Director, Distribution Business Development

Job Description

Employees

Currently, all employees are working remotely except for select roles that have an in office requirement. We value the health and safety of our people above all else, and our office re-openings will remain

contingent on the course of the COVID variants and federal, state and local safety guidelines and

recommendations. As we look forward, the majority of our employees will have flexibility that allows them to choose a predominantly remote, predominantly in-office, or hybrid setup.
Our official in-office locations in the United States includes LA, NYC, Stamford, and Chicago, and we have several other states in which employees may work remotely if their role isn't one that requires them to be in or near the office.

THE DIVISON'S STORY
If you watch our A+E Networks brands, A&E, History and Lifetime among others, then you have seen the work of the Distribution team.
Our networks would not air and be watched by millions of people without the expertise of the Distribution department. We are the team that negotiates and partners with Distributors to deliver our networks to their consumers and ultimately our viewers. We're also quick on our feet. As technology changes rapidly within the media landscape, impacting viewer behavior and traditional models, we pivot to deliver new solutions that extend our content, brand and reach through Video On Demand, TV Everywhere and mobile. While much of our work takes place behind the scenes, our results are out there for all to see.
Oversee team responsible for for fulfillment of schedules, metadata, rights notification and other deliverables required for the distribution of A+E content on pay TV affiliates' set-top-boxes and apps. Manage department's relationship with internal and external vendors and ensure fulfillment strategy is consistent with A+E Networks' distribution and revenue objectives. Serve as primary operations contact for client's product teams. Partner with Distribution Sales team to negotiate affiliation agreements with clients.

MORE ABOUT WHAT YOU'LL DO:
• Lead product execution and maintenance for pay TV platforms. Train and manage a team responsible for handling metadata generation and troubleshooting content propagation issues. Collaborate with IT, Operations, and other stakeholders to develop product roadmaps based on contractual obligations, new business opportunities and process enhancements. Spearhead process improvement initiatives to drive viewership and incremental revenue.
• Evaluate capabilities of VOD transport agents and other vendors. Maintain network of prospective vendors, communicate business requirements to vendors, negotiate contracts as needed and oversee process improvements for day-to-day interactions with such vendors.
• Serve as business operations lead for Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) integrations on pay TV platforms. Provide direction around workflows needed to meet distributor DAI integration requirements. Assist with DAI revenue forecasting and act as ambassador to educate stakeholders across organization on DAI opportunities.
• Leverage business intelligence tools to improve tracking of partner platform data, contract compliance, content avails and other critical business information.
• Identify strategic opportunities to standardize and optimize metadata generation across the company. Work with third-party metadata aggregators such as Gracenote and TiVO to improve the quality and consistency of data disseminated to distribution partners.
• Develop and drive execution of QC initiatives to monitor the delivery and appearance of A+E content across MVPD and vMVPD platforms. Define performance metrics and furnish distributor ''report card'' for use in client negotiations.
• Partner with Digital Content Licensing team to deploy SVOD, FAST and other digital products across pay TV platforms.

YOUR STORY: [+BEHAVIORS] (what you need to have)
• 4-year college degree.
• Knowledge of pay TV landscape with focus on multiplatform distribution requirements.
• 7 years' operations and/ or project management experience including supervision of direct reports.
• Strong oral and written communication skills; strong abilty to motivate, influence and sell ideas.
• Familiarity of digital media content fulfillment workflows, including use of asset management systems, media scheduling tools, etc.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-g4wnov-18-188-241-82-42 in your application.