Media Moves

The chairman of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media has just been handed a whole wide world of sports to oversee. Effective today, James Pitaro has been named President of ESPN. He takes a role last held on a full-time basis by John Skipper, who stepped down in December.

Meredith Corp. has received lots of attention in recent weeks for the Feb. 1 closing of its Time Inc. acquisition. But, that's not to say the $2.8 billion buy means the company with a devotion to women's lifestyle brands has any less interest in being a TV station owner. Meredith's Local Media Group includes 17 television stations, reaching 11% of U.S. households, and it has just named a VP/News & Marketing.

In October 2015, Paul Cicelski joined Lerman Senter PLLC as an attorney following a nearly 11-year tenure at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLC. Now, Cicelski is officially a Member of the firm.

The former VP and Director of Programming at an ABC O&O in the City of Brotherly Love has been chosen to serve as the new Senior VP of Television for the NAB. She begins her new duties some 90 minutes to the south of Philadelphia on March 1.

On January 30, Emmis Communications confirmed that it is exiting one of its most profitable markets with the sale of two FMs in St. Louis to Hubbard Radio and, concurrently, two FMs to Entercom. Now comes word that the Director/Sales and GSM for two of those four stations is poised to take on a new role in the Gateway City—one that until now has been handled by a SVP that Entercom inherited from CBS Radio.

Cumulus Media-owned Westwood One is bolstering its network sales organization with new hires in Los Angeles and Chicago — including the return of a talk-intensive VP who previously spent two years at Veritone Inc. and, for 25 years before that, held a host of L.A. radio sales and management roles.

A longtime corporate sales executive at Sinclair Broadcast Group has just received a promotion. An individual who took a top-level role as Corporate Director of Sales for the broadcast media company in April 2007 and rose to VP of Sales in June 2010 is now in a newly created role at Sinclair. The appointment comes as the company edges closer to regulatory approval of its merger with Tribune Media.

When it came time for iHeartMedia to decide who to bring in as the new General Sales Manager for two big FMs in the Windy City, it turned to Entercom. Now overseeing sales for a "BIG" Country FM and turning on clients to the "Lite" is the former Cluster Sales Manager who gained the role in December 2011 under CBS Radio.

After nearly two years as Director of Branding and Programming for Cox Media Group's Hot AC in Tulsa, Nate Reed has just received a promotion. Reed is a 22-year radio industry veteran who has worked for iHeart predecessor Clear Channel.

Longtime television personality Deborah Norville, host of the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine Inside Edition, has been chosen to host the Broadcasters Foundation of America’s 2018 Golden Mike Award. This black-tie fundraiser scheduled for March 5 in New York, one of the Broadcasters Foundation's biggest events, honors the President/CEO of Graham Media.

On March 1, a full-power VHF station licensed to Key West, Fla., and serving the Miami-Fort Lauderdale DMA will officially embrace its fourth Spanish-language television network since Dec. 28, 2012. Burbank, Calif.-based LBI Media, owned by Liberman Broadcasting, hopes there will be no further changes at this station—especially because it just purchased it. With two weeks ago to the station's relaunch, LBI has hired a Hispanic media veteran to serve as its GM in South Florida.

A veteran Gotham radio sales executive won't be hearing much from Scotty McCreery around the office anymore. Instead, she'll likely be hearing lots of Shakira and J Balvin. After 5 years as GSM of Cumulus Media's WNSH-FM 94.7 "Nash" in New York, where she built the sales department from scratch, there'll be some español once again in the daily professional life of Maire Mason.

The VP/GM of a Raycom station in New Orleans has been promoted to a regional role at the TV station owner. His new duties involve his current station; two stations in Cape Girardeau, Mo., he previously led; a property in Knoxville; and two other small-market operations.

In a surprising move confirmed by RBR+TVBR, Eric Garcia has departed as Audio Revenue Chief of Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) and as VP/GM of the company's WSKQ-FM "Mega 97.9" and WPAT-FM 93.1 "Amor" in New York. Where is Garcia headed? Across the street — to Univision Communications.

Fox Networks Group has promoted its President of Technology and Innovation to the outright role of President of its Digital Consumer Group (DCG). The move frees up its President/COO to focus on his role, as he had been also handling those duties.