Liberty Global hires new content chief

Liberty Global has hired Australian TV veteran Bruce Mann to head up its content strategy.

Liberty Global has appointed Mann to the newly created role of managing director, programming, covering all central content and programming, including content investments. He will be based in Amsterdam, and will take up his new role in January 2016.

Mann, who was previously CEO of the now closed-down horseracing pay TV channel TVN, will effectively be the international cable and pay TV group’s head of content and will be charged with developing strategies for units including Virgin Media in the UK and Telenet in Belgium.

TVN, which was set up by various Australian horse-racing interests a decade ago as an alternative to Sky Racing, folded in March this year after Racing New South Wales withdrew its support for the channel.

Before TVN, Mann spent 10 years as CEO of lifestyle, entertainment and kids channels provider XYZnetworks.

Mann was also one of the founding managers of Australian pay TV outfit Austar, whose former CEO, John Porter, is currently CEO of Telenet. Another Australian executive and former Foxtel chief executive, Tom Mockridge, is CEO of Virgin Media.

[This article was updated on December 17 2015 with details of Bruce Mann’s job title, responsibilities and starting date].