SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIF. — In late May, Mark Danielson was selected to lead Nexstar’s ABC affiliate and home for The CW Network in Salt Lake City.
This left an opening at the three TV stations in California’s Central Coast he’d been in charge of — a position that placed Danielson on the Radio + Television Business Report Top Local TV Leaders list for 2021.
The Santa Barbara-based position has just been filled.
News-Press & Gazette Co.’s KEYT-3, KCOY-12, KSBB-CD and KKFX-11, which serve Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties while also reaching Ventura County, are congratulating the promotion of News Director Jim Lemon to VP/GM.
“Jim has proven himself as an accomplished leader and critical architect in our content strategy in Santa Barbara,” NPG Broadcasting President Mike Meara said in prepared remarks shared late Thursday by local news organization Noozhawk. “He will take these skills to build on and expand the success we have built over the years there. I am excited about our future in Santa Barbara.”
In prepared comments, Lemon said, “I’ve been fortunate here to work with GM Mark Danielson the past decade as we dedicated ourselves to serve our community. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to continue the great work of our entire team over the past decade. We are fortunate to have such a dynamic team dedicated to serving our viewers, readers, and customers.”
NPG and Danielson became known as ATSC 3.0 pioneers on “advanced alerting,” integrating official emergency information into local TV news coverage. KSBB is the first television facility on the West Coast to convert to ATSC 3.0 broadcasting.
Lemon arrived in the Central Coast in March 2013, taking ND duties for KEYT-3, the ABC affiliate. By the end of the year they were extended to CBS affiliate KCOY and FOX affiliate KKFX, with newscasts consolidated across the trio of stations.
A Wildcat, Lemon is a University of Arizona graduate who began his career at what was KYUL-TV in Yuma, Ariz., in summer 1983, serving as a news anchor. Later stops include KGUN-9 in Tucson, and KSNT-TV in Topeka, Kan., where he earned his first job as a news director, in 1996.
