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Digital TV Europe Euro 50 > Leaders in broadband and pay-TV
November/December 2009
Brian Sullivan Managing director customer group, BSkyB
Job description My current position is man- much learned from the current downturn, but
aging director of Sky’s Customer Group, which rather reaffirmed by it. Firstly, you cannot use
includes most of our consumer-facing strate- a challenging consumer environment to weak-
gies and touch-points, which are grouped en your commitment to innovating for cus-
together to ensure all key decisions are always tomers. Whether it’s by ensuring you remain
made from the customer perspective. This steadfast in your commitment to invest on-
includes research, data and analysis, product screen, or by continuing to invest in the types
development and management, acquisition, of products and services which customers
product amd retention marketing, and our cus- have come to expect from us, you must con-
tomer care and field operations. Key areas of tinue to innovate and evolve as a company.
responsibility include pricing and packaging, Companies that continue to back their belief
Sky Broadband, Sky Talk, Sky Plus, Sky Plus in differentiating their services by listening
HD, Sky Anytime, as well as new services like and responding to their customers will
Sky Player, Sky Songs and coming next year always be in good shape, whatever the eco-
Sky 3D! nomic weather.
Highlights from the last 12 months Last year’s most surprising development
Building on the amazing success of Sky Plus, It’s not so much a surprise as it’s a conse-
That UK pay-TV giant BSkyB continues to I’m hugely encouraged by the continued suc- quence of people naturally navigating to more
defy the naysayers by pushing forwards cess and customer appetite for Sky Plus HD. choice and quality, but according to UK regula-
towards its goal of 10 million digital sub- Within the last year alone we’ve added not tor Ofcom’s figures we’ve very nearly reached
scribers is in no small part thanks to Brian only over a million more HD customers, but a key milestone in the history of pay-TV in the
Sullivan, who has supervised and maintained nine new channels too, taking our HD channel UK. Pay-TV penetration currently stands at
the customer experience across all of the count to 35. Importantly, this means we not 49.9% and will very shortly break through the
operator’s innovative service offerings – only have even more satisfied customers, 50% barrier, meaning that for the first time
including Sky’s groundbreaking DVR service but they have a set-top box in the living ever, a majority of UK homes will have opted
Sky Plus and HDTV (soon also to evolve into room which is a real platform for future into a form of subscription TV. It just goes to
the planned launch of 3D TV as well). This innovation. The Sky Plus HD box pulls show the desire consumers have for supple-
year Sky launched (after its usual rigorous together multiple threads of the cutting menting their free-to-air experiences with a
testing process) its new EPG, positioning it to edge product development activity we’ve wider variety of content and life-changing
develop on demand and other interactive been working on over the last 12 months. innovations like Sky Plus and high-definition
services. It has also continued to build its This includes our new EPG, our pull video- TV.
HDTV base (1.6 million) as well as that of the on-demand service, and, of course, our 3D
all-conquering Sky Plus service (5.9 million). TV. Both our video-on-demand service and Goals for the next year To continue to
3D TV will launch next year, but they are accelerate the growth of Sky Plus HD; to
Age 47 also highlights from this year based on the encourage even more customers to benefit
creativity and passion I’ve seen from the from the quality, convenience of value of tak-
Education Villanova University. project teams working on them. To top it all ing bundle services from Sky; and to improve
off, our straightforward, great quality and still further our leading customer service func-
Career path I’ve spent most of my life in and value broadband and home phone services tion.
around the consumer entertainment field, hav- continue to be the fastest growing fixed line
ing spent the last 20-plus years working on communications services in the UK, includ- Likely breakthrough service or technology
the pay-TV industry, and before that watching ing the only truly unlimited high speed 3D, and I’m proud to say that we’ll be at the
my father as one of the pioneers in the mar- broadband service available anywhere in the forefront of that breakthrough.
keting and promotions side for a professional UK.
baseball team. I joined Sky almost 14 years ago Favourite TV or film character Jack Bauer
as a marketing manager and since then I have Lessons learned from the downturn One from 24 – he never gives up!
been lucky enough to have a number of differ- key lesson is that it is better to rise to a chal-
ent roles within Sky including digital strategy lenge then to hide from it. Sky has continued Life outside work Spending time with my
and transition, channels marketing, overall to grow and attract new customers through- young children, watching TV (obviously), and
customer marketing and product strategy and out recent quarters. This growth is rooted in a following – now in high-definition TV – my
management. number of core attributes, which were not so beloved Philadelphia Phillies.
Visit us at at www.digitaltveurope.net
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