BT (NYSE: BT) Vision, still slowly making in-roads in to Sky and Virgin’s pay-TV empires with its hybrid Freeview-IPTV box, is losing its CEO Dan Marks. The service has added 102,000 customers this year to hit 500,000, but Marks tells FT.com and Telegraph.co.uk hitting the target of two to three million by 2011 will be “quite challenging” if Ofcom’s pay-TV review doesn’t grant rivals such as it access to Sky’s movie and football packages.
Ofcom’s hand toward opening up competition may be forced if Setanta goes under, though Guardian.co.uk speculates ESPN (NYSE: DIS) could finally be positioned to get the Premiership rights it covets by buying them from Setanta in a rescue bid. Marks joined BT from Universal Studios in 2005. He will be replaced by Vision’s content and biz dev director Marc Watson. Vision also lost its business director Mark Cranwell to Babelgum in 2008 and Andrew Burke, who set up Vision as CEO of BT Entertainment, in 2006.