Chan, Burnette rise in SWM restructure SEVEN West Media chief executive Tim Worner has announced his long-expected business restructure, with Kurt Burnette and Nick Chan both taking on new roles. Burnette has been promoted to chief revenue officer while Chan becomes chief operating officer. Chief executive officer, Western Australia, Chris Wharton, continues to report to Worner, leading the company's print assets in Western Australia. The Seven Network CEO role previously occupied by Worner has effectively been phased out. Rohan Lund, whose decision to resign as chief operating officer was revealed by The Australian last month, will move to a transitioning role to complete several projects. The changes represent the first major move by Worner since he was appointed in July, replacing Don Voelte, who has since become CEO and managing director of Kerry Stokes's diversified investment company Seven Group. The creation of the new roles is an attempt to capture new revenue opportunities in the digital age, and reposition a business that is largely built on the back of a free-to-air broadcaster for emerging platforms. Seven plans to launch a broadcast-broadband TV (Hbb TV) service in May 2014, a sign of the evolution free-to-air broadcasters are beginning to undergo. But despite efforts to develop new delivery mechanisms for content and programming, Worner said "story telling" was as potent as ever. "Our greatest strength is our content and the audiences our content delivers," Worner said in a statement. We are focused on building from these strengths to create and deliver more content and commercialise that content across new and emerging platforms. Worner said the new structure would create a "leaner operating model" and "create and nurture synergies" across Seven's television, digital, newspaper, magazine and radio assets. He acknowledged that the changes were partly in response to a more competitive local media landscape, in which overseas media companies were targeting local audiences and advertisers. The new competitive threat includes companies that have not yet arrived, such as streaming giants Hulu and Netflix, and established players such as social media websites Facebook and Twitter, which are beginning to play on the periphery of the television ad market. "We are listening intently to our customers whether they be viewers, readers or advertisers and we are setting up our business for the way it will need to operate in the next few years," Worner said. Burnette, a long-serving Seven executive who has risen through the ranks and was previously chief sales and digital officer for Seven, will be responsible for growing the company's current revenue streams and establishing new revenue opportunities including HbbTV, and the mooted launch of an online video movie and program service. "Kurt has been enormously successful in creating a culture of innovation within our television sales teams and will now do this across our businesses, leading group sales, data and analytics, Yahoo!7 and our push into Hbb TV and video on demand," Worner said. In the new role, Burnette will oversee non-digital initiatives beyond television, with responsibility for an "incubator" to generate new revenue opportunities. "I have never been more excited about the future of this company and where it is heading," Burnette said. Worner said Chan's role had been expanded and all key aspects of Seven's content creation and delivery would now report to him. The promotion broadens Chan's remit beyond magazine publishing, in which he has worked in for 25 years. He joined Seven's magazine business Pacific Magazines in 2004, having previously been CEO of Eric Beecher's Text Media Group. "Nick has done an outstanding job of managing a publishing business through the structural headwinds and we welcome him taking on this new challenge as he applies his skills and experience on a much broader scale," Worner said. Worner said Chan would be responsible for driving synergies between assets, as well as the ongoing reorganisation of the company's back-office functions as the company continued its cost-cutting program. "I am looking forward to the challenges of this new role," Chan said. Our great content has been our competitive advantage and the opportunity to work with all our businesses to drive, share and leverage our content is very exciting. Four key roles remain unchanged: those of commercial director, Bruce McWilliam; chief financial officer, Dave Boorman; group chief, corporate and regulatory affairs, Bridget Fair; and group human resources director, Melanie Allibon. All four Seven executives will continue to report to Worner.