The CEO of Foxtel’s Hubbl has been poached to be a strategic advisor, by none other than the big US sports streaming operation Venu which is similar to Kayo and is trying to get US Courts to grant it permission to launch in the US after initially being stopped by a New York Judge.
Les Wigan (Seen above) who was responsible for the successful launch of Hubble and Kayo is just one of several Australian executives, who gained their skill in the highly competitive Australian market only to be poached to take on bigger roles overseas.
In the early days of UK Sky, Sam Chisholm was poached to head up the UK streaming platform, he transformed the business by convincing his new boss Rupert Murdoch to invest millions in snaring the rights to Premier League soccer.
On his LinkedIn page Wigan claims “I am working with the U.S. teams at Fox and Venu Sports who are responsible for launching Venu Sports, a state-of-the-art tailored sports streaming service for the U.S. market. This is a joint venture between Disney’s ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery. I am leveraging my past experiences at Kayo and Fox Sports Australia in a strategic advisory capacity, splitting my time between Sydney and LA”.
He has not explained why he is not employed in a senior management role.
Venu is currently being challenged in US Courts by rival Fubo with the business still set to announce a launch date.
The venture backed by Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery, recently laid out its case to a federal appeals court, requesting permission to resume its plans to launch.
The company’s brief, filed last week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, comes months after pay-tv operator Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing the media giants of mounting Venu to put Fubo and other distributors out of business.
Last month, a judge in New York stunned the media business by siding with Fubo, granting its request for a preliminary injunction barring Venu’s from proceeding with its debut.
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany has confirmed that Wigan would be relocating to the US to act as an advisor to join Venu.
Having previously worked as Foxtel’s chief product, technology and operations officer, he took on the Hubbl MD role in May 2023 with questions raised about his launch strategy for Hubble with current management now taking a new marketing approach as consumers finally work out the low cost value proposition in owning a Hubble box that only costs $79 outright while also delivering a totally integrated free to air programs, and streamed content into one easy to manage screen offering.
Mumbrella reports that Wigan was replaced by Hilary Perchard who was involved in the conceptualisation of Hubbl.
This restructure has seen the appointment of Paul Meller as group chief technology officer, he moved to Foxtel from EY.
