Virgin Media confirmed that Cindy Rose, the MSO’s executive director of entertainment, has left the company, marking the latest profile to exit after Liberty Global acquired the U.K.-based MSO almost a month ago.
A spokesman with Virgin Media said Rose decided to leave after about four years with Virgin Media, and will likely spend time with family before making her next move.
Broadcast reported of Rose’s departure on Monday, noting that she is considering opportunities with Liberty Global and elsewhere and Jon James, director of broadband at Virgin Media, will assume Rose’s role on an interim basis. Virgin Media also confirmed that Stephane David, Liberty Global’s VP of programming, has joined Virgin Media in a new role as executive director of content.
Liberty Global closed its $24 billion cash and stock acquisition of Virgin Media on June 7, and named former News Corp. exec Tom Mockridge as CEO of the Virgin Media unit in May.
Rose joined Virgin Media in November 2009 and ran point on the MSO’s TV Everywhere service and its successful partnership with TiVo. Virgin Media ended the first quarter of 2013 with 1.5 million TiVo subs, equal to about 40% of its video subscriber base. Before joining Virgin Media, Rose held several exec posts at Walt Disney, most recently as president of Disney's Interactive Media Group.
Rose’s departure comes amid questions about how TiVo’s relationship with Virgin Media will change following its acquisition by Liberty Global, which has centered its next-gen video platform on Horizon, which features the NDS (now Cisco) user interface and Samsung-made gateways.
In May, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers toldMultichannel News that he was confident that TiVo’s connection with Virgin Media would remain intact. “They’re working and engaged with us quite closely,” Rogers said of Liberty Global at the time. “The more they’ve dug into the value that TiVo has provided to Virgin in terms of growing subs and reducing churn and really changing the whole competitive balance of the video marketplace in the UK, I think it’s fair to say that Liberty has come to appreciate the value that TiVo brings to Virgin more and more. They’ve gotten increasingly comfortable with how we can provide continued value to Virgin.”
