Leading U.K. commercial radio group GCap Media has made a high-profile appointment to the new role of group director of online and interactive operations: Robin Pembrooke leaves his position as director of product operations for Yahoo Europe, where he had planned local launches for Yahoo Eurosports, Yahoo Answers, the new homepage and video player. At GCap, Pembrooke will be responsible for turning the group’s radio stations into what the company has, of late, been calling “best-in-class destinations” across the web, mobile, digital TV and radio.
The company is making some interactive investments this year, including hiring new web teams and the addition of web-based catch-up and personalization features, after seeing successive major revenues coming from online rather than radio advertising. This appointment – Pembrooke will report right in to GCap MD Fru Hazlitt – shows GCap is now getting increasingly serious about improving its online offerings. Previously, its online efforts were led by a dual marketing-and-interactive director, but that executive, Jim Cruickshank, is leaving to join Multimap. Before Yahoo, Pembrooke worked on CRM software for consultancies.