You are no more pleased with the Syracuse win than I am with the U of Washington (class of '51 and no stranger to quick runs to the pissoir) demolition of Stanford last weekend.
As you probably know, my interest in GMST has focused solely on TVG's potential to capture the lion's share of the $15B wagered annually through the parimutuel windows of America's racetracks and the tens of billions more bet worldwide on racing and other sports.
It appears that Murdoch has tapped a hotshot from his GMST stable to serve as COO of TVG,which will shortly have to decide whether to exercise its option to buy a majority interest in a strong competitor for about $35M or let it expire and take one million shares to add to its already approximately 15 per cent interest.
The following is a small part of a long, long interview with
the new COO from a trade publication called ITVT with which you already may be familiar. I found it on the Yahoo board.
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Gemstar-TV Guide has named ITV-industry veteran, Ryan O'Hara, chief operating officer of its TVG Network (offers coverage of horseracing and currently allows viewers to place bets via the phone or the Web) effective immediately. O'Hara, who holds a BA in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, has served as SVP of business development and strategic planning at Gemstar since June, 2002. In his new role, he will continue to report to Gemstar CEO, Jeff Shell, until a new president of TVG is named: Gemstar is currently conducting an executive search to fill that role, which was recently vacated by TVG founder, Mark Wilson (who has become the network's chairman). O'Hara's responsibilities will include overseeing the network's wagering, financial, legal and advertising-sales operations, managing its development activities with its track and online partners, coordinating with its affiliate sales group to secure long-term carriage deals--and overseeing its introduction of ITV and VOD services. Prior to joining Gemstar, O'Hara was director of interactive TV strategy and development for BSkyB: he was responsible for integrating Open, a 400-person company which BSkyB purchased in June, 2000, and which became the core of the company's ITV unit. He also worked with a number of broadcasters (e.g. MTV, Sky Sports and Disney) and technology companies (e.g. NDS, OpenTV and Astra) to build out BSkyB's ITV offering, and managed the launch and marketing of a number of the company's ITV products, including some of its betting applications. In a prepared statement, Gemstar's Shell said, "Given [O'Hara's] experience with BSkyB, his understanding of successful interactive business models will be integral in furthering TVG's position as the leading interactive horseracing network."
According to O'Hara, who spoke to [itvt] last week, his transition from Gemstar to his new role at TVG should be fairly smooth: "I have been focused indirectly on the TVG business for most of the time I have been at Gemstar," he explained. "I've become friendly with the people who work there, so I already feel very comfortable there." [itvt] asked O'Hara what had attracted him to the new position. He explained that he was excited by the fact that the channel not only dominates a sports- programming niche, but one that is uniquely amenable to ITV betting (note: ITV betting has proven very successful on the Sky platform in the UK, accounting for a significant portion of the platform's interactive revenues): "TVG sits in a unique place right now, because it has the lion's share of horseracing content already secured under contract and on air. It basically owns the horseracing niche within cable and satellite TV," he said. "Now, from an interactive standpoint, horseracing has a very unique position in the US, in that the regulations around it have been put in place to ensure that it remains a healthy industry and that all the people who work in that industry continue to earn a good living. One of the results of this is that there is more tolerance here for wagering on horseracing than there is for other types of gambling--so it occupies a unique space in a country that isn't quite as liberal as, say, the UK when it comes to wagering." |
