Jeff Weber, president of content and advertising sales at AT&T (NYSE: T)--the driving force and public face of the U-verse IPTV business--is moving to a new position within the company, AT&T confirmed.
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Weber (Image source: AT&T) |
"Aaron Slator has been appointed president, content and advertising sales for AT&T. Slator replaces Jeff Weber, who has assumed a special project role at AT&T. Slator is responsible for video content strategy for the company's U-verse advanced IPTV offerings, and advertising sales for all AT&T platforms including TV, broadband and wireless," an AT&T spokesperson wrote, confirming a report that appeared in Media Post.
Slator takes over for the man who basically got U-verse off the ground, continually defended the notion that DSL provided enough bandwidth to adequately deliver a package of broadband, video and voice and essentially served as the public face of the IPTV business unit.
In a 2010 Q&A with FierceIPTV, Weber explained how advanced DSL technologies such as pair-bonded VDSL would accelerate the growth of the then-nascent IPTV service.
"It's a big deal," Weber said, calling the technology "a really important tool to continue to expand our footprint and make sure we can deliver service to our customers. It's a great technology, really cool technology underneath it, but at the end of the day, if you're a customer, what it means is, maybe, you couldn't get service before and you can now. We think the technology is cool because it's efficient and a good way to get you the service. As a customer, it's the same service and now we can deliver it to customers we couldn't otherwise. It's a very big deal to us, we're very focused on it, and we're thrilled with it and the performance we're seeing. If you're the customer, you just got service and, fine, you're really happy."
The emphasis on customer service and the features of IPTV were a given part of any conversation with Weber. More recently that customer service focus shifted from technology to content--and what the carrier is willing to pay for it.
"We are not going to pay prices … we are not carrying certain regional sports networks in one of our biggest markets … and we knew we didn't need to because the data was crystal clear about how intense those viewers were," Weber said at the Nomura Global Media Summit in New York City this month.
For more:
- MediaPost has this story
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