate on the spin-off River Cottage businesses, Crowdfunder and his digital agency Seachange.
Marquis Broadcast has announced the appointment of Chris Steele as managing director. Steele joins the company from Quantel, and commented: “I have a great deal of respect for the skills and experience of the team at Marquis and I am looking forward to developing a long term vision for the company.”
Communications industry veteran David Rubner is the new chairman of NovelSat’s board of directors. Rubner also serves on the boards of a number of other public and private companies including Check Point, RadWare and cVidya and is chairman and chief executive officer of Rubner Technology Ventures.
Presteigne Broadcast Hire has appointed David O’Carroll as its new head of technology. He joins from leading outside broadcast company NEP Visions, where as technical manager he was responsible for major projects including the BBC Proms, Global X Games and Wimbledon. “Presteigne is an important player in the industry, providing partnerships and backup for broadcasters, production companies and outside broadcast facilities,” said O’Carroll. “That alone makes this new job an exciting challenge.”
André Christensen has been announced as the chief operating officer, and Michael Couture as SVP of product management and marketing, at QuickPlay.
Having recently turned 70, Prof. Dr. Jörg Sennheiser (pictured) is handing over the chair of the supervisory board of Sennheiser to Dr. Frank Heinricht. Since joining the family-owned company in 1976, Sennheiser’s contribution has been instrumental to the company’s success and has paved the way for a future-proof set-up of the audio company.
SGL has announced two key new appointments as it continues to strengthen its technical support infrastructure. Glyn Jones joins as development projects manager and Ashley Smith as web services developer. They will both be based at SGL’s head office in Whiteley, Hampshire.
Berlin-based Stage Tec Entwicklungsgesellschaft has appointed two new managing directors: Stefan Laubereau and Rainer Weiß will assist Wolfgang Salzbrenner with managing the audio technology specialist. “The company’s objective for the coming year will be to spearhead digital innovation,” commented Rainer Weiß, who has served the company in a managerial capacity for over 14 years.
