EUROSPORT CEO HUTTON CLAIMS MEDIA EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR HONOURS AT TVSA
Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton has been named Media Executive of the Year at the prestigious TV Sports Awards 2017 in Monaco.
Bringing with him 30 years of experience of working in the sports industry across a host of senior management roles, the last year has seen Hutton oversee continued investment in production and rights, bucking industry trends to deliver a 28% year-on-year increase in linear audience figures compared with 2016.
The network’s business strategy to create more exclusive, premium and locally relevant content with a strong focus on Eurosport’s pillar sports of cycling, tennis, motorsports, snooker and winter sports has also resulted in record-breaking viewer numbers at this year’s Australian Open, July’s Tour de France and a host of strong numbers from local programming across Europe including Eurosport Norway’s coverage of the Eliteserien (football).
Under Hutton’s stewardship, Eurosport has also boldly taken a digital-first approach to a range of premium rights including broadcasting a major football league, the Bundesliga, in-market exclusively on OTT for the very first time. Testament to this fresh approach is Eurosport’s investment in the inaugural “digital-first” Olympic Games in PyeongChang owing to its focus on web, social and OTT platforms – meaning fans can watch anywhere, anytime and on any device.
Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton said: “While it an honour to receive an award such as this, it is fair to say we couldn’t have achieved what we have done over the past 12 months without the work of everyone at Eurosport – from the production teams right through to our advertising sales teams – it has been a real joint effort and everyone has played a part.
“Winning the award twice in three years is a great honour, but there’s still much work to be done as we look forward to the 2018 Olympics and beyond.”
Eurosport’s growing portfolio of sporting content now reaches 236 million cumulative subscribers across 94 countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
John Gleasure (Perform) and Mark Parkman (Olympic Channel) were also nominated for the award.
At the TV Sports Awards, Eurosport was also shortlisted for Agency of the Year as well as Best Live Event Coverage for its coverage of this year’s Tour de France.
ENDS.