ROO Group, which provides Internet-video-syndication services, recruited three media executives to join its U.S. management team.
Bert Solivan, previously general manager of FOXNews.com and an executive vice president at Fox Interactive Media, was named ROO’s executive VP and GM in charge of all U.S. operations.
Paula Balzer, formerly chief marketing officer at Clear Channel Entertainment, joined ROO as CMO.
And Rick Gell, cofounder of media-rights-clearance firm Second Line Search (now part of Corbis), was appointed chief content officer.
The three executives will report to ROO president and chief operating officer Steve Quinn.
ROO said it made the appointments in preparing to expand into the business-to-consumer market and launch peer-to-peer and user-generated-content applications. The company plans to add “major brands, Web-original and multilanguage content” to its core collection of short video clips.
One of ROO’s biggest customers is News Corp., which earlier this year took a 5% equity stake in the company.
ROO -- based in New York with operations in Los Angeles, London and Australia -- was founded in 2001 and went public in 2003. The company posted revenues of $9.8 million and a net loss of $14.6 million for 2006.
