Viasat appoints Habdank COO of Pay-TV
May 1, 2013
Modern Times Group (MTG), the international entertainment broadcasting group, has announced that Viasat Broadcasting, which comprises MTG’s television broadcasting operations, has appointed Aleks Habdank as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of its Pay-TV Emerging Markets operations with effect from May 7th 2013. Habdank will be based in London and manage Viasat Broadcasting’s pay-TV channel operations in Central and Eastern Europe, and develop its pay-TV business in the Emerging Markets.
Habdank joins Viasat from Virgin Media in the UK, where he was most recently Director of Digital Entertainment Products, with responsibility for the TiVo, linear TV, Video On Demand, online and multiscreen services, including the launch of Virgin Movies and Virgin TV Anywhere.
Viasat’s Emerging Market pay-TV operations market and sell pay-TV packages on the Viasat satellite platforms in the Baltics and Ukraine, and on the joint venture Raduga TV satellite platform in Russia. Viasat also distributes 35 channels via third party pay-TV networks to subscribers in 31 countries across Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and the US. The wholesale channel business has over 85 million mini-pay TV subscriptions across these territories. The Viaplay online pay-TV service was launched in Russia in March 2012, and has also recently been made available to Viasat’s Ukrainian satellite customers.