ITV appoints Dominic Cameron as website head
10/11/2008
Former lastminute.com Chief Technology Officer Dominic Cameron has been leading the website since the departure of Annelies van den Belt in April.
He will be stepping down from his other job as Director of Innovation at lastminute.com to take on the role heading up ITV’s flagship website.
Cameron will oversee ITV.com as it becomes fully integrated with ITV’s family of channels to allow closer co-operation between the broadcasting and online divisions, consistent with the 360° approach of the Turnaround Strategy.
The acting Controller of ITV Local, Brian Thornton has been permanently appointed to the position. Previously Technical Development and Operations Director for ITV Local, Thornton has overseen ITV Local’s rollout from its launch in 2005.
Kate Bradshaw, Head of Online Commissioning at ITV.com will become Cameron’s number two as Head of Online Commissioning and Deputy Managing Director.
Bradshaw, who in previous roles developed the UK's first broadband on-demand channel for BBC2 and previously commissioned content for BBC Interactive and BBC Mobile, will be responsible for commissioning content and overseeing the strategic direction of the site.
ITV.com has doubled its users since re-launching in August 2007, reaching 8.3m in October, and video views have increased by 550% year on year.
Cameron has a diverse background, having worked previously as an Executive Producer on Newsnight and the BBC's General Election coverage and, since the early 1990s, as an entrepreneur involved with some of Britain’s most notable digital enterprises.
The former electronics engineer co-founded beeb.com, BBC News Online and Upmystreet.com and as Chief Technology Officer at lastminute.com took the technical strategy and implementation of one of Britain's most remarkable web start-ups from first prototype to a global business.
At lastminute.com he has been responsible for the company’s customer experience innovation activities, including voice automation. He has overseen several world firsts in the use of speech automation, voice recognition and for the development of advanced self-service platforms at lastminute.com. He also manages a portfolio of innovation activities at lastminute.com known as TheNest.
He will retain a non-executive role on the internet travel site advising on innovation with the lastminute.com Labs on mobile and other initiatives.
Cameron, who co-wrote the strategy paper for John Birt that became BBC News Online, is passionate about the rapidly changing landscape for video entertainment over the broadband web and plans to create "immersive and addictive" experiences on ITV.com for the millions of fans of ITV's massively popular shows.
Ben McOwen Wilson, ITV Director of Online, said: "We are delighted to announce these three appointments, which secure for ITV's online properties some incredibly experienced online executives.
"Dominic Cameron has over 10 years experience of creating and building some of the UK's biggest and most successful online brands. His wealth of experience working in the online space and his knowledge of the ITV business are tremendous assets. ITV.com has grown at a remarkable rate and its presence and importance within the ITV business has grown with it, meaning Dominic’s role in steering the website to new levels of innovation and excellence is more important than ever.
"Kate is the driving force behind ITV.com's mission to engage fans with compelling and original content around the popular programme brands and will continue to draw on her wealth of experience in giving programmes a life beyond the television.
Brian has been responsible for building and operating ITV Local from the outset through the national roll-out to the one million plus unique-user site it is today and is well placed to further consolidate ITV Local’s position as the source of local news, weather and entertainment content."
ENDS
For further information, please contact Ben Ayers on ben.ayers@itv.com or 07841 724809.
ITV.com is part of ITV Online which also incorporates ITV Local, ITV Mobile, ITV Interactive and Friends Reunited, offering innovative and entertaining content to enhance viewers’ on air experience with online channel streaming, plus access to further ITV programming, clips and exclusive content. ITV Local offers local information, news and services and has launched dedicated channels in 2008 including travel and crime.