Viacom has announced plans to stamp its mark on the UK’s Channel 5.
Its appointed Kerry Taylor as the first ever Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for its operations managed out of the UK, with an immediate brief to oversee a creative rebranding of Channel 5 during the course of 2015.
Jo Bacon, MTV UK’s VP, Marketing and Communications, will take on additional responsibility for marketing at Channel 5, and lead the planning and execution of the rebrand reporting to Taylor.
David Lynn, President of VIMN UK, Australia and Central and Eastern Europe, said: “Kerry is Viacom’s outstanding UK-based marketer and her and Jo’s appointment to oversee the rebrand of Channel 5 demonstrates how we’re combining the best talent and assets of both businesses. Their task will be to capture changing perceptions about the brand amongst lighter viewers as Channel 5 continues to improve programme range and quality and its ratings performance under Ben’s direction.”
Taylor, who joined MTV UK in 2007, has successfully managed the evolution of the core MTV channel to offer a mix of music and general entertainment programming, while expanding MTV’s bouquet of music channels.
In 2002 Channel 5 was rebranded as plain Five, before reverting to Channel 5 in 2010, under then owner Richard Desmond.
Viacom bought Channel 5 in May for £450 million. It has subsequently performed strongly under its new ownership; it was the only major commercial free-to-air network to grow share of viewing amongst all individuals, 16-34s and ABC1s in 2014 and also year-to-date in 2015.
