Change at the top of SBS Netherlands

Eric van Stade, CEO of SBS Broadcasting in the Netherlands, has left over a “difference of opinions” in the wake of Sanoma and Talpa Media’s buy-out of the business.

Van Stade (left) has been replaced by Georgette Schlick, who will become the first female CEO of a Dutch broadcasting company when she takes over on October 24.

Schlick joins from multimedia facilities company DutchView, where she has been CEO for the past three years.

Van Stade is an SBS veteran, having joined the company in 1999 as channel manager of SBS6. He started his TV career in the Netherlands at John de Mol Productions in 1989, prior to the creation of Endemol, where he subsequently worked as an exec producer.

Ironically, his departure from SBS comes as a result of de Mol’s Talpa joining forces with Finnish media firm Sanoma earlier this year to buy out ProSeibenSat.1’s Dutch SBS-branded channels.

Sanoma and Talpa announced van Stade’s exit in a statement this afternoon, saying he was leaving “because of a difference of opinion as to how the company should move forward.”

Sanoma owns a majority 67% stake in SBS Netherlands, with Talpa holding the other 33%. Talpa agreed to shed its 26.3% share in SBS rival RTL Nederland in the summer as a precondition of the tie-up with Sanoma, which at the same time bought out ProSieben’s Belgian SBS business.

The acquisitions signaled the Finnish company’s intent on becoming a much bigger player on the international broadcasting stage, and the creation last year of a merged publishing and TV channels business called Sanoma Media.

That unit was shuffled in August following the completion of the SBS buy-outs, with Aimé Van Hecke installed as head of Sanoma Media Belgium and Dick Molman as head of Sanoma Media Netherlands.

Molman didn’t comment further today on van Stade’s departure but focused on the new CEO. “Sanoma and Talpa are happy to get Georgette Schlick as part of our team,” he said.

“We unanimously agreed that Georgette should be the one to lead SBS. She is friendly and decisive at the same time. Exactly what we need at SBS to conquer the challenges that the company faces now and in the years to come to increase its market share.”