Freeview is down to two candidates for its new CEO as the TV marketing group prepares to pull all funding for branding campaigns in the next 12 months and postpone an industry-wide online catch-up TV hub.
Freeview CEO Robin Parkes rejected suggestions she was leaving at the end of July but confirmed a new CEO would likely be announced before she left for a month-long holiday during August.
A Freeview board meeting next week is expected to decide on the final candidate.
Parkes is contracted to Freeview until November but may leave earlier if the handover to a new CEO proceeds ahead of schedule. She said Freeview's plans for an industry-wide catch-up TV service involving commercial and public broadcasters was still proceeding but would not launch this year.
"It's absolutely not dead," she told AdNews. "But it's not just about the networks getting together. There are so many external factors – unmetered downloads, the NBN and so-on. I expect it won't be this year."
There has also been speculation that Freeview's TV network backers were set to cut funding for the TV marketing body but Parkes said the "total budget would stay the same" for the next year.
She said there would be a substantial pull-back on Freeview's brand awareness efforts and Freeview funds would divert to "technical funding".
"Awareness [for Freeview] is at 93%," she said. "We don't need awareness – we've ticked all those boxes. We won't be doing the big bang Freeview brand message. There will be more targeted messages and we will be concentrating more in technology developments such as the EPG [electronic program guide]."
Samsung is expected to be the first TV manufacturer to incorporate the Freeview EPG across most of its models in the first quarter of 2012 with others to follow.
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