Regularly described as one of the most powerful women in British broadcasting, Dawn Airey is increasingly exerting a similar influence on the Irish media world. From its somewhat windblown offices in south-west London, BSkyB is slowly chipping away at the previously unassailable position of RTÉ and TV3 in the Irish television market.
As managing director of Sky Networks, 43-year-old Ms Airey has responsibility for programming and content on the full range of Sky's channels. She works closely with James Murdoch, BSkyB chief executive and son of Rupert. Like Murdoch senior, she tends to call a spade a spade, rather than a garden implement.
Although, over the years, some executives in the News Corporation/BSkyB empire have found the atmosphere a trifle abrasive, one gets the impression that Ms Airey is well able to stand her ground. Speaking after launching a new schedule for Sky One at a former warehouse building in Brick Lane, she is full of confidence about the future.
To much fanfare, she moved to Sky 18 months ago. Previously she worked as managing director of Five and before that she was programme director at Channel 4. Because she is not a BSkyB or News Corporation (Murdoch's newspaper group) lifer, Ms Airey is able to see weaknesses where they exist and she is refreshingly candid about the steps BSkyB needs to take the move to the next level of development.
The company's share price has taken a hammering over recent weeks, with the City expressing concern about subscription numbers flattening out. Ms Airey is sanguine about this and says the company has set itself a target of 10 million subscribers by the end of 2010 and simply must meet it.
A renewed drive by Sky for subscribers has implications for Ireland too. Sky Ireland, under director Mark Deering, is already chipping in 323,000 digital subscribers to the overall pot of 7.4 million.
While this looks small on the surface, Ms Airey is aware that Ireland is the main market for BSkyB outside the UK. Although there is a host of cultural and social differences, Sky believes the tastes of Irish and British viewers are roughly similar. Sky executives like to use the phrase "different, but similar" to describe the situation.
Ms Airey expands on this theme: "Every single subscriber is important to us, wherever they are. What's lovely, to be frank, about Irish subscribers is they embraced us very early on. Multi-channel television has been embraced by the Irish far quicker than by the English. You are absolutely key, for a variety of reasons. The Irish market is an important constituency, an important advertising community, but above all you are important viewers, potential new subscribers. We don't have 100 per cent penetration yet for our product, and we'd like that," she states emphatically.
Penetration will be based on attracting viewers to Sky's huge choice of channels, among them Sky News Ireland. Ms Airey is incensed by coverage of Sky News Ireland's ratings. Boiling her argument down, she accuses the press of comparing apples with oranges when they place ratings for Sky News Ireland alongside ratings for RTÉ's two main evening bulletins. "Its an unfair comparison, absolutely unfair, because RTÉ and TV3 have 100 per cent coverage and also they have news within the context of an entertainment schedule. And its not about us not wanting to fight; I'll scrap with anybody. But don't put me up against a 900 pound gorilla, when I'm a completely different beast. So I think its unfair. I see some of the knocking copy as hugely defensive; we must have rattled their cages to have had some of the comments we've had."
Coming from a tradition where the public broadcaster, the BBC, is funded solely from licence fee revenue, Ms Airey finds the dual-funding system used by RTÉ a little baffling. "It is what it is, I suppose. It's like having the cake and the cream on the top, which is very nice for them".
However, she is quick to point out that while RTÉ is a rival, Sky is less about advertising revenue and more about subscription numbers. "Ad revenue is an important part of the ingredient, but it is not the primary one." She expresses satisfaction with ad revenue in Ireland, which is believed to amount to about €19 million per annum.
Asked could Sky's operations grow further in Ireland, Ms Airey is cagey. "Its too early to say - we'd like to bed down the two services we have. But we are always very very open. The great thing about Sky is where we think there is a subscriber appetite, we'll respond to it."
She says Sky Ireland now counts 10 per cent of the population as a subscriber. She wants this to increase, but realises it will be difficult. Sky is particularly keen to target the group loosely known as the "refuseniks", those people who do not see Sky as relevant to them.
Consequently Sky is concentrating on getting people interested in its educational offerings and family-friendly channels: put simply, its less Ibiza Uncovered and more Discovery specials on Ancient Egypt.
The success of Sky Sports has a downside, many contend, making the Sky brand too synonymous with blokeish programming and alienating female customers. But Ms Airey says the key is make Sky all things to all people.
"The interesting thing about Sky Sports, and one of the interesting challenges for the whole company, is getting multiple set-top boxes into the home. If the male is watching sport in the home, there is still huge amounts of alternatives for others in the house. But you can't access it if you've only got one box. So we are actively marketing additional set top boxes in the home."
Asked is Sky Ireland likely to offer further advertising opt-outs, she replies: "Wherever there is an audience and we can make some sort of commercial sense out of it, then we'll do it." However, she thinks it's unlikely that opt-outs will be offered on Sky's various movie channels in the years ahead.
With reported subscription revenue from the Irish market of €150 million, Sky Ireland is doing very nicely thank you. But the company is not getting everything its own way.
The company is deeply unhappy with the audience measurement system used in Ireland. This system, operated by Nielsen, is controlled by the domestic broadcasters like TV3 and RTÉ. However, the data produced do not include figures for TV viewing by platform.
In other words Sky, despite paying a third of the cost of the system, claims it cannot get information on what channels people are watching when they access Sky Digital. "It is absolutely crazy. We would like to see the figures, but advertisers need to see them even more so they can make properly informed decisions," says Ms Airey.
She warns that if domestic broadcasters do not respond to these concerns, Sky will have to commission its own audience research.
Ms Airey was speaking this week after launching the autumn schedule of Sky One. The channel's ratings have been plummeting in the UK, but she believes a subtle re-positioning in the market should address the trends.
"Sky One has done a magnificent job, but for a period of time it has very much been a youth-orientated, 16-to-24-year-old, one-note channel. Something started happening about five years ago where we lost our edge. Reality TV came along and we should have been riding that tidal wave but we weren't. So a whole host of other channels came along. The channel didn't move with the times in the way it should."
With her background in Five and Channel 4, Ms Airey is seeking to put the station back on the right path. "I took the view that we should just broaden our appeal. People pay for Sky One. Sky One is not a free channel. Sky One is a premium entertainment channel and what we need to do is actually compete, particularly with the terrestrial channels in terms of quality."
She denies the changes are about dragging the channel upmarket. "We are going for a slightly older age group."
Name: Dawn Airey
Position: Managing Director, Sky Networks
Age: 43
Role: As boss of Sky Networks she controls a budget of £881 million (€1308 million). Her responsibilities include advertising sales and all of Sky's non-sports programming including Sky News, Sky Movies, Sky One and Sky's various music channels. She has also been heavily involved in Sky's expansion into Ireland and regularly travels to Dublin to talk to the advertising industry here.
Why is she in the news? Has just unveiled Sky One's autumn line-up in an attempt to reverse a ratings slump.
