BiggerStage
TV3 and Virgin Media veteran Pat Kiely sees opportunity in marrying TV content and brands under the BiggerStage umbrella, writes Siobhán O’Connell
Former Virgin Media TV boss Pat Kiely is bringing TV content, funding and talent together under one roof
Television stations and streaming companies have an insatiable appetite for content and there’s no shortage of suppliers beating down their door. The latest venture to join this competitive fray is BiggerStage, led by former Virgin Media Television boss Pat Kiely.
Kiely’s career started in advertising agencies and he became poacher turned gamekeeper when taking on the ad sales role at TV3 when the station launched in 1998. He progressed to becoming the station’s commercial director, and was managing director after the station was bought by Virgin Media five years ago.
Kiely (52) departed Virgin in June 2020 and has now moved to the production and supply side of programming. He’s joined in the startup by Sean O’Riordan, who has a track record of developing factual entertainment formats and documentary series; talent agent Jane Russell; and Jamie Macken, who brokered Heineken’s sponsorship of Clubhouse for VMTV and AIB’s sponsorship of The Toughest Trade for RTÉ.
Kiely sees an opportunity in bringing together programme nous, talent and commercial relationships, under the one roof. “At TV3 I was challenged with finding creative and innovative ways of funding the business through good times and bad,” Kiely explains. “We also developed some terrific content propositions, and a big part of that was developing wider opportunities in the areas of collaboration and international opportunity.
“That experience has informed the BiggerStage proposition. There’s a terrific opportunity within Ireland for a television business that has content, funding and talent under the one brand to really join the dots and give the industry an opportunity to look outward. And also to develop a terrific local business working with local operators.”
Kiely and his colleagues are eschewing the drama arena in favour of documentaries and light entertainment. “Sean O’Riordan’s background is in scripted documentary and factual entertainment. We will initially stay focused in the unscripted space. That is where we see a terrific opportunity for the business,” says Kiely.
“We’ll be developing and creating content under our own brand and we will also collaborate and partner with third parties. We have a number of projects in the pipeline which are a combination of internal productions and collaboration projects. The customer base for great content is expanding, and it is becoming an increasingly more international opportunity.”
Given his commercial background, it’s not surprising that Kiely also has a focus on advertiser-funded programming. He says it’s the fastest growing funding opportunity in the UK at the moment, as broadcasters seek out cheaper progammes while brands look for cut-through using novel ways of reaching audiences.
According to Kiely: “I think advertiser-funded programming needs to step up and use the sophistication within the market, from advertisers and ad agencies, and the content side. Within the BiggerStage team we have specialised skills that we believe can fuse this together.”
BiggerStage is so called because Kiely is looking beyond the domestic market, and he’s hoping that this message will resonate with the talent required to make successful programmes. “Our model is about empowering Irish talent to play in a bigger stage. We see talent as not only working with us collaboratively on their own development, but talent having a contribution to the development pipeline on the content side. We plan to work very hard on ensuring that development opportunity exists.”