Welcome to the annual Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame awards! Tonight we gather here in New York City to celebrate a very special event — the 33rd B+C Hall of Fame class. We are proud to recognize this extraordinary group of leaders, innovators, and creative pioneers who have achieved legendary status by helping to shape the media landscape through their unparalleled vision.

Looking back to 1991, Broadcasting magazine created the first Hall of Fame to honor 60 significant contributors to television and electronic media. The original class included industry legends from William S. Paley to Bob Hope, cable pioneers from Bill Daniels to Dr. John Malone and C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, to name but a few. In the ensuing years, we’ve inducted Hall of Famers as much for their impact on the community that consumes content as we have for their influence on the medium. This year is no exception, as exemplified by this unprecedented slate of inductees.

Honorees at the 33rd annual gala include award-winning actress, director, producer, and talk show talent Drew Barrymore, host and executive producer of The Drew Barrymore Show and co-founder of the production company Flower Films. Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, ESPN, is set to receive the Hall of Fame’s Chairman’s Award. Mr. Pitaro is responsible for ESPN’s portfolio of sports content, products and experiences across all of Disney’s platforms worldwide. Sheryl Lee Ralph, actress, producer, advocate and Emmy Award winner for her role in Warner Bros. Television’s Abbott Elementary, will be honored with the Hall of Fame’s Humanitarian Award in recognition of her career and her philanthropic work via the DIVA Foundation. We’ll also pay witness to a special honor awarded to the daytime drama Days of our Lives, celebrating its 60th anniversary on-air in November. Now streaming exclusively on Peacock, the series is one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world. Days of our Lives will be honored with the Hall of Fame’s Iconic Show Award.

Rounding out this year’s incomparable class are the following entertainment industry leaders, pioneers and legends: George Cheeks, chair, television media at Paramount, a Skydance Co.; Kristin Dolan, CEO, AMC Networks; Richard A. “Dick” Foreman, president, RAFAMEDIA; Michael Gelman, executive producer, Live With Kelly and Mark, Disney/ABC; Melani Griffith, chief growth officer, GFiber, receiving the inaugural Technology Leadership Award; David Kline, president, Spectrum Reach, and executive VP, Charter Communications; Mark Marshall, chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal; Arthur Smith, chairman and CEO, A. Smith & Co. Productions and chairman, Tinopolis USA; Jon Steinlauf, former chief U.S. advertising sales officer, Warner Bros. Discovery; Sandra Stern, vice chairman, Lionsgate Television Group; and Rob Weisbord, chief operating officer and president of Local Media, Sinclair Inc.

As always, this year’s gala will support both the Broadcasters Foundation of America — which provides support to those in the TV and radio industry who find themselves in acute financial need — as well as the Paley Center for Media.

To read the 2025 Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame event program, click on the image above or here.

Growing up in Angelina National Forest in rural Texas, where her parents owned a lakeside marina and campground, Valari Dobson Staab never thought about working in television. She barely even thought of watching television. 

“We only got reception occasionally, usually because some weird storm was surfacing,” she said. “TV was not a big part of my life, and it was not something I planned on doing at all.”

Dobson Staab is fully immersed in the medium today. She oversees 12 NBC-owned stations and 31 more on the Telemundo side, along with multicast networks, regional sports networks and a couple of production outfits. 

Having both English- and Spanish-language stations sets the NBCUniversal Local group apart, she noted. “We have these newsrooms that collect and produce news and information in English and Spanish, and it’s only one newsroom, which gives us more journalists in our markets than our competitors,” she said. “And it sets us up uniquely success-wise because we’re going after two different markets in terms of ratings and revenue.”

Broadcast TV is challenged to stand out amid the streaming networks, but Dobson Staab said the stations she oversees are in a strong place. The Paris Summer Olympics was “crazy good,” she shared. “Ratings were incredible, much better than expected, and revenue was through the roof.”

The Games are over, but she sees positive stories in a number of markets. She mentioned key newscasts picking up momentum at KVEA Los Angeles, WNBC New York and WBTS Boston. “Overall, it’s a really good group,” she said, “and they constantly make me proud of their breaking news coverage, especially weather.”

Kevin Keeshan, NBCUniversal Local executive VP of news editorial, said Dobson Staab has made investigative reporting a vital element of the group, with Responde units hustling on consumers’ behalf at the Telemundo outlets. “The Spanish speaker had been underresourced, and the Telemundo stations have performed an incredibly important public service when they have consumer issues,” he said, noting how Responde has recovered over $80 million since it launched a decade ago. 

