MIPTV: Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch to Give Keynote

Jeremy Darroch, group CEO of European pay TV giant Sky, will give a media mastermind keynote this year at international television market MIPTV. 

London-based Sky recently acquired 21st Century Fox’s Sky Italian and Fox’s majority stake in Sky Deutschland, creating a pan-European group serving 20 million subscribers. 21st Century Fox is the largest shareholder in Sky with a 39 percent stake.

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The company is ramping up production in a bid to defend its market position against SVOD newcomers including Netflix and Amazon Prime, which have been aggressively expanding in Europe. In a statement, Darroch highlighted Sky’s new crime drama Fortitude, which will be the first Sky series to launch simultaneously across all of its European markets.

“I look forward to coming to MIPTV 2015 to lift the lid on our plans and talk to the industry about the scale of the opportunity as we work together to create a powerhouse for TV content across Europe,” Darroch said. 

With a combined annual program budget of more than $7 billion, Sky is, by its own estimates, Europe’s leading investor in television content.

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