Erik Huggers, the exec who led Intel Media’s attempt to create a virtual MVPD, has joined Vevo as president and CEO, succeeding Rio Caraeff, who departed Vevo late last year, according to multiple media reports.

Huggers, being named to the slot as Vevo makes its Newfronts presentation Thursday, left Verizon Communications in mid-2014, about five months after the telco struck a deal to acquire OnCue, the advanced video assets that Intel had developed to form the basis of what was to become an provider of over-the-top pay TV services.  He is also late of BBC, where he helped to launch its iPlayer service,  Microsoft and Endemol.

Vevo, primarily backed by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment and launched in 2009, currently offers a library of about 140,000 HD music videos, including some exclusive original programming.

"The Vevo team has built the leading video service that has been embraced by passionate music fans around the world," Huggers said in a statement. "I believe there is great potential in accelerating innovation to delight audiences with new product features and premium content."

Huggers will be tasked for seeking growth beyond outlets such as YouTube, and possibly pursue strategies to help Vevo’s investors get a return via an IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed source.

Erik Huggers, the former Intel Media exec who headed up OnCue prior to its sale to Verizon Communications last year, is still a big believer in over-the-top video and its ability to change and disrupt the pay-TV landscape.

Huggers (pictured), now a member of the supervisory board at Germany-based mass media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, expressed as much this week in a column that also provided a dim view of the traditional pay-TV market and its future prospects.  

For starters, he recalls pitching streaming media to the original Endemol Entertainment board in the mid-1990s as he tried (and largely failed, apparently) to convince them that “TV was going to be just another application on the Internet.”

Fast-forward to today, and that view is prescient, as OTT is all the rage, as Nickelodeon, HBO, CBS, Dish Network (via new Sling TV service), and John Hendricks’ new offering, CuriosityStream, to name just a few, launch or prepare to introduce direct-to-consumer, broadband-fed offerings.

“It’s amazing that it took this long, but we are finally witnessing changes that will unleash the perfect storm,” noted Huggers, who departed Verizon a few months after the telco snapped up the OnCue assets.

And that’s not great news for the pay-TV industry, he added, pointing out that  his two kids don’t watch any linear television as they are drawn to sources like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, and “could not be less interested in” Comcast’s TV service.  

OTT services such as Netflix and Amazon “have stripped most channel brand attribution and have commoditized its value,” he explained. “Combine that with big original programing budgets from those same players and you can see the writing on the wall for the decline of linear PayTV services.”

He also talked up the shift to digital advertising, and wondering if shifting TV ad budgets will continue to gravitate toward premium video content. On that note, check out our special section in this week’s issue on programmatic TV, where we offer a variety of examples (subscription required) of how digital-like automation is coming to the TV ad scene.

And he's definitely not on the cable industry's side when it comes to recent regulatory activity, holding that the FCC’s decision to redefine broadband as 25 Mbps (downstream) and the plan to reclassify broadband as a Title II “will safeguard OTT services.”

While his original vision for OnCue remains in question as Verizon figures out how those assets will factor into its own virtual MVPD offerings, it’s quite clear that Huggers still believes that the pay-TV market faces its biggest challenge yet.

Erik Huggers is exiting Verizon Communications roughly five months after the telco inked a deal to acquire OnCue, the advanced video assets that Intel had developed to form the basis of what was to become an ambitious "virtual" MSO service that sold pay-TV packages over-the-top.

Reuters first reported of Huggers’ departure on Friday (May 30), with Huggers telling the outlet that he had worked well with his boss at Verizon, head of product development Marni Walden. "There were no conflicts at all,” he told Reuters. “The technology is great, the team is great, the future is secure, the dream lives on. It's time to hand the baby over to someone else.”

Verizon confirmed that Huggers is leaving the company, adding that his departure does not alter the plans it has in store for the assets it acquired from Intel.

“We obtained a strong combination of technological and personnel assets from Intel Media. We intend to strategically utilize the OnCue technology and talent to grow our business. That has not changed,” Verizon spokesman Bill Kula said, in a statement.

Huggers also told The Wall Street Journal that Verizon is investing “quite significantly” in the 350-person Intel Media division that had undertaken the original OnCue effort, and that Verizon intends to move the group from Santa Clara, Calif., to a new facility in the Silicon Valley by the end of 2014. Huggers, rumored to be in the running for the lead job at Hulu when the future of Intel Media and the OnCue project was in doubt (Mike Hopkins was named CEO of the Web video hub last fall), told the paper that he has “a couple of irons in the fire,” but expects to stay in Silicon Valley.

Verizon has yet to outline its full plan for OnCue, though people familiar with it say the initial focus is to help the telco speed the development of a next-gen IP video product that can help Verizon catch up to Comcast and its cloud-fed X1 platform while also giving Verizon independent control of its set-top roadmap and the ability to trim CPE-related capex costs.

Still, some of Verizon’s OnCue-related work will include the pursuit of wireless and over-the-top options that would enable Verizon to bring more mobility to the FiOS video platform, Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam said in March at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

Before putting the OnCue assets on the block, Intel Media had designs on attacking a saturated pay-TV market with a broadband-delivered video subscription service outfitted with “smarter bundles” that would appeal to younger, connected consumers.

Intel Media’s original plan was to launch services by the end of 2013, but those plans were scuttled amid rumors that new Intel CEO Brian Krzanich had soured on the idea.  

The reasons why Intel Media pulled back have varied. While some sources indicated that the company had trouble landing enough carriage deals and the rights to cobble together a compelling service, multiple people familiar with OnCue’s plans said Intel Media was successful in putting distribution deals place, but then refused to sign them over fears that subscriber milestones and other commitments required by those contracts proved too steep.  

Krzanich told Re/code earlier this year that Intel  lacked the scale to move ahead on a pay-TV service on its own. “When you go and play with the content guys, it’s all about volume. And we come at it with no background, no experience, no volume,” he told the publication.