Ascent Media is to restructure its facilities and management team in a move which its European managing director, Brenda Smith, said will simplify the company's operations and turn its facility brands into complementary rather than competitive businesses.
Ascent Media is to restructure its facilities and management team in a move which its European managing director, Brenda Smith, said will simplify the company's operations and turn its facility brands into complementary rather than competitive businesses.

The US-owned company's commercial post-production houses, One Post and Rushes, will undergo the biggest change. One Post will focus on film services such as digital intermediate (DI) work, while its commercials offerings will move into Rushes.

To support the restructure the senior management team has been redefined within Ascent' s Creative Services division - which includes St Anne's, Todd AO, Soho Images, One Post and Rushes.

Paul Jones, currently managing director at One Post and Soho Images, is moving to the helm of the division - taking on an expanded role as managing director covering St Anne's Post and Todd-AO in addition to his existing portfolio.

Reporting to Jones will be current head of St Anne's Post, Keith Williams, who will now assume responsibility for the operations of the division as vice-president of operations. Jones will also oversee Sam Webb who will remain at Todd AO as general manager, overseeing Ascent Media's lab and post facilities in Camden. Joce Capper will remain managing director at Rushes.

Smith said the move was necessary to reduce competition between its various facilities - which had a long history of rivalry that pre-dated their purchase in 2000 by Ascent owner John Malone's Liberty Media group.

A former managing director of Granada Television, Smith hoped the restructure would counter Ascent's public perception as "a faceless corporation" which tried to be "the biggest player in the market". She added that the company's broad structure had also been confusing to clients who were often unsure of its offerings because of its many lines of business.

Smith told Broadcast that Ascent, which employs around 1,100 staff in the UK, proposed to change the structure of the business "without a big bang or slashing jobs".

While she admitted that there had been "around four or five" redundancies at Todd AO's site in September she denied that they were related to the new restructure. "Every six months we continually look at our staffing levels... to move and refresh is not a bad thing necessarily."

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