Pete Distad, who was previously SVP of Marketing and Distribution at Hulu, has officially started his new role as VP of Product Marketing at Apple this month, according to a change to Distad’s LinkedIn page over the last week. Hulu’s executive bios page appears to be down as well, possibly while it’s updated to remove Distad’s bio.
Bloomberg reported in July that it heard Apple was recruiting Distad to lead negotiations as Apple was reportedly close to reaching a deal with Time Warner. At Hulu, Distad was responsible for content distribution and customer acquisition/retention on the company’s management team. That includes “subscriber acquisition and retention, paid, on-channel, and brand marketing, distribution and promotional partnerships, and content marketing.”
In its July report, Bloomberg said that Apple and Time Warner planned to “announce an agreement within a few months” that would bring Time Warner TV shows to the Apple TV. The report claimed Distad was being hired to help with negotiations with cable and media companies.
In June Apple added Time Warner’s HBO GO, as well as WatchESPN, Sky News and more to its existing Apple TV service, but reports over the last year surrounding a much-anticipated revamped Apple TV claimed Apple was hitting various roadblocks with cable companies.
A new report today from Quartz offered some updates on Apple’s continued negotiations with content providers for a pay TV service.
Earlier this week we reported that Apple picked up Levi’s Senior VP Enrique Atienza for its U.S. retail team.
