Dish has appointed veteran advertising executive Kevin Arrix to head up its media sales group.
In his new role as SVP, Arrix will lead operations, analytics and advertising sales for Dish TV and its vMVPD service, Sling TV. He will report to Dish’s EVP of programming and media sales and president of Sling TV, Warren Schlichting.
“Kevin brings with him a wealth of digital and mobile expertise that fits the progression of Dish Media Sales’ offerings,” said Schlichting in a statement. “Kevin will lead a dynamic team that has introduced industry firsts such as household addressable advertising on Dish TV, the rapidly evolving growth in Sling TV’s programmatic sales and cross-platform addressability across both.”
Arrix was formerly chief revenue officer of mobile advertising platform Verve, where he oversaw the build out of the platform’s sales, operations and customer success services. Before that he was CRO for mobile-based entertainment rewards platform Viggle. Arrix also has nearly 20 years of experience in the advertising sales division for several large TV networks, Dish said, most recently as EVP of digital advertising for all MTV Networks brands including Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central.
“I’m excited to lead the team that continues to innovate data-driven video advertising solutions,” said Arrix. “TV viewers are more mobile, TV ads are more digital, and Dish Media Sales has led the way in delivering targeted viewers to advertisers on Dish and Sling.”
During the second quarter Dish lost 192,000 Dish TV customers, while adding about 41,000 Sling TV subscribers. The company ended the period with 10.65 million traditional pay TV subscribers and 2.34 million Sling TV customers.
On the Sling advertising front, Schlichting, on the company’s second-quarter earnings call last week, said Dish is excited about the business. He noted the two key pieces include having high-quality video, “where we know somebody is watching, with all the targeting attributes of digital.”
“Not only have we grown that business and we like that business, but we’ve also struck a number of firsts where we have cross-platform, household addressable advertising that takes advantage of our existing DBS base and combines it with Sling,” Schlichting added.