Laurie Patton is an Australian media, IT and events industry executive. In 2010 Patton was a member of an Expert Panel for a review of the Australian Government's investment in the Indigenous broadcasting and media sector. In 2011 he was appointed a Special Advisor by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to assist in the implementation of the Review's recommendations.
Patton is Executive Director of the Television Sydney Foundation (2009 - 2012) and Executive Director / Principal of Conexion Event Management,[1] a Sydney based conference and exhibition company (2004 - 2012). He is also a non-executive director of the National Heart Foundation of Australia (NSW Division) (2006 - 2012) and chair of the Foundation's National Fundraising Committee.
From 2004 to 2010 Patton was the inaugural Chief Executive of free-to-air community television station TVS (Television Sydney). Patton joined TVS shortly after the company was awarded its broadcast licence, bringing together a small team of industry professionals and volunteers to create a digital broadcast operations centre and launch the channel in February 2006. In February 2009 TVS became the first Australian television channel to simultaneously stream continuously live on the Internet and on 1 March 2010 became the first community channel to simulcast in digital and analogue. The station is backed by the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and Metro Screen. UWS and Metro Screen also back the Television Sydney Foundation, whose aim is to secure philanthropic donations to be used to support the development of local programming for TVS.
In March 2008 Patton co-founded ACTA, the Australian Community Television Alliance,[2] and represented ACTA on the Federal Government's Digital Switchover Taskforce Industry Advisory Group. He is credited with successfully lobbying the Australian Government to have additional broadcast spectrum provided to the metropolitan community stations to allow them to broadcast in digital on the Australian Freeview platform.
Patton's television career began as an on-camera reporter and producer of news and current affairs programs, working for each of the three Australian commercial television networks. He reported from Los Angeles for Network Ten and from London for the Seven Network and was the first dedicated finance reporter on an Australian commercial television network (for Seven News). His producer credits include Seven's "Eleven AM" and "Newsworld", Nine's "Sunday and "Business Sunday" and Ten's "Good Morning Australia" and "The Reporters".
Patton later held a range of executive positions at the Seven Network including General Manager of Seven Queensland, General Manager of Channel Seven Sydney and Network Director of Marketing.
In 1995 Patton created World Movies, the highly acclaimed pay TV channel, and has held non-executive directorships on boards including Sky News Australia, SportsVision and the New South Wales Film and Television Office (FTO).[3] While Deputy Chair of the FTO Patton initiated and led the first official delegation of Australian film makers to the Shanghai International Film Festival and headed up exploratory negotiations with the China Film Group that led to the signing of an official film co-production agreement between Australia and China.
Patton was a consultant and Chief Operating Officer for Continental Century Pay-TV, which along with Australis Media created the first Australian pay TV platform called Galaxy Television. He was a founding director of the subscription television industry association now called ASTRA.[4]