The Premier League’s "renewed hunt" for a new CEO is continuing to focus on the broadcasting industry, "despite knockbacks from two leading TV figures," according to Mark Sweney of the London GUARDIAN. Several other top execs of major TV companies are also under consideration. Darren Childs, the CEO of UKTV, the owner of the Dave channel, and Richard Halton, the recently-departed CEO of YouView, the TV service jointly-owned by a number of the U.K.’s biggest TV companies and telecoms, are understood to be "under consideration for a new list of candidates being drawn up." Some major Premier League clubs had urged outgoing BT CEO Gavin Patterson "to step forward but he did not apply for the role." Having not been involved in the process to date, he is "not tainted by the politics of not being the first-choice candidate," which could offer an "elegant solution" for the Premier League if he were persuaded to change his mind. The EPL is "not looking for a direct replacement for Scudamore," who held the role of exec chair, intending to follow "best corporate practice and split the roles" between a CEO and chair. Childs has run UKTV, which owns 10 paid and free-TV channels as well as on-demand service UKTV Play, since '10 and has overseen a TV ratings "surge" that has driven profits from £29M to £91M ($120M). Halton has spent most of the past decade as the CEO of YouView, the internet TV service jointly owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, which is now in more than 3 million U.K. homes. In broadening the search, industry sources point to the experience, and "convenient availability," of Dawn Airey, 58, who recently returned to the U.K. after running Getting Images in N.Y. for three years (GUARDIAN, 1/27).
