Craig Heatley

Craig Heatley is a New Zealand entrepreneur and the co-founder of Sky Television, which he built into New Zealand’s only pay-television service and one of the country’s ten largest listed companies.

Heatley grew up in Lower Hutt, left fatherless at a young age and started his entrepreneurial life early, using money saved from his paper round to invest in a subdivision while still at school. At 22 he and a friend launched a mini-golf course in Taupo. But the move that defined his career came in the late 1980s, amid New Zealand’s wave of economic deregulation, when he formed a consortium with Terry Jarvis, Trevor Farmer and Alan Gibbs to launch a subscription television service focused on sport and movies.

Sky Media Limited was founded in May 1987 and launched its analogue UHF service on 8 May 1990. Heatley’s personal investment was famously reported as just one dollar. From that starting point, he grew Sky into New Zealand’s dominant pay-TV platform, securing the sports rights and movie catalogues that made it indispensable to subscribers for two decades.

Heatley has since sold his stake in Sky Network Television and diversified into a range of interests across New Zealand and internationally. He was named New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012 and inducted into the World Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2013.

Heatley’s profile is noteworthy because he built New Zealand’s pay-television industry from scratch with minimal capital, turning a one-dollar investment into one of the country’s largest media companies, a story of timing, conviction and the ability to see what deregulation made possible.

Sources: Wikipedia · RNZ · M2