TORONTO — Firstlight Media, a provider of cloud-based OTT infrastructure to streaming service operators, announced Wednesday the launch of a new initiative to incubate and accelerate the growth of scalable OTT services. The initiative will be led by Paul Pastor (pictured), a former Walt Disney Company and Discovery Communications strategy and viewer experience leader.
In his new role as chief business officer, Pastor will be responsible for multiple disciplines, including business and corporate development, sales and marketing. He will spearhead faster growth of the streaming ecosystem by ensuring that aspiring Tier 1 providers have access to the technology, knowledge and strategic drivers of business success, says the news release.
A member of the Disney Hulu launch team, Pastor was the Disney-ABC investment and operations lead for The Walt Disney Company’s Hulu investment. More recently, he co-founded two OTT services in North America and Europe: TVPass, an aggregation service that allows consumers to seamlessly discover and consume content from multiple SVOD providers; and Unite Broadcast Ventures, a branded software-as-a-service (SaaS) OTT platform to support European local market streaming joint ventures.
“Paul Pastor’s limitless vision of what television engagement can be and his understanding of how to bring that to viewers have fuelled networks’ growth throughout his career,” said Andre Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Firstlight Media, in the news release. “Our OTT accelerator will extend Firstlight Media’s value beyond Tier 1 clients by harnessing Paul’s success with major brands and his entrepreneurial expertise to benefit new entrants who are on Tier 1 trajectories.”
Pastor added: “As industry trends accelerate toward OTT services, media companies are quickly finding out that content alone does not ensure success. The goal of our accelerator initiative is to provide OTT services of all sizes with what’s needed to compete and win: scalable product, data and technology that can reduce customer acquisition costs and churn, optimize the lifetime value of the consumer, and ensure long term growth.”
