A 44-year career in broadcasting is coming to a close for Jim McKernan, who is retiring as the GM of the NBC affiliate in Omaha owned by Gray Media. We now know who is succeeding him, and who will be filling that person’s role once she settles in at WOWT-TV.
Shannon Booth, GM of KOLN-TV and KSNB-TV in Lincoln and KNOP-TV and KNPL-TV in North Platte, Neb., is taking over the top role at WOWT.
Taking Booth’s position is Jacque Harms, Gray confirmed on Tuesday afternoon.
Booth has been at the Gray operation in Lincoln and North Platte for eight years. In her capacity, she has overseen television, digital and streaming products serving Lincoln, Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, North Platte and many communities in between. Before that, Booth spent 18 years at KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she held several management positions in news, digital, marketing and creative. She also spent time at WOI-TV in Ames-Des Moines, Iowa; KTIV-TV in Sioux City, Iowa; WHO-TV in Des Moines; and KWWL in Waterloo, Iowa.
Shannon currently serves as president of the board for the Heartland Cancer Foundation and is past board chair of the Nebraska Broadcasters Association.
For Harms, it is a return home to Nebraska, where she began and spent most of her more than 35-year career in the media business. She first joined the KNOP staff in North Platte on a part-time basis in 1994. Over the next several years, she served as an anchor, reporter, photographer, producer and news director. Five years ago, she became the General Manager of WTOK-TV in Meridian, Miss. Earlier this year, she relocated to Colorado Springs to become the General Manager of KKTV-TV.
Harms has served on the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters Board of Directors as well as on the planning committees that launched Mississippi’s inaugural MAB Student Conference and Women in Broadcasting awards program and luncheon.
