Clive Dickens leaves radio
By James Cridland for media.info
Posted 9 October 2014, 9.24am bst
Clive Dickens, former COO of Absolute Radio and latterly Director of Digital and Innovation at Australian broadcaster Southern Cross Austereo is to leave the radio business.
He will join Seven West Media as Chief Digital Officer in early 2015.
Seven West Media operates "7", a free-to-air terrestrial television channel across Australia; Australia's second largest magazine group; Yahoo!7, an online portal; and some local media titles in Western Australia, including nine radio stations. It also owns a third of Sky News Australia.
Australian media site Mumbrella reports that he will be leading the company's drive to HBBTV, the connected TV platform that's roughly similar to Freeview Connect here in the UK.
Clive's known in the UK for being the COO of TIML Radio, the company that operated Absolute Radio. He's the co-owner of JACKfm Oxfordshire and sister station Jack2, was the Group Head of Programmes for Capital Radio plc, and worked for eleven years at Chiltern Radio.
Correction - while the SWM website claims the company owns nine radio licences, in a tweet, Clive clarifies they own 21 radio stations. The licences held are all local licences in Western Australia.
Press Release
Seven West Media appoints Chief Digital Officer
9 October 2014 -- Seven West Media Limited today announced the appointment of Clive Dickens as Chief Digital Officer, as the company’s expands on its leadership and further builds the development and integration of its businesses into new forms of content delivery.
Mr Dickens joins Seven from Southern Cross Austereo where he is currently Director of Digital and Innovation, responsible for all strategic and operational aspects of that company’s digital content and digital revenues.
He is also a non-executive director at Digital Radio Broadcasting and an HbbTV Steering Committee member at Freeview Australia.
Mr Dickens joins Seven West Media in early 2015. He will report to the Chief Executive Officer of Seven West Media, Tim Worner.
Commenting, Tim Worner, CEO of Seven West Media, said: “Clive is well-known to the market as a champion of new and emerging digital platforms, and as an identifier of new opportunities for growth. He joins us at an exciting time. Seven West Media has some of the most successful brands and franchises in the country. We are focused on the delivery of our market-leading content anywhere, anytime to the biggest audiences possible. Our drive into new forms of delivery represents an important cornerstone in our strategy and Clive will lead that push with passion.”
Mr Dickens brings extensive digital and broadcasting experience across digital and broadcasting across three decades in Australia, North America, the United Kingdom and Europe to Seven West Media. Prior to joining Southern Cross Austereo, Mr Dickens was a co-founder and non-executive director of Radioplayer, a joint venture between the BBC and UK commercial broadcasters, and Co-Founder and COO at Absolute Radio.
He has also been an adviser to the founders of Shazam and numerous other digital start-ups.
Mr Dickens said: “I am thrilled to be joining Seven West Media and really look forward to working with some of the world’s most compelling brands and channels. Seven creates more premium content than any other Australian media company and I can’t wait to further extend its consumption via more connected devices to even larger audiences.”