Qurate Retail Group, parent of TV shopping channels QVC and HSN, said it hired Soumya Sriraman as president of streaming as the company looks to build its streaming commerce business. 

Sriraman, previously head of Prime Video Channels at Amazon, joins Qurate Retail as it executes Project Athens, a three-year turnaround plan designed to stabilize its core businesses and expand the $8.3 billion in video-commerce revenue generated by its streaming operations.

The company also named Stacy Bowe chief merchandising officer, QVC U.S. Bowe held senior merchandising positions at G-III Apparel Group and Macy’s.

“These appointments reflect Qurate Retail Group’s ability to attract the most accomplished and ambitious executive talent in retail,” said Qurate Retail CEO David Rawlinson. “Our vCommerce teams — QVC, HSN and vCommerce Ventures — are disrupting video shopping and we believe we have a right to win in this growing industry. In addition, we are accelerating the pace of change within Qurate Retail Group through Project Athens, our turnaround plan, which touches nearly every facet of our business. We’re pleased to welcome Soumya and Stacy to our team.”

In her newly created post, Sriraman will head Qurate Retail's streaming commerce businesses including QVC Plus and HSN Plus, as well as the networks' presence on digital livestreaming TV.

Reporting to Mary Campbell, president of vCommerce Ventures at Qurate effective Wednesday, she is expected to expand the staff of the company's streaming unit, the company said.

Before Amazon, she was founding CEO of the BritBox SVOD service. Previously she held positions with BBC Studios, Tartan, Vivendi Universal, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios.

Bowe will oversee QVC's Buying, Planning & Programming organization and will lead QVC's Design Development & Global Sourcing unit, an in-house agency that brings new brands, products and concepts to life in apparel, accessories, outerwear and home décor

Effective Tuesday, Bowe reports to Mike Fitzharris, president of QVC U.S. ■

Soumya Sriraman, who departed as president and CEO of SVOD service BritBox earlier in October, has been tapped by Amazon to lead its Prime Video Channels business. 

Amazon for several years has offered its Prime members the option of subscribing, in the Prime  Video app, to third-party streaming services including HBO, Showtime, Starz, AMC Plus … and BritBox. The Amazon Prime Video Channels model now accounts for a significant share—in fact, a majority—of subscribers for many streaming services, which cede the ability to directly bill and collect customer data, in addition to a portion of their platform revenue, to Amazon. 

Also read: BritBox Promotes Powers to Replace Sriraman

Sriraman replaces Daniel Brown, who was repositioned within the Amazon empire in September. Brown is now listed as director of product technology and video advertising for Amazon

Notably, Kathy Payne, a veteran cable industry executive who had served as head of content acquisition and management for Prime Video Channels, also appears to have left the company. 

Prior to joining BritBox in early 2017, Sriraman served as executive VP of franchise and digital enterprises at BBC Studios, the company that jointly launched BritBox with ITV. 

Souyma departed the New York-based BritBox shortly after the company announced the reaching of the 1.5 million subscriber benchmark. 

Last week, BritBox announced the promotion of Emily Powers to executive VP and head of BritBox North America.

BritBox, which focuses on UK content, is currently available in the U.S. and Canada. It has plans to expand to 25 countries later this year. 

Two weeks after CEO Soumya Sriraman announced plans to leave BritBox, the streaming services said it is promoting Emily Powers to executive VP and head of BritBox North America.

Powers had been senior VP and commercial head at BritBox and was a member of the original team that launched the joint venture between BBC and ITV that streams British TV shows to the U.S. and Canada. 

Powers is also overseeing the business operations for the launch of BritBox in Australia.

“Emily is one of the core team that developed and launched BritBox in North America and has played a large part in BritBox’s ongoing success over the last four years. Her strategic vision and extensive experience in video-on-demand make her a natural choice for the role and I look forward to continuing to work closely with her as she leads BritBox into an exciting new era,” said Martin Goswami, group strategic partnership and distribution director at ITV.

Powers joined BBC Studios in 2012. Before that she was director of business development at NBCUniversal’s digital distribution group.

“I look forward to guiding the growth of BritBox in North America. Over the past five years I have had the privilege of being part of the senior team that has transformed BritBox from an initial concept to a hit service with more than 1.5 million subscribers, which in turn has laid the foundation for global expansion,” Powers said. “In this new role, I will look for innovative ways to continue fostering the service’s success.”

Subscription streaming service BritBox is focused on delivering quality, new and classic British Tv fare to American viewers, according to BritBox president Soumya Sriraman. 

The two-year old SVOD channel, created by ITV and BritBox, offers iconic favorites, exclusive premieres, and current series and soaps, most of which are available within 24 hours after their UK premiere, according to the service. Sriraman discusses the BritBox brand as well as the digital streaming platform in the latest episode of MCN Original Videos' "OTT Spotlight."

