George Kliavkoff is headed to the Hearst Corporation to oversee the media company's digital investments.
(Credit: NBC Universal)George Kliavkoff, the former NBC Universal exec who helped conceive of Hulu, is joining the Hearst Corporation, the century-old company known more for newspapers than digital media.
Kliavkoff, who has one of the best track records for building digital media services from the ground up, will become the executive vice president and deputy group head of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication. He will report to the unit's president, Scott Sassa, the former CEO of Friendster and Uber.com.
The news was first reported by Peter Kafka at All Things Digital.
The unit Kliavkoff joins is responsible for managing the company's ownership stakes in cable companies, such as A&E Television Networks, the History Channel, and ESPN. The division also operates a television product unit, a newspaper syndication business, and a merchandise licensing unit. In addition to helping Sassa run those businesses, Kliavkoff told CNET News that that he will also oversee Hearst's "building, buying, and operating of new digital businesses."
Kliavkoff says Hearst wants to invest in both start-ups and also create companies on its own, which is what he did with Hulu, the popular video site.
Kliavkoff said in November, when he announced his departure from NBC, that he was ready for a new challenge. He certainly found one in Hearst.
Founded by William Randolph Hearst in 1887, a media tycoon that created a vast newspaper and magazine empire, the Hearst Corporation today is a huge communications conglomerate. In addition to more than 70 newspapers and 200 magazines, the privately held company also owns more than 25 TV stations, two radio stations, and significant stakes in cable channels.
According to estimates, Hearst generated more than $4.3 billion in revenues in 2007 and employs more than 17,000 workers. The company is controlled by Hearst's descendants. When asked whether the conglomerate has the assets to make significant investments, Kliavkoff said he couldn't discuss specifics but said the company was profitable.
At the same time Hearst tries to safely navigate the collapse of the newspaper sector (Hearst has said 2009 may see the closure of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and flagship paper the San Francisco Chronicle), the company is also looking for a way to profit from the Web. After all, the Internet is a communications medium and for a 121-year-old communications company, this should be in its wheelhouse.
But the company's record in digital investments have been mixed. Some of the companies it has an interest in are Pandora, Brightcove, Meta TV, MobiTV, and XM Satellite Radio. In the past several months, Hearst has announced the company would make a foray into electronics by building an electronic book reader. The device, which may launch this year, would be designed to boost the number of digital outlets for Hearst's print content. Managers also said they plan to start charging readers for some newspaper content.
Hiring the marquee name in digital entertainment is another sign that Hearst is serious about the Web. Upon his departure from NBC in November, Kliavkoff said "this is a best time to start, run, or invest in digital companies." He said then that he wanted to oversee this kind of investment but that it was getting harder for public companies to make those kinds of bets.
"It's also particularly great in this economic climate to be doing this kind of investment," Kliavkoff said, "and building in a private media company, which has the benefit of having a long-term perspective on growth, as opposed to having to worry as much on a quarter-by-quarter basis."
Besides helping draw the blueprint for Hulu, Kliavkoff, 41, oversaw NBC's online distribution of last year's Olympic games. Before NBC, he helped make Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the digital arm of professional baseball, the most successful subscription video site on the Web.
A good bet is that Kliavkoff, who started in digital media at RealNetworks, will look for ways to help Hearst use its video content to cash in on the Web.
George Kliavkoff, the man who helped draw up the blueprint for a string of successful digital media services--from Hulu to Major League Baseball Advance Media--is leaving NBC Universal at the end of the year, CNET News has learned.
George Kliavkoff gave NBC Universal Hulu. Now he's looking for a new challenge.
(Credit: NBC Universal )After a little more than two years as NBC's chief digital officer, Kliavkoff says he has accomplished the goals he set for himself and the company's digital unit when he joined in August 2006. He is taking time off before jumping into his next project.
Kliavkoff, 41, has chosen to exercise an option in his contract and leave NBC at the end of the year but will remain available to CEO Jeff Zucker "during and after the transition," he said in an internal e-mail.
"I believe in my heart that this is a best time to start, run, or invest in digital companies and I am very excited about moving on to my next challenge," Kliavkoff wrote.
In Silicon Valley, the book on old media executives is that they're not supposed to "get it." Nobody says that about Kliavkoff.
"George came to NBC Universal when we were nowhere in digital," said Zucker in a statement. "We asked him to help us change the fundamental orientation of a traditional media company from an analog to a digital mindset. George did that, and did an outstanding job job for us.
"Today, our digital properties are thriving across the company, and are now embedded in each of our divisions. So I completely understood when he said he was ready for the next phase of his life, and I am grateful for all of his efforts. We wish him all the best in the next chapter of his career."
He was Hulu's first CEO and helped set the strategy for the site. In its first four months, the video portal leaped into the top 10 among video sites and has become the one legitimate challenger to YouTube.
Kliavkoff's group oversaw the online distribution of NBC's Olympics coverage, which delivered 1.3 billion page views and streamed 10 million hours of video to 52 million unique visitors. According to the internal memo from Kliavkoff, it was the "largest digital media event of all time."
Digital revenues across NBC will exceed $1 billion in 2009, Kliavkoff wrote.
Even before arriving at NBC, Kliavkoff was a rising star in digital media. He was executive vice president at the digital arm of Major League Baseball Advance Media (MLBAM). At a time when all the other sports were offering only stats and player bios on the Web, MLBAM began generating big revenue by charging fans to watch games online.
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