Firstlight Media is launching a new incubator and accelerator for OTT streaming services and it’s found a former Disney and Discovery executive to run it.
Paul Pastor, who previously worked in a variety of strategy and operations roles at Disney and Discovery, is joining the streaming services provider as co-founder and chief business officer. He'll be helping the company speed up growth in the OTT streaming segment by working with Tier 1 providers and Firstlight’s current customers. He will also lead business and corporate development, sales and marketing for the company.
"Paul Pastor's limitless vision of what television engagement can be and his understanding of how to bring that to viewers have fueled networks' growth throughout his career," said Andre Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Firstlight Media, in a statement. "Our OTT accelerator will extend Firstlight Media's value beyond Tier 1 clients by harnessing Paul's success with major brands and his entrepreneurial expertise to benefit new entrants who are on Tier 1 trajectories."
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Besides his work at Disney, where he lead investment and operations for Hulu, Pastor also previously launched TVPASS, an aggregation service for discovery and content access across multiple SVOD services; and Unite Broadcast Ventures, a SaaS OTT platform supporting European local market streaming joint ventures.
"As industry trends accelerate toward OTT services, media companies are quickly finding out that content alone does not ensure success," said Pastor in a statement. "The goal of our accelerator initiative is to provide OTT services of all sizes with what's needed to compete and win: scalable product, data and technology that can reduce customer acquisition costs and churn, optimize the lifetime value of the consumer, and ensure long term growth."
In March, Firstlight Media partnered with Highview Capital Partners to buy Quickplay, a company specializing in distributing video content to connected devices, from AT&T. Firstlight CEO Christensen previous served as Quickplay’s chief operating officer and AT&T’s head of product development.