Online video innovator Move Networks has appointed a former DirectTV executive to run the company. A former partner at Deloitte, Roxanne Austin helped transition DIRECTV from the Hughes defence and aerospace corporation and became chief operating officer of the satellite television company. Speaking to informitv shortly after her appointment as president and chief executive of Move Networks was announced, she said the company now has an end-to-end system that aims to set the standard for television delivered over the internet.
Roxanne Austin arrives at Move Networks as it moves from being an innovative provider of high quality streaming media to offering an end-to-end system that it claims can deliver a television quality experience online.
The venture capital backed company currently provides online video streaming services for the ABC, ESPN and Fox television networks in the United States, among others. Shareholders include Microsoft, Cisco and Comcast.
As previously reported by informitv in April, Move Networks has also acquired Inuk Networks, a broadband video service provider based in the United Kingdom. Among other things, that gave them a software set-top box that provides a television experience on a broadband connected computer.
Regular readers may recall that informitv had been following the progress of Inuk and its Freewire service since its inception.
The Inuk acquisition was completed before Roxanne was approached about becoming chief executive, but she describes it as “completing the strategy” for Move Networks, providing a service “that people will pay for”.
Move Networks is expanding its service offering to deliver a multi-channel television experience, combining both scheduled and on-demand programmes with a virtual digital video recorder and targeted advertising capabilities that can be delivered across any open or closed broadband network.
Given her background with DIRECTV, one might imagine that the new Move Networks chief executive will be speaking to pay-television providers about that proposition.
The question remains whether the internet is currently capable of economically delivering a true television experience that people will be prepared to pay for.
“It can scale and it will scale,” said Roxanne, who also happens to be on the board of telecommunications equipment company Ericsson.
Move Networks initially attracted attention for its innovative approach to video delivery, based on encoding media in chunks at various bit rates and seamlessly delivering them from standard web servers according to the bandwidth available to different clients. That approach has since been adopted by other vendors, including Microsoft.
With streaming technology becoming more of a commodity, Move Networks aims to become more of a platform provider.
At DirectTV, Roxanne helped turn the technology oriented subsidiary of an aerospace company into a consumer focussed company that is now the second largest pay-television service provider in the United States.
Her appointment to Move Network was welcomed by its founder, Drew Major. He said: “Roxanne brings the experience, expertise and leadership necessary for Move Networks to help its customers define the future of internet television”.
“The next step for the media industry is to have a sustainable way to monetize professional content on the internet,” according to the new chief executive of Move Networks. “I look forward to working with our content and distribution partners to ensure they achieve a financially successful transition to this next generation of internet television services.”