Sky's Managing Director of Content Gary Davey will be in conversation with Managing Director of Sugar Films, Pat Younge.
For the last year Gary Davey has been responsible for Sky’s entertainment, movies and news channels in the UK – as well as overseeing the entire entertainment offering of Sky Deutschland.
Gary’s long career in pay TV has seen him occupy senior roles in Italy, Hong Kong and the USA – as well as a previous stint at Sky.
"This is my perfect job.” During more than 40 years in television, Gary Davey has worked across the board – from taking charge of all content and creative services at Sky Germany, to being the CEO of Hong Kong-based Star TV.
But it is only now, as CEO of Sky Studios, that he feels like he is in his dream role: as “the gamekeeper turned poacher – having been a broadcaster all my life and now being a supplier”.
Gary Davey, CEO of Sky Studios, joins journalist Kirsty Wark in conversation as part of the RTS Digital Convention 2020.
Gary talks about doing his dream job, content in local and global markets and the way he’s working with the production community.
He said he would not emulate Netflix and Amazon who had respectively agreed exclusive contracts with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
“The idea of having a talent deal is dangerous,” said Davey, who singled out Sky’s I Hate Suzie, HBO's The Undoing and Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit as among his favourite current shows.
“What matters first is the story and then finding the right people - whether it’s the writers, producers, directors, cinematographers.
Overseen by Gary Davey, the current Managing Director of Sky UK, Sky Studios will build on the broadcaster’s recent run of successful drama series including Chernobyl and the RTS award-winning Save Me.
The new Europe-wide development and production capability has received backing from Sky’s new owners, Comcast, and will create new productions for outlets including Sky channels, NBC Broadcast and Cable, and Universal Pictures.
Watch the full video from In Conversation with... Gary Davey. The early evening event was hosted by the Managing Director of Sugar Films, Pat Younge.
Gary Davey is one of pay-TV’s most experienced executives. He was part of the team that launched Sky TV in the late 1980s. Now, after holding senior positions in Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland and Star TV (when he was based in Hong Kong), he is back in the UK. He was appointed Sky’s Managing Director for Content in January 2015.
Watch highlights from the Royal Television Society's Early Evening Event with Sky's Managing Director of Content Gary Davey which was chaired by Sugar Films' Managing Director Pat Younge.
During the event Davey said that TV channels are here to stay when Younge asked about whether Sky are worried about the competition from Netflix and Amazon.
Speaking at an RTS Early Evening Event Davey said that despite the proliferation of ways of watching content linear channels would continue to survive.
“Channels will always be around. | cannot see a future where they don’t exist,” said Davey, a pay TV veteran who was part of the team that helped establish the pioneering satellite broadcaster in the early 1990s.
“There is a revolution going on but it’s happening a lot slower than people think…
