John Fellet

John Fellet is in charge of Sky Television, New Zealand’s biggest pay television platform. Since joining the company in 1991, he has overseen its expansion from a company with 125 staff and three channels, to more than 1000 staff and 800,000 subscribers.

Fellet’s job involves a highly specialised form of mathematics and crystal ball gazing, where the building blocks are programmes, themed channels, and the prices varied audiences might be willing to pay for them. Having finalised literally thousands of programme deals over the years, Fellet argues his core skill is probably that of estimating the commercial value of rights to a certain programme or product, and how many are likely to watch.

Described by Sunday-Star Times journalist Steve Kilgallon as “self-deprecating, unflappable, wryly funny”, Fellet says he has spent so long in New Zealand that if Sky no longer needed him, he would probably “stay, and coach baseball” . 

Born in Maricopa, close to Arizona’s state capital of Phoenix, Fellet had high hopes of playing the game professionally. After leaving school he won a baseball scholarship to Arizona University, where he studied accountancy and tried a little stand-up comedy. 

Accountancy has always had better odds than baseball. Ending up listed at 28th on the 25 strong list for the revered university team, Fellet used his accountancy degree to get a job at one-time auditing giant Arthur Andersen. Three weeks later came the realisation that he “hated” it. Hauled over the coals after planting two goldfish in the work water cooler, Fellet learnt as he was being shown out the door that there was a job going at Arizona pay TV network TCI. “I was fired into pay TV and it was the best thing that ever happened”. Fellet began as a financial controller. It was 1977, and cable television was still in its infancy, with only three cable channels operating in the United States.

Fellet would go on to do stints across the United States as a fix-it man at various cable TV stations. In 1991 he arrived in New Zealand, after winning the job as Sky’s chief operating officer. Launched the previous year, the company was tens of millions of dollars in the red. Fellet’s biggest challenge on arrival was to get Sky onto “a better flight path”, partly through expanding audiences and available programming, partly through keeping a close eye on costs. 

There was certainly room for more content. On Fellet’s arrival Sky consisted of only three channels — a movie channel with “limited inventory”, American news channel CNN, and sports channel ESPN International, which showed little interest in cricket, netball, rugby and league, the sports that Kiwi audiences were most wedded to. 

In the mid 90s Sky “hit a critical mass, and we were able to go up on the satellite. That really opened the door. We could go up and down the country after that. It took us a while; when we started up, that satellite was very expensive … you just prayed that you got enough subscribers to earn enough money to break even on it. And eventually it happened.”

Sky has become a major player in live coverage of local sports teams. Journalist Steve Kilgallon argues the company “reshaped the sporting landscape, nudging netball and rugby into producing more television-friendly products and leading the trend towards evening sports” that suited Sky’s scheduling.

In February 2006 Sky purchased Prime Television from its Australian owners for $30 million. In this interview for NZ On Screen, Fellet argues the purchase was partly motivated by many television companies long having chosen to sell shows only as part of bulk deals; the purchase of Prime meant such deals made more sense, with some shows broadcast on Sky’s pay channels, and others earmarked to play on the free-to-air Prime. Fellet has also commented that Prime’s weekly rugby coverage provides “a good advertisement” for Sky’s sports coverage.” I couldn't buy that much airtime to promote rugby on free to air."

Fellet has paid tribute to Sky’s low rate of staff turnover; in 2011 he argued that the average employment of his senior managers was 17 years. At that point four of his top executives included two had started at the company in sales, one who began in customer services, and one who had installed Sky decoders.

In an age of more competitors for New Zealand viewers, including Lightbox and Netflix, Sky launched video on demand service Neon in February 2015, and continues to programme channels specifically for New Zealand audiences, including nostalgia channel Jones! and the now wholly Sky-owned Arts channel.

For Fellet, baseball remains part of the mix. He has coached basketball club Howick-Pakuranga to a number of wins in the premiere league, and coached the New Zealand national team. 

 

Sources include
John Fellet
'John Fellet: On navigating 25 years of pay TV in New Zealand...' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Andrew Whiteside. Loaded 8 June 2015. Accessed 8 June 2015
John Drinnan, 'Sky keeping an eye on the TV that started it all' - The NZ Herald, 11 January 2015 
Steve Kilgallon, ‘He’s still Sky high’ (Interview) - The Sunday Star Times, 4 September 2011
'Meet the CEOs: Sky TV's John Fellet' (Video Interview) The NZ Herald website. Interviewer John Drinnan. Loaded 15 October 2013. Accessed 8 June 2015