Eric Phillips
Discovery Comm’s CEO David Zaslav has called his contributions “immeasurable,” and we’re inclined to agree that President, Domestic Distribution Eric Phillips remains a vital component to the company’s revenue and carriage growth. Not only does he lead carriage negotiations for Discovery’s domestic portfolio of 14 nets, but he also oversees the business unit’s budgetary, legal and finance compliance efforts. In every way, Phillips gets it done. With the help of his team, his portfolio was the fastest-growing in all of cable for 2013, a year that included tough negotiations with Time Warner Cable—but an exercise that resulted in Discovery’s first TV Everywhere deal. He also worked with affiliates to supercharge Shark Week, launching customer loyalty/reward programs, VOD promotions, retail store events, local market screenings, Pay-Per-View movie tie-ins and digital/social media campaigns just to name a few. The results were powerful totaling $3M in unpaid media and over 65M impressions. And that’s very measurable.