Gary Cole, who quit as ITV.com’s head of revenue in March after watching that crazy £150 million online sales target evaporate, is back in the saddle, joining ITN’s funny clips aggregator Diagonal View as commercial director.
Eighteen-month-old Diagonal View was below our radar’s until we were briefed on it late last year, but it’s quickly been getting big traffic. It’s a 50/50 JV between ITN and former Mobix Interactive CEO Matt Heiman, who mines the ITN Source wire for amusing videos then repackages them on three video channels fixed on YouTube, MySpace, MSN, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and others – the eponymous Diagonial View, animal channel Uzoo and celeb strand The A-List. With 30 million UK and US plays a month, that’s a good sized online advertising opportunity.
Cole had been Telegraph Media Group digital revenue head before joining ITV in October 2007.