About

Peter McCarthy started in the business just over 10 years ago when it was called Chorus NTL, practising as a commercial litigation and M&A lawyer. Over time his role expanded and grew with the acquisition of mobile services and then later into television broadcasting, with the purchase of TV3 and subsequently UTV Ireland. Soon after the rebrand of the business to Virgin Media, he became director of legal and then later vice president of legal for Ireland. He has three strong lawyers in his team who each have specific area of expertise but also a general understanding of the broadcasting and cable business so that they can lean in to any project or legal issue. McCarthy highlights that he ‘was lucky to have been selected on a management development programme early in my in-house career which gave the vital tools to expand my knowledge outside of the legal focus into the commercial workings of the business. This programme provided access to and helped forge connections with senior executives internationally across the Liberty Global group’. Acquisition of the TV broadcast business has challenged and moulded him as a legal professional by having to refocus business requirements from a service generating revenue base to an advertising reliant industry. The broadcasting industry in Ireland is very small but extremely fast moving. McCarthy highlights that ‘as a legal professional it was important that I kept up with that pace while ensuring the business adequately balanced risk with opportunity’. Recently, the biggest change McCarthy has made is to simplify how legal operates in the organisation while ensuring accountability and ownership sits with the business. He highlights that he wanted to ‘ensure legal was not seen as just as a service or support function but rather was seen as a value add member of the team. This has meant that legal is aware of issues early in the process rather than at the end where its impact for change would be limited. This in turn means the business is smarter in its approach to market navigating and mitigating risks early in the process. Legal is seen as a valued member of the business’.