NAME: Soumya Sriraman
TITLE: President
COMPANY: BritBox
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Launched BritBox, the OTT British content service, in March 2017 and has seen remarkable growth (400,000 subs in September 2018, 500,000 in January 2019, currently more than 650K) thanks to savvy marketing, near-live North American premieres of U.K. events and programs, and great word of mouth
QUOTABLE: “You’re not going to switch to [a different service] when the thing you’ve already bought into is giving you what you want. Part of this loyalty must be marketing and the other part has to be being good at what you do.”

Ask the uninitiated to define what a traditional “military tattoo” is and they might say it’s some elaborately styled ink — perhaps reading “USMC” alongside a set of dog tags — appearing just below a person’s shoulder. However, ask the many thousands of BritBox subscribers who know better, and they’ll tell you the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is a concert spectacle: a glorious, artistic annual performance featuring British Armed Forces and international military bands in stunning, parade-like formation.

They’ll also tell you the event is pure BritBox, the two-year-old specialty streaming service that channels British programming of unparalleled quality, popularity and uniqueness to the United States and Canada. The fast-growing service now boasts 650,000 happy subscribers, all of whom owe a debt of gratitude to Soumya Sriraman.

As the service’s founding president, Sriraman has been instrumental in creating a North American streaming home for BBC Studios and ITV content, featuring the likes of Agatha Christie and Blackadder, Vera with Brenda Blethyn, and Rowan Atkinson in Maigret, and John Cleese in Hold the Sunset, and the comedy classic Are You Being Served? But the OTT service goes that one better for the eager Anglophile. It combines not only the “new” and “known” shows, but offers a “Now” feature for near real-time premieres of programs such as popular British soaps EastEnders and Coronation Street, and many others.

“The ‘Now’ feature came from an incredibly creative idea of Soumya’s,” said Ann Sarnoff, the BBC Studios – Americas president who helped found BritBox before joining Warner Bros. as chair and CEO. “The ‘Now’ brings lifestyle, news, dramas, live events and much more within hours if not minutes from the original premiere in the U.K. BritBox is the only [subscription video-on-demand] service of its kind to offer this feature.”

Needless to say, such an idea, and its execution, requires a multitalented cross-platform mind to pull it off, and Sriraman is that rare talent. As she put it, “This is the first job that brings together my skills as an engineer, my natural leanings as an analyst, and my heart that cries out loud for the shows I love.”

Humble Beginnings

Sriraman’s own journey could be the stuff of award-winning drama. Her mother — raised by her grandparents because of her parents’ financial difficulties — had to set aside her dream of working in engineering. Instead, she insisted her three daughters (Sriraman was the oldest) become engineers. “I rebelled against it but it was ordained for me,” said Sriraman, who grew up in India (“We were a very lower-middle-class family,” she said) before earning her degree from Texas A&M. “But I’m grateful. Hindsight is 20/20, and in some ways it was that education that allowed me to bring a structured view to the way that I think about the world we’re in today.”

Sriraman made the most of every opportunity, notably as senior VP for theatrical marketing at Vivendi Universal (in a six-year run starting in 2004), then president and CEO at Palisades Tartan Films (relaunching the Tartan brand through notable releases), before landing at BBC Worldwide in 2011 as executive vice president, franchise and digital enterprises. While there, she grew brand platforms and broke records in expanding the home entertainment and licensing businesses (adding, among other crown jewels, Doctor Who and BBC Earth). In other words, she evolved her skills in preparation for a longtime dream of creating an over-the-top outlet for British content across the pond.

“The idea was to bring together a combination of new, now and known shows,” she said of BritBox’s origins. “And one of the things we knew was that this required equal parts content curation and technological prowess to pull off this near-live thing we wanted to do from day one.”

The rubber truly met the road when Sarnoff informed her in summer 2016 that ITV Studios content might be available in the deal. ITV and the BBC being competitors, it seemed a long shot, but Sriraman knew the tie-up was essential if BritBox would live up to its potential of the best and biggest British shows. “Getting this done was just not easy,” she said, but the partners agreed on one thing: “We have a common mission, let’s work together toward that.” By the fall, the papers were signed, and BritBox ultimately launched in March 2017.

Still, even if Sriraman knew great niche content was a “field of dreams” for North American viewers, she also realized simply building it — given a league of coliseum-like competition from the likes of Netflix and Hulu — didn’t mean the faithful would now just come. That’s where her savvy marketing came in. The “Now” feature gave viewers a sense of connection to programming most other services don’t exploit, along with an increased sense of place and even loyalty.

Analysis indicating a core audience of women age 45 and over from the South and Midwest led to expanded originality in programming and marketing ideas. A reasonable cost ($6.99 per month; $69.99 per year), strategic social media and great word of mouth have led to swift growth. And tapping the mystery genre programming Sriraman loves, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco is both BritBox’s foray into created originals and the resurrection of a fine franchise. The future of BritBox looks bright, especially with Sriraman leading the parade.