Senior Distribution Manager - Pay TV and Joint Ventures

The Role

The role

The Senior Distribution Manager will work within the Distribution team at ITV, and be responsible for the day-to-day management of ITV’s jointly-owned distribution partnerships (Everyone TV and Youview) and ITV’s Pay TV relationships with Sky, Virgin and BT. Working to support the Director of Distribution for Pay TV, the Senior Distribution Manager will play a central role in maximising the strategic and commercial value of our Joint Ventures and partners across Linear broadcast, AVOD and SVOD, and supporting the generation of key insights, audience reach and engagement.

Key responsibilities

• Joint Ventures
  • Lead the day-to-day working relationships with ETV, ensuring strategic and operational alignment between the two organisations
  • Review board papers and brief ITV board representatives ahead of board meetings and ensure that ITV’s positions on various issues and long-term objectives for the joint ventures are known in advance
  • Ensure that ITV’s platform strategy, its positions on various issues and long-term objectives for the joint ventures are clear, consistent, and aligned to ITV’s More Than TV strategy
  • Lead the process of setting and communicating a partner vision and set of objectives for each Joint Venture partner annually and organise and oversee all elements required for the successful delivery of those objectives bringing together multiple teams across technology, marketing, financial, legal, commercial and operation.
  • Act as ITV’s expert on each organisation, its business model, roadmap and strategic priorities in order to develop annual, quarterly and tactical plans where required
  • Where appropriate, represent ITV on the boards (and sub-committees) of the joint ventures and help to shape the joint venture strategies to ITV’s advantage
  • Ensure that ITV’s funding contributions are within budget
  • Work with the ITV policy team to support and advise on platform policy issues, including EPG / LCN policy development and other related content placement policy matters
  • Build and maintain strong relationships with the JV management teams and other shareholder members

• Pay TV and General
  • Manage or support the day-to-day relationship with ITV’s pay TV distribution partners to ensure BAU service delivery and project lead on specific ITV workstreams such as service changes, launches or closures
  • Work with key stakeholders (such as audience, product and marketing teams) to track partner and venture performance against internal metrics, and develop initiatives and improvements to deliver impactful changes that grow the consumption and reach of ITV content and services
  • Manage (or support) day-to-day activities, including performance reviews, quarterly business reviews, annual KPI setting, and insights reporting.
  • Manage broader day-to-day activities, including performance reviews, quarterly business reviews, annual KPI setting, and insights reporting
  • Work cross-collaboratively to ensure that a broad cross-section of ITV teams - including Product, Technology, Data and Marketing - understand cross-functional initiatives and opportunities
  • Identify and, as necessary, lead on the delivery of special projects that may arise within the department; working cross-functionally as required
  • Set and be accountable for clearly defined strategic objectives for the partners, ensuring that this is at all times aligned to and in support of the More Than TV strategy and wider departmental objectives
  • Contribute to a performance-driven and inclusive working culture within the Distribution team

Skills you’ll need (minimum criteria)

• Excellent problem solving and advanced analytical skills (including financial techniques) to enable development and delivery of successful approaches to evolving challenges across partnerships.
• Ability to construct and argue positions, both written and orally, in internal and external situations and knowledge and experience of negotiating a wide variety of commercial contracts
• An analytic mind, comfortable with reviewing, collating and driving insights from a wide range of sources, including financial data.
• An innately strategic and commercial thinker, aiming to maximise value and drive prioritisation of partner activities across the portfolio.
• A clear understanding of the technical fundamentals of streaming platforms/products and associated consumer electronics, including current and emerging device and apps ecosystems and distribution channels.

Other things we’re looking for (key criteria)

• Proven experience in developing strong and effective internal and external working relationships and credibility with staff at all levels
• A confident communicator and effective problem-solver. Competent at creating and delivering materials for partner consumption, and internal executive level review and decision-making.
• Be confident in talking to Technical Project Managers, to accurately communicate platform/product opportunities and needs, and be a key stakeholder in scoping and prioritising technical work across the portfolio.