TORONTO – Retiring CTV CEO Ivan Fecan worked in TV all of his life. He was a producer, director and executive at a number of levels. As CEO, he knows all there is to know about how TV in Canada works.
The background of the new CTV CEO-to-be is far different.
Kevin Crull, president of residential services at Bell Canada (CTV’s new parent, pending regulatory approvals) was appointed COO today. He takes the job January 1st and will become CEO once Fecan retires when the Bell acquisition is closed sometime in early 2011.
While Crull knows he’s going to have to learn on the fly and rely heavily on those working under him, he says he knows what consumers want. Prior to coming to Bell in 2005 and overseeing the rebranding of Bell TV and the launch of Fibe, among a number of other things, Crull was a senior executive at telcos AT&T and US West. Prior to that, he worked at Nestle.
“I’ve been a consumer marketer for all 23 years of my professional life and that means that you are tapped into the tastes and the interests and the passions of the mass market,” he told Cartt.ca in an interview on Wednesday.
That said, “there’s no president of a business who has all the skills that are necessary… and this is a world class team of programming folks who have built Canada’s number one broadcast asset.”
But buying and deploying software, hardware, fibre optics, handsets and other technology – which are easy to quantify and generally work pretty well – is a far different beast than making or buying TV shows, when predicting a hit seems some seasons like a total crapshoot.
How will you deal with that, we asked?
“That’s why I am so happy to have the talent that’s here that does that. Of course it will take some getting used to but I’m sure they would describe to you that there’s equal parts science and art in making those selections. I’ve been amazed and impressed at the real time data, the real time feedback, the team gets on how their properties are performing,” Crull (right) explained.
“It is actually both data-rich in terms of making decisions – and gut rich.”
When we asked about how he plans to mesh all of what CTV does on the programming side with all of what Bell does on the pipes side, Crull said providing any specifics would be “too tactical” at such an early date.
But, “technology allows consumers to be a lot more engaged in their content and so I am excited about the television business itself,” he added. We’re really at a renaissance or a golden age again, for television, when you look at the… great writing, great production – we’re seeing television productions that are more akin to feature (films).”
“When you marry all that great content that is getting produced with the technology of mobile TV, online TV and traditional linear broadcast, you have the opportunity today to take someone who is really passionate about TV and help them enjoy it more.”
Or, he continued, maybe take someone who has disengaged from television “and maybe allow them to explore shows they’ve never seen before because of the anywhere anytime ability – and then they get hooked on this great stuff.”
But is Crull worried that the CRTC is going to place limits on how Bell/CTV can offer content exclusives to only Bell clients? That was one of the central points of contention during the hearing last month deciding the sale of Canwest to Shaw Communications.
“I think what’s clear is the Regulator doesn’t need to have a hand, or especially a heavy hand, in that. The market right now is set up to be self-regulating or self-correcting in that regard,” he said. “All of the big distributors also have all of the big content rights and so I really think the playing field has been established to deal with that commercially where consumers will benefit.”
So does the CRTC need to regulate mobile and Internet to mitigate content exclusive deals?
“Absolutely not,” said Crull.
A date for the hearing into this acquisition has not been set. While Bell Canada has already filed its application, it is now going through the deficiency questions process with Commission staff. Once that’s complete, the application will be made public and a date set.
