Foxtel Media

May 17, 2023

Share Fox Sports Australia’s high-profile executive editor, Luke McIlveen, has left the broadcaster as News Corp Australia kicks off a broader restructure of Foxtel Fox Sports chief Steve Crawley emailed staff last week to announce Mr McIlveen, a former Daily Mail Australia editor-in-chief, would be leaving on May 12. “After six years with Fox Sports, Luke McIlveen has decided it’s time for a new challenge,” he wrote. “While there is never a good time to lose someone with Luke’s passion and talent, I accept the time is right for Luke to look beyond. He is without doubt one of Australia’s leading journalists.” Mr Crawley said Mr McIlveen had grown the Fox Sports website to reach 10 million people a day. Foxtel Group chief executive Patrick Delany and chief commercial and content officer Amanda Laing. His departure came days before Foxtel announced a huge shift in its internal structure to better reflect its shift to lower-margin streaming. “To maintain our momentum and continue to compete against global players, we must continue to transform, and capitalise on growth opportunities to remain match-fit,” a spokesman for Foxtel Group told The Australian Financial Review. Advertisement “We are embedding a new operating model to drive future growth. Inevitably some valued team members will leave the organisation through this change, while some will take on new accountabilities and new roles will also be created.” Former Fox Sports executive editor Luke McIlveen. Across its streaming platforms, Foxtel has grown to 2.96 million paying subscribers. It has appointed Julian Ogrin, who until recently led the Kayo and Binge streaming services, to oversee a new sports and advertising division – which includes the Foxtel Media advertising sales team. Foxtel chief customer, marketing and revenue officer Hilary Perchard will lead a new subscription TV and infrastructure arm aimed at holding on to the company’s 1.6 million higher-paying broadcast customers. They pay, on average, $84 a month – far higher than streaming customers. At the end of March, broadcast subscriber churn was 12.3 per cent – the lowest since 2016. The company’s chief commercial and content officer, Amanda Laing, will oversee an entertainment team that houses Binge and looks after content deals. Technology and operations lead Les Wigan will lead a new streaming aggregation division, aimed at developing Foxtel’s new product, known as Project Magneto, that will sell TV sets with inbuilt, aggregated access to streaming platforms. It is expected to launch later this year. Sam Buckingham-Jones is the media and marketing reporter at The Australian Financial Review. Connect with Sam on Twitter . Save