• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 7, 2013

Dish Network has expanded the role of Dave Shull to include product management, marketing and ad sales, giving him duties central to the AutoHop DVR feature. Shull, now chief commercial officer, has spent years in programming and content acquisition.

The AutoHop is a feature on Dish’s Hopper DVR that allows for automatic removal of commercials and has prompted major networks to sue the satellite operator. Shull will continue to oversee negotiations with operators on carriage deals -- a role that will include looking to hammer out a new deal with ESPN later this year.

Executives reporting to Shull include James Moorhead, CMO; Warren Schlichting, senior vice president of media sales and analytics; and Vivek Khemka, senior vice president of product management. Moorhead has overseen marketing of the Hopper, while Khemka helped shepherd it to market.

Shull came to Dish in 2004 as an assistant to then-CEO Charlie Ergen.

Dish also said Thursday that Bernie Han, its COO, will expand his duties to include oversight of direct and indirect sales and distribution. Han, who held a CMO role at America West Airlines, became COO in 2009 after serving as CFO.

CEO Joe Clayton, who has sought to alter Dish’s image from one of simply offering the lowest prices for pay-TV service to an innovator in customer opportunities, stated that the company is in a “brand and cultural transformation.”

For Shull, the Hopper might offer a chance to innovate in ad sales -- at least if he can get angry networks to go along. Chairman Charlie Ergen recently indicated the Hopper might help deliver addressable advertising.

“It makes sense then to give people more targeted ads that are more meaningful to them, which means you could run less commercials and … you actually could make more money on that revenue stream,” Ergen said.
 
He added that the “broadcast industry is slow to adapt to that.”

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