C15 Studio has poached a top advertising sales executive from Fubo to lead the company’s ambitious advertising initiatives in a similar role.
Chris Flatley will work as the Vice President of Advertising Sales for C15 Studio, with his office based in New York City. He previously served in the same role for Fubo TV after joining that company from Echostar’s Sling TV in 2019.
Flatley’s hiring was announced on the social media platform LinkedIn, and confirmed by C15 Studio CEO Joe Nilsson on Monday.
Last month, C15 Studio emerged from stealth mode and revealed itself as the developer and distributor behind four free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels dedicated to Tier 1 and Tier 2 sports franchises.
C15 Studio maintains offices in Dublin and London, but is focused on distributing its first initial FAST channels in the United States, which it considers to be a more-mature ad-supported streaming market. The company has hired a number of executives and senior managers away from sports media brands like Sky Group and Viaplay, to ensure its FAST channels are developed and programmed like legacy sports TV networks.
“No one came to our business having made FAST channels before,” Nilsson said last month. “Everyone who came to our business has made sports TV channels before.”
Two months ago, C15 Studio launched its first three FAST channels — F1 TV (Formula 1), Triton Poker and Squash TV — with distribution on Amazon’s Freevee, Samsung TV Plus and Paramount’s Pluto TV. The company is working to launch a new channel dedicated to One Championship mixed martial arts events, and is in the process of inking distribution deals with other platforms that could be announced in the coming months.
When asked if C15 Studio sought cable-like retransmission consent fees from platforms like Pluto TV and Freevee for carriage of Formula 1 and other channels, Nilsson said he couldn’t divulge that information. But he said the type of intellectual property that C15 Studio works with, coupled with sponsorship obligations on behalf of the sports franchises themselves and certain accessibility requirements like closed captioning, makes for a complicated arrangement where C15 Studio has to ensure a platform is able to tick all the boxes required to bring top-tier programming to viewers.
“There’s a decent chunk of paperwork to get through,” Nilsson said.
C15 Studio is financially backed by a consortium of venture capital firms, including KB Partners, Sharp Alpha Advisors and Raptor Group. In a statement, a spokesperson for Sharp Alpha Advisors praised the company and its executives for developing and deploying a “durable, scalable business that sits at the epicenter of several important trends and tailwinds.”
“Look out for them to continue to announce new sports channels and streaming partnerships,” the spokesperson said.
