Management changes at Discovery’s Eurosport

Julien Bergeaud

Discovery-owned Eurosport has made a series of exec changes including a new global content chief and new country manager for France.

Julien Bergeaud becomes senior VP and country manager for France, taking overall charge of both the Eurosport and Discovery businesses in the territory.

He will oversee channel management, sports rights (for France and southern Europe) and commercial functions, reporting to Marinella Soldi, president and managing director, Discovery Networks Southern Europe.

Bergeaud has been with Eurosport since 1999 and been director of rights acquisitions and was most recently development director, launching local Eurosport feeds in France, Benelux and Turkey.

Former Eurosport France boss Arnaud Simon will move from managing director, to senior VP, content and production, across the Eurosport Group.

In his new role, the twenty-year company veteran will, Eurosport said, “develop new standards in global production values, partnering closely with the local markets to ensure Eurosport’s content and the expression of its brand values are executed consistently across all markets”.

On the distribution side of the business, Laurent Prud’Homme has been promoted to senior VP, rights acquisitions and syndication. He will identify the rights Eurosport need and work across local and pan-regional rights deals for the sport channel.

Joining from Turner’s news channel CNN, Jonathan Davies, has been hired as managing director, advertiser partnerships for Eurosport and Discovery in Europe. At CNN, he was executive VP, CNN International, running global ad sales and ad-funded programming.

Peter Hutton, CEO of Eurosport, said: “Today’s announcement is a strengthening of Eurosport’s leadership team that will transform our business and drive world-class standards in sports programming, production, promotion and platforms.”