JB Perrette, who officially takes over as president of Discovery Networks International in June, talks to Clive Whittingham about the skills he brings to the role and his hopes for the business.

Discovery Communications’ decision ^[1] in January to promote its chief digital officer, JB Perrette, to president of Discovery Networks International (DNI) ahead of longer-serving programme and channel executives within the company could suggest it sees future growth very much in the online space.

But that would be to ignore the experience Perrette gained before his arrival at the factual giant in 2011 – 11 years of it with NBCUniversal. In fact, he rates his digital background as only the fourth of five key skills he believes he brings to the president’s role, which has been held by 23-year Discovery veteran Mark Hollinger since 2007.

“Digital is very important but it’s only one of four or five pillars of my background that, ultimately, are what David Zaslav [president and CEO of Discovery Communications], the board and the leadership team are looking for me to lean on as we continue to grow the DNI business,” says Perrette.

“The others have much more to do with what I have done for the 20 years of my career, and certainly the last 14 in the media business: strategy, business development and distribution, as well as my finance background. Digital is very important to the future of the business but today it’s still a very small portion of the total business.”

Indeed, after a rapid change of digital focus during his three years at the helm, Perrette says the company is only now “on the starting line” in its goal to be the number one non-fiction media company across all screens. Discovery off-loaded its online pet adoption service PetFinder to Nestlé and merged its Tree Hugger website with The Mother Nature Network, then acquired web video start-up Revision3 for a reported US$30m and added internet video mogul Philip DeFranco’s portfolio of online video channels, DeFranco Creative.

“There are things we did well and things we’re still trying to figure out,” he says of his time in the role. “As with all repositioning, it took time to get the team in place. We had to get rid of some businesses that weren’t focused on our core goal and we launched a variety of new networks. I feel great about the refocusing on video, which is what we do in the non-scripted space better than anybody, and getting the portfolio in a better shape.”

However, it’s still early days for the company in the digital world, he says, adding: “We’re only on the first leg of the race. I love the portfolio changes we made, but now we’re getting to the starting line and there’s a lot more to be done.

“In the TV industry as a whole, nobody has figured out how we successfully migrate to the network of the future. I don’t think we’re either behind or ahead in solving that puzzle – like the rest of the industry, we’re still trying to figure out what it is to be a broadcaster or cable network in 2020.”

Perrette is already “in the driving seat” when it comes to taking over from Hollinger and, with the departures ^[2] of MD Julian Bellamy and chief content officer Luis Silberwasser, he will relocate to London next month. He leads the international arm of a company that has recently grown aggressively through mergers and acquisitions.

Discovery concluded a deal worth €1.325bn (US$1.7bn) for 12 SBS Nordic channels belonging to ProSiebenSat.1 Group at the end of 2012. At the same time, it paid €170m for a 20% stake in Eurosport and several other stations belonging to France’s TF1, including TV Breizh, Histoire, Ushuaïa TV and Stylia. This M&A activity was topped earlier this month by Discovery’s deal with Liberty Global ^[3] to buy UK-based production and distribution group All3Media.

The Eurosport deal included an option to take a controlling stake, which Discovery took early advantage of at the start of this year and it now holds 51% of the company. Given that DNI already operates four free-to-air channels in Italy, are we seeing a concerted move, in Europe at least, away from its core pay TV business?

“Clearly, we have broadened the scope of our mission but our primary business will remain pay video and pay TV,” says Perrette. “As we did with SBS and in Italy, we will broaden selectively to grow share in markets where it makes sense – where pay TV hasn’t been as successful or doesn’t have the growth trajectory, or as a complement to continuing to grow our pay TV business. But at the core it’s going to be a focus on the pay TV business.”

Does the Eurosport acquisition mean the costly, highly competitive world of live sports rights is about to welcome a new player? “We have a great content model that works across markets and Eurosport has a lot of similarities, albeit with different content,” says Perrette.

“It’s a great, unique platform and it’s in more than 50 countries across Europe. That footprint is remarkable and very hard to replicate. Content-wise, it does a little bit of local but is very much pan-regional. They try and figure out models where the content will work across markets, which is similar to our strategy.

“Getting into the sport business in an intelligent, smart, strategic way with that kind of platform brings a lot of value to us in many markets in which we already operate. In a changing and increasingly fragmented media landscape, live events and live sports are an important element.”

The value of live events was shown by Discovery’s ratings smash Skywire With Nik Wallenda, a success it hopes to repeat soon with Everest Jump Live. US content such as Raw TV’s Gold Rush and long-running series Cake Boss will continue to be mixed with original programmes ordered by head of production and development Julian Bellamy and his team in London such as Objective Productions’ Breaking Magic. DNI recently brought back Man vs Wild star Bear Grylls to Discovery Channel for the first time since he left over a contract dispute in 2012, commissioning Bear Grylls: Ultimate Survivors (6×60’) from Betty, its London-based production outfit.

DNI’s growth has raised the question of overlapping channels. This is particularly true in Scandinavia, where SBS has lifestyle programming similar to that carried by DNI’s female-oriented lifestyle channel TLC and also plays in the sports space just like Eurosport.

“We believe in strong brands so the audience really knows what they’re going to get when they go to that brand,” says Perrette. “Our SBS portfolio is barely a year old and as the team continues to look at it we will try to refine what the brands mean, how they are positioned and find ways, where appropriate, to complement them. The goal is not to have a ton of brands competing for the same audience but to make them distinct and clear so they have their own identity in each of these markets.”

Growth doesn’t necessarily have to come from acquisitions though. Perrette cites the swift global roll-out of TLC and the expansion of Investigation Discovery in the US as examples that its other channels, such as male-skewing Velocity and Turbo, could follow.

“Despite the fact we’ve clearly been very active in the last 18 months in the acquisitions space, our core is about organic growth,” he says. “By repositioning and rebranding networks to make them more appealing, we have grown our share of audience in the US from the mid single digits to 12%-plus, and we believe the same thing is possible outside the US.”

The company still believes in its ability to grow audiences with “strong brands, universal content” and global distribution that covers 220 territories. “That organic growth story is going to be the core of what we focus on over the next few years,” he adds. “There are still very attractive places for us to continue to grow.”