Virgin Media hires kids editor

UK pay TV operator Virgin Media has appointed the former head of children’s TV at rival telecoms giant BT to the role of kids and music editor.

Sarah Aspinall

Sarah Aspinall has joined Virgin Media following a year at London start-up Azoomee, the SVoD service founded to address issues around child safety online.

Prior to joining Azoomee as creative director and head of content in November last year, Aspinall spent four years overseeing children’s content at BT.

Before that she spent more than a decade at Turner Broadcasting EMEA and also had a short stint at Discovery Networks.

Virgin Media, a subsidiary of US cable giant Liberty Global, has been expanding its offering to children in the past two months, signing multi-year programming deals with Viacom and Turner.

This year has seen one of Virgin’s pay TV rivals, Sky, grow its presence significantly in the children’s industry after appointing Lucy Murphy as its head of children’s content in late 2015.