Media Moves

Gray Television owns two stations in the Virginia city of Harrisonburg. The company is now promoting its News Director to GM. The move comes following the stations' departure of its former leader, to a Gray property in Shreveport.

In 1976, Bart Tessler teamed up with former KCOP-13/Los Angeles sales executive Norm Pattiz to pitch a syndicated offering to radio called "The Sound of Motown." This was the genesis of Westwood One. Now, with the Sunday, Aug. 30, closure of Westwood One News, Tessler is "starting a new chapter."

The Operations Manager for Beasley Media Group's seven radio stations in Augusta, Ga., has been promoted to Regional OM. As such, he has taken on similar responsibilities for the company's Fayetteville, N.C., radio stations.

Media Financial Management Association (MFM) has finalized its 2020-2021 officers and newly elected board members for the association and its BCCA subsidiary, the media industry’s credit association. Click "read more" for the full details.

The 45th Annual Gracie Awards is poised to be an all-star virtual experience, with streaming scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 10. The show will include appearances by Katy Perry (pictured), Mickey Guyton, Danai Gurira, Naomi Watts, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, among others.

And, there are correspondents based in New York and Los Angeles for this new daily syndicated 30-minute program named after the PEOPLE brand, which Meredith owns. Here are all of the details.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Matrix Awards and they'll come to life in a virtual gala scheduled for October 12 at Noon ET. Who are the honorees?

For 15 years until 2002, he was a Senior Supervising Producer at CNN's documentary unit. He'd later work at Discovery, and then at Slate, NBC News, Mashable and HuffPost before launching his own "video strategy" consultancy. Now, he's going to one of the nation's biggest audio news content providers by taking the newly created role of VP/News. 

A radio industry programming veteran who has spent much of 2020 focused on her voiceover work, following a tenure as SVP/Programming for iHeartMedia's St. Louis cluster that concluded amid widespread January layoffs at the company, has resurfaced in one of America's fastest growing markets. Starting Monday, she will be working for Cox Media Group. 

She began her career at KABC-7 in Los Angeles as a morning producer of the Eyewitness News 5am newscast, later transitioning to producing the 4pm and 5pm newscasts. Now, Pam Chen is the first Asian American to lead a news department at a network-owned local TV station in the No. 2 DMA in the U.S.

Estrella Media has taken another step in becoming a more competitive player in the Spanish-language television space in three markets by naming a new Head of News. It's an individual who most recently served as news director for Imagen Television, launched in October 2016 in Mexico by Grupo Imagen.

There's a new leader atop the Univision and ABC affiliates serving the Rose City, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. And, it is a media sales veteran who spent many years at TEGNA's crosstown NBC affiliate who has most recently served as Director of Sales for the Sinclair duo.

The roots of Nexstar Media Group are in a city made internationally known by the fictitious paper company Dunder Mifflin in the NBC sitcom "The Office." Now, Nexstar's Scranton-Wilkes Barre-Hazelton NBC affiliate, along with the Mission Broadcasting-owned CBS affiliate it runs via a joint operating agreement, are getting a new leader. He's coming from D.C.

For 40 years, Williams served as President and CEO of Omni Communications, and was known to radio listeners simply as "J. Doug" —  the voice of the morning show on KWOX-FM "K101," a Class C0 80kw facility serving a largely rural area of Oklahoma. His daughter, Brooke Williams, is SVP/Membership for the RAB.

The VP of News for the NBC and Telemundo owned-and-operated stations serving the Philadelphia market is stepping into a newly created role that makes him responsible for the development and implementation of "a comprehensive strategy that will make diversity and inclusion issues a top priority" for all NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations.