NEW YORK, May 4, 2004 – Rainbow Entertainment Services announced today that Todd Tarpley has joined the organization as Vice President, Content and Packaging for AMC/IFC/WE Digital Media. In this newly-created position, Tarpley will oversee content creation and packaging for all digital products and services, including consumer and trade web sites, video on demand, digital set-top box offerings and other interactive products. He will report directly to Cynthia Burnell, Senior Vice President/General Manager, Digital Media for AMC/IFC/WE/WorldPicks.
“Todd is one of our industry’s most successful digital media innovators, with a tremendous track record of creating and building profitable products and services,” Burnell said. “The addition of Todd’s expertise and vision further solidifies what we believe to be the strongest digital media unit in the industry, given our successful track record in developing and marketing on-demand entertainment and digital services. He is an important addition to our digital management team.”
In his role at Rainbow Entertainment Services, Tarpley will service the digital media needs of AMC, IFC and WE through the management of an in-house content packaging unit. The unit will determine the most effective methods of creating, storing, repurposing and deploying content for digital media across all three brands, maximizing synergystic opportunities and the full leveraging of content and brand strengths. Under Tarpley’s direction, the unit also will serve as a champion of the end-user to ensure a quality user experience.
Tarpley joins IFC Companies from Tarpley Media, a company he formed in 2003 to provide strategic planning and business development consulting services to clients including IFC/Rainbow Media and Court TV. His work for IFC/Rainbow Media included strategic planning, budgeting and operational management of the interactive department.
Before forming Tarpley Media, Tarpley was Vice President, Interactive Media at Bravo Networks. In this position, he managed Bravo’s interactive division and increased the network’s customer database by 125 percent. He also served on the NBC transition team following its acquisition of the cable network.
Tarpley also served as Vice President, Interactive for A&E Television Networks, where he established
the company’s interactive division and oversaw content, marketing, ad sales, e-commerce and business development for the unit. At A&E, he successfully negotiated and implemented partnerships with AOL, Yahoo, Barnes & Noble, DoubleClick and many other content providers, and developed a customer database of more than one million names.
Earlier in his career, Tarpley served as Manager, Research & Planning for The History Channel and as a Market Strategy Consultant for Viacom Entertainment Group.