Media Moves

With the promotion of Klarn DePalma to EVP of MNI Targeted Media, Meredith Corp. has promoted its 12-year News Director at its CBS affiliate serving the Constitution State to the role of VP/GM.

A veteran of the CBS affiliate serving the Constitution State has been chosen to lead MNI Targeted Media, the digital and print advertising business now housed within the Local Media Group arm of Meredith Corp.

A pioneering broadcast engineer and digital TV innovator known for stints at such companies as Tektronix and the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC), which closed in September 2003, has passed away. He was 88 years old and living in the Washington, D.C. area.

When it came time for NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises to name a successor to Michelle Alban, its VP of Corporate Communications for some 15 years, it ultimately chose an individual who is fluent in Japanese. Taking the role is the woman who most recently served as SVP/Corporate & Public Affairs at Edelman, a role she had for some 8 years.

The co-inventor of the original Orban Optimod FM audio processor and founder of Modulation Sciences, who once served as Chief Engineer for RKO Radio-owned WXLO-FM (99X) in New York in the 1970s, has died after being struck by a vehicle in a supermarket parking lot in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 71.

An Emmy Award-winning television producer has been tapped to serve as the senior executive producer of TEGNA's entertainment and news program Daily Blast LIVE (“DBL”), which crowdsources its content in real-time from viewers through social media.

What a difference a year makes. In March 2017, Susan Larkin served as a Regional VP for Cox Media Group's stations in Orlando and Jacksonville. Four months later, she exited the company and joined Entercom as an RVP, eventually settling in San Francisco to oversee the company's Bay Area cluster. Larkin will no longer have to deal with a difficult Northern California housing market. Instead, she'll have to contend with the housing prices of the New York Tri-State Area, starting in April.

Larry Strumwasser has been named GM of the NBC, The CW Network, MyTV Network and Estrella TV affiliates serving Southern Nevada. He joins this big TV broadcasting company's Las Vegas stations after previously serving as a GM in Milwaukee.

The NAB has selected a SVP/Business Development, charged with leading and managing the association's sales team. The individual chosen for the role spent the last 11 as VP/Sales and Group Publisher for the Broadcast/Video Group at the parent company of industry trade publications Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News. 

Meredith Corp. has named Bruce Gersh EVP/President of its newly acquired People, Entertainment Weekly and People en Español brands. The announcement came just after 5pm Eastern on Thursday.

Capital Broadcasting Co. and its NBC affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, WRAL-5, have been at the forefront of the roll-out of the next generation broadcast TV standard — ATSC 3.0. Much of these efforts can be tied to Steven D. Hammel, VP/GM of WRAL and FOX affiliated sibling WRAZ-50 in North Carolina's Triangle region. Hammel will now have more time to enjoy watching ATSC 3.0 broadcasts come Q4 2018, as he told staff on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of the year.

Until now, Donna Halverson has been handling national sales single-handedly. She's now being paired with a former Dial Global and Jones Media executive who was most recently a small business sales rep for one of the nation's largest home security firms.

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.