MCN launches upgraded red button pay TV offering as Rob Leach departs
Pay TV sales house Multi Channel Network has revealed plans for an upgraded red button service.
The move coincides with the departure of the company’s red button guru Rob Leach.
The new service – labelled Enhanced Television or eTV – sees the screen shrink and additional information appear about a show sponsor when the pay TV viewer presses the red button.
The first to take up the offer has been Laminex, on The Lifestyle Channel.
Michael Williams, MCN’s interactive advertising manager, said: “Traditional TV sponsorships offer a terrific branding device, but eTV sponsorships go an extra step by allowing sponsors to be more closely aligned with both the programming and the channel. It’s also a win for viewers – letting them engage further with brands that interest them. Depending on the program, advertisers can offer viewers a brochure, a series of recipe cards or even a test drive. It means MCN can deliver more valuable sponsorships to our clients that allow them to be more closely aligned with both the programming and the channel.”
Meanwhile, MCN CEO Anthony Fitzgerald confirmed that Rob Leach, head of MCN Connect, is leaving.
Departing: Leach
He said: “Rob was originally brought over from the UK on a four year contract to establish a viable interactive advertising and digital department at MCN and, ultimately, to integrate that division into the main sales floor. That job has been achieved and MCN Connect, MCN’s digital division, is now well established and extremely successful.”
Mumbrella understands that both sides view the parting as amicable and that Leach intends to remain in Sydney. He has not yet found another role, but it is likely to be within the area of monetising cross-platform digital content distribution.
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Hey Foxtel red button people – l just want to give you some old fashioned consumer feedback.
I was watching something on Fox on the weekend where, for the ENTIRE PROGRAM this red button “push this to get a Laminex Brochure” or something was on screen. It was like having an ad on screen the hole time, to the point where it really pissed me off, and I changed the channel. It made me feel angry about Laminex (get off my freaking screen whilst I am trying to watch my freaking program which I am freaking PAYING for), and clearly it pissed me off about Foxtel. How about keeping the ads out of my face during the show (and please don’t talk to me about product placement as a similarity – at least that is integrated and unobtrusive).
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Hi Red Button This,
I experienced that too. If you press either the backup button or the Foxtel button (I forget which) it vanishes from the screen.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Tim is right If you don’t want the offer icon there just press back.
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Rob was massively instrumental in lauching the Interactive/Digital set up at MCN. He was a great operator. They are now completely void, apart from MW of anybody with any interactive knowledge. A major void which i believe will come back to haunt them, but what do you expect from the MCN Aussie boys club !
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@red button this.
when you say ‘hole’, i think you mean ‘whole’.
@larry bird
having worked with mcn, i think you’ll find there is still a lot of internationals working there and a lot of them are this weird breed called females.
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@red button this – you might want to consider anger management?!…cut back on the caffiene. On the subject of Rob, mcn’s loss will be someone elses gain. He’s not only top of his field and years ahead of the game but an absolute top bloke and extremely well respected by his clients and customers alike.
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Great guy and very smart. Hope he stays in Australia as he’s one of the best.
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@if ya gonna comment, spell it write. I bow to your superior grasp of the queen’s english, and humbly apologise for any offence caused.
@SP Now anger management required here if you’d stop forcing lame shit on me
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@Red button this – You need to realize that it’s your unfulfilled expectations that make you angry, rather than the other person or event. If you can understand that it’s not the other person who is making you angry, but rather your own way of thinking, then you can change and reduce the adverse effects of anger. A motto to use is, ‘No one annoys or upsets me, but it’s my inability to tolerate or think positively that makes me angry’. So if you have an inability to tolerate, it can be due to unrealistic expectations that you are holding onto.
http://www.angermanagement.com.au/ – check it out
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