Internet television startup service Pluto TV has announced that Ken Parks, former content chief of the streaming music service Spotify, is joining the company as executive chairman in October of this year.
Variety reports that aside from being the chairman of Pluto TV's board of directors, Parks will take on other aspects of the streaming site's business, including content, distribution, and monetization efforts.
Before formally joining Pluto TV's board, Parks has served as an advisor to the streaming music startup since 2014. Parks will still work with Spotify in an advisory capacity to CEO Daniel Ek after the transition.
Parks was Spotify's first US employee, according to MusicBusinessWorldwide.com, having joined the company in 2011 as managing director, and eventually, as head of the Swedish company's US operations. He was instrumental in securing deals with record labels for licensing content, by way of his experience as a lawyer for the music industry.
Replacing Parks in his post at Spotify will be Stefan Blom, currently Chief Strategy Officer for the company.
In a statement, Tom Ryan, Co-founder and CEO of Pluto TV, said of Parks, "Ken's experience in building a successful global entertainment service will be invaluable to us as we capitalize on our strong momentum to rapidly grow Pluto TV. With Ken's expertise, Pluto TV is ready to deliver the best digital TV platform for consumers."
"I believe Pluto TV has an enormous opportunity to define the future of television and online video," Parks said in a separate statement issued by the company. "The timing is perfect for Pluto TV to reach massive global scale and become one of the premier consumer video platforms in the world."
Launched in 2013, Pluto TV aggregates and curates content from different sources on the web, then organizes them into categories such as music, entertainment, sports, and comedy. The company signed a deal in early July with Hulu that would allow Pluto TV viewers to stream new and old Hulu content from a variety of networks.
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