The VP/GM for Spanish Broadcasting System’s two New York stations since 2018, who added additional duties for the company’s Chicago property in 2022, has joined SBS’s former COO to lead the local radio and television operations of the growing media company funded by Soohyung Kim that is parent to two heritage New York radio brands and the Estrella Media radio and TV group superserving Spanish-speaking consumers.
As first reported Saturday (1/24) by Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink, Maire Mason has been named VP/GM for all of MediaCo‘s local markets not associated with Estrella Media.
As such, Mason will oversee WBLS, WQHT “HOT 97” and a pair of HD2 offerings targeting Latinos across the New York Tri-State Area: WBLS HD2 “Luna 107.5” and WQHT HD2 “La Buena.” Additionally, she will oversee the local operations of WMBC-TV in New York, the Estrella TV broadcast home.
That’s just a start, as sources who requested anonymity note that Mason will also soon gain oversight of additional markets MediaCo is eyeing for expansion, including Chicago and Denver. The news comes just days after MediaCo announced that it is ending a digital multicast agreement in Orlando for Estrella TV and instead will use a low-power TV station situated between Orlando and Daytona Beach.
Maire reports to MediaCo CEO Albert Rodriguez, continuing a string of former SBS executives to the publicly traded company.
Mason told Radio Ink, “I’m super excited to sell Hot and BLS, these two heritage stations, along with La Luna and Que Buena and the television side with WMBC. Chicago is a great, great market to do business in with great people to work with. Albert [Rodriguez] has really surrounded himself with good people. He knows how to do that. [Standard General Managing Partner] Soo Kim, I’ve met over the years in the business and he’s such a great professional and businessman. An opportunity of this magnitude, you don’t find that often. And it’s here and I’m delighted.”
After serving as VP/GM of Cumulus Media‘s WNSH-FM 94.7 “Nash,” the company’s former Country station where she built the sales department from scratch as GSM in 2013, Maire Mason joined SBS in February 2018.
Mason is perhaps best-known for her 29-year tenure at CBS Radio in New York, where she served as VP/GM of WNEW-FM 102.7 and, later, WXRK-FM 92.3 following its acquisition from Infinity Broadcasting. Mason began at then-AOR WNEW in August 1980.
From July 2011 through October 2012, she served as Director of Sales for Merlin Media, a company led by radio industry icon Randy Michaels that attempted to run all-News FM stations in top market, in New York.
Mason has prior experience in Hispanic media: From April 2010-July 2011 she served as Director of Sales for Univision Radio in New York.
Maire Mason is a recipient of the Medallas de Cortez Award for General/Market Manager of the Year for her leadership of WSKQ and WPAT at the Hispanic Radio Conference, which is scheduled for late May in Phoenix.
