Quickflix hires another former Telstra media exec as CEO

Stuart Corner
Monday, 11 July 2011 09:34

IT Industry - Listed Tech

Hot on the heels of taking over BigPond's DVD rental business and appointing former BigPond head honcho, Justin Milne as its chairman, Quickflix (ASX: QFX) has hired another former Telstra executive as its CEO.

The new appointee, Chris Taylor will be based in the company's new head office in Sydney and will start in the role immediately. He wil take over from Stephen Hodge who will remain in the company in another role. Last week Quickflix revealed that Telstra BigPond was to close its DVD rental business, sell its inventory and equipment to Quickflix and refer its customers to Quickflix. The following day it announced the appointment of Milne, former group managing director of Telstra Media, as deputy chairman and non-executive director.

As director of Telstra Media, he was responsible for its online and mobile digital publishing business and for the launch of Telstra's IPTV services which included streaming movies through the T-Box and other connected platforms. Prior to this, he spent most of his career with Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (now Nine Entertainment Co) in executive positions that included CEO of Prime Television New Zealand and managing director of Nine Network Queensland.

Commenting on the appointment, Quickflix founder and executive Chairman Stephen Langsford said: "He is one of the few media and entertainment executives in Australia with hands-on IPTV experience and has an in-depth understanding of how to engage audiences through movie and TV content. Chris joins our expanded national team of entertainment, media and technology executives and we are in excellent shape to go very hard at driving growth in what is a large market opportunity."

Taylor said: "Quickflix's online DVD rental subscription business is very well positioned to capture a large share of the $600m per annum currently spent in physical DVD rental stores in Australia and the further $1b in DVD retail in Australia. More than 80 percent of households in Australia have a DVD player and Internet access and are all potential Quickflix subscribers.

"The board has set aggressive growth targets for the next five years and I am focused on meeting them and delivering significant shareholder value."