Interview with Eric Grignon, General Manager of Sky Switzerland

Sky Suisse doubles its sales every year. Meet a man with an entrepreneurial streak who knows how to navigate future media trends. In particular, he shares his vision of the future of streaming platforms and new trends.

Eric Grignon has been CEO of Sky Switzerland since 2017 and a member of the SKY Switzerland SA Board of Directors. He arrived in Switzerland in 1998 to launch the mobile operator Diax. After several years as head of engineering at Nokia and then Orange (now SALT), he was driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and joined DVDFLY in 2009 to create HollyStar, Switzerland's largest independent OTT VOD platform. Married with two children, Eric is passionate about sailing and cooking.

What do you love about streaming?

I've always worked in telecommunications and, for the record, in April 2007, when I was in charge of Orange TV, I was one of the first, if not perhaps the first in Switzerland to buy an Apple TV. At the time, the Apple TV was a big box. To watch a movie, you had to download it. When I plugged it into my TV, I was amazed. I knew it was a disruptive technology that would change the way we watch TV.

In what areas is the Sky Group active?

The Sky Group is an English company with over 25,000 employees in the UK. It's the equivalent of Canal Plus in France, but with added services such as broadband, mobile, fiber optics, insurance and more. It's a very large media company that has expanded across Europe and now operates in 7 European countries. Its Swiss subsidiary is based in Neuchâtel, where Sky Suisse employs around 50 people. It covers most of the country with streaming services (films, series and sports).

What are your main activities, services and products?

In Switzerland, Sky has developed along three lines:

• Sky Sport, our first flagship product. We offer a wide range of sports broadcasts: soccer, golf, tennis, Formula 1, etc., with exclusive rights for certain leagues such as the English Premier League or the German Bundesliga, for example.
• Sky Store lets you rent or buy films and series. Streaming platforms have shifted their focus from movies to series in recent times. But for us, there's no reason to wait two years before seeing a film on TV. That's why we've bought the rights to almost every film after its theatrical release.
• Sky Show is the "series and films" axis based on our own productions, since Universal (Sky and NBC Universal belong to the American COMCAST group) produces a great deal of content. We also have key partnerships with HBO, Sony, StarzPlay and several independent producers. Sky has exclusive distribution rights for HBO series (Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, etc.) in German for Switzerland.

Sky is also Europe's biggest series producer, with 52 series a year, equivalent to one a week. It has the largest production budget in Europe. Sky has produced Gomorrah, Riviera, Chernobyl and Babylon Berlin. We also produced a 100% Swiss series: Tschugger. The first season was a hit in German-speaking Switzerland, and season 2 will be released in September 2022. This is the highest audience rating for a Swiss series in years.
We still have two series in the pipeline, but I can't give you their names.

Why is Sky Suisse based in Neuchâtel, when you have a strong presence in German-speaking Switzerland?

It'sa historical reason. In 2017, Sky acquired HollyStar, which was already based in Neuchâtel. HollyStar was a video-on-demand platform for the whole of Switzerland, offering films and series. And HollyStar was already the logical continuation of DVD Fly, founded in 2003 in Neuchâtel, which enabled DVDs to be rented over the Internet and sent by post. At the time, to watch a film, you had to rent it in a specialized store and return it the next day. DVD Fly was a platform that revolutionized the Internet rental market. With the decline of DVDs, in 2009 we launched HollyStar, which offered film rental, but this time the viewing was streaming and immediately accessible on the Internet.

What is your vision of the future of streaming platforms, and what are the new trends?

People are watching less and less TV and preferring more and more the various streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Sky, Disney Plus. So for me, the future is clearly streaming.
Today, the problem is that there are so many applications and platforms. It's hard to find yourself with so many possibilities, and sometimes you have to juggle to be able to watch the content you want, not forgetting that there's a subscription fee for each app.
The future is to try to combine all these offers on a single interface where you'll find all the content from all the platforms, and which will tell you how to be able to watch all the available seasons of your favorite series. The main aim is to find out how to offer you the right content at the right time, without making you waste time looking for it. The interface's algorithm could also simplify the use of streaming platforms. For example, if you don't watch Netflix for 1 month, you'll be automatically unsubscribed. You won't have to think about doing this, it will be the role of your platform "manager".
What is also developing are "package" offers that will include several platforms with a single price, lower than if you subscribed for each platform individually.

What's the biggest challenge you're facing right now?

Our biggest challenge at the moment is growth. Because we're almost doubling our sales every year, we need more people and therefore new offices. We're in the process of making the transition from a start-up to a large SME.

What kind of people does Sky employ?

In terms of profiles, on the one hand we have the engineers, the company's technical profile, because we do streaming and the applications are developed directly in Neuchâtel. And on the other, we have the people who look after and promote the content, such as the selection of films and series, or sports competitions. Not forgetting our customer service.

What's your favorite place in Neuchâtel?

My favorite place in Neuchâtel is Cortaillod and Les Bains des Dames, because I love the lake so much. They're both just magical places.

What do you think the canton could do to improve its attractiveness?

We need to attract more companies from the service sector in general, because the location is just incredible, with the lake, the mountains and its position in relation to Berne, Geneva or Zurich.
As far as recruitment is concerned, we're lucky that France and cities like Lausanne and Berne aren't far away. On the positive side, once people are here, they stay longer. We have developers who have been here for 10 years. So the framework conditions are really important.
To further develop its attractiveness, more jobs are needed, in my opinion. The settlement of new people would energize the town centers. Personally, I think Neuchâtel still has a lot of potential to develop in this area.

Source: Neuchâtel Economic Department