The streamers may offer a vast quantity of high-gloss entertainment, but TV stations supply something more unique. “The one thing we do that the internet has not been able to do is the gathering of local news,” Dobson Staab said. “It’s just an expensive proposition that takes boots on the ground.”

She raves about the group’s FAST channels — how they’ve been adding news, getting substantial viewership and turning that into real revenue. 

It helps that NBCU Local staffers always get a clear message from the group chief. “Valari speaks clearly and directly, knows how to articulate a vision, knows how to get everybody on board, and then lets us go do our jobs,” said Therese Gamba, NBCUniversal Local chief marketing officer and executive VP, acquired programming. “That kind of leadership allows people to take ownership of their jobs, feeling, ‘I am part of this organization, and what I do matters.’ ”

‘Very Basic Starter Job’

It was at KLTV in Tyler, Texas where Dobson Staab started. She was paying her way through college and took a “very basic starter job” in the commercial traffic department, which fit with her classes and paid a bit better than other options. The general manager, Frank Melton, ended up a mentor. He was a rarity — a Black GM who was just 28 years old. 

He encouraged his staffers to be creative, and Dobson Staab took him to heart. “He showed me how you could create this really fun, great environment that does a lot of good in the community,” she said. “And you are inspired because you like your job, and because you’re doing good for the community.”

Dobson Staab is an avid mentor as well, willing to meet with most any aspiring staffer. Her executive assistants do that job for two years, then enter the trainee program that best suits them. 

Dobson Staab unwinds on weekends at the shore with her husband, R.C., her dog Skye and her kayak. “Since I grew up on a marina, I’m still very water-oriented,” she  said. 

Unwinding is necessary for an executive running a dynamic station group amidst a transforming TV universe. “You always have to be looking ahead,” she said, “and you also have to be ready to pivot.” 

When Debra OConnell was named president, news group and networks, at Disney Entertainment in February, it aligned two of The Walt Disney Co.’s key verticals: news and TV stations. Also in her purview are ABC, Disney Channels, FX Networks, Freeform and National Geographic Channels. It’s only been six months, but OConnell already has made her mark as she integrates the work of ABC’s owned-and-operated stations in markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia with that of ABC News.

“Everything starts as a local story,” OConnell said. “News always happens in a community, whether that’s inclement weather or politics. Each particular story has local roots and often national relevance.”

Although she oversees a broad portfolio, OConnell got her start in local media, working as an account executive at WABC New York radio and then television. From the very beginning, her leadership potential was clear, said those who knew her when. 

“It was obvious from when I first met her that she had very strong management and leadership skills and was destined for a significant career,” George Bodenheimer, retired co-chair, Disney Media Networks and executive chairman, ESPN, said. “She thought very broadly and was always a citizen of The Walt Disney Company. She always looked for win-win partnerships.”

It was OConnell’s initiative that led to the acquisition of broadcast rights for the New York City Marathon for both WABC and ESPN, according to Bodenheimer. “That doesn’t happen without Debra bringing the sides together,” he said.   

In 2018, she became general manager and president of WABC New York, where she oversaw Live With Kelly and Ryan’s rise to become syndication’s top talk show for the first time in its long history. In November 2020, OConnell was promoted to president, networks at Disney Media Entertainment & Distribution, a job she performed concurrently with running WABC until March 2021. Three years later, she was named to her current role. 

All of that time spent working with ABC’s TV stations on both the local and national level has given OConnell insight into the group’s journalism, whether it’s practiced on the hyper-local level at Localish, in a major city like New York or L.A. or on the national stage. 

“Debra has long been a champion of fair and steady journalism leading our ABC stations across the country, and in these past few months, she has brought both her unwavering support and her drive to the network news division,” ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir said in an email. “There is never any doubt about where Debra stands. It is always about the quality of the work, and about our viewers.” 

While she now oversees many networks, she still pays constant attention to the product, her colleagues said. “What I admire about Debra is at the end of the day she is a viewer, too,” Muir continued. “She is the first to send a text message about a story, or a moment during the broadcast that moved her and anyone who knows her will tell you she is dialed in 24 hours a day. We’re not quite sure where the energy comes from, but we’re grateful to witness it, benefit from it, and marvel at it. I’m sure there is another text message coming soon.”

Understands All Facets

Along the way, she also acquired a thorough understanding of how the business operates in all corners. “She’s an incredibly tireless worker and she’s incredibly versatile in terms of her understanding of the business,” Chuck Saftler, head of acquisitions, Disney Networks, said. “She’s got a broad understanding of the business, news and creative.”

OConnell also knows how to do a deal, having worked closely with Saftler and other Disney executives on ABC’s renewal of syndicated powerhouses Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! in January 2023 through the 2027-28 TV season. “She’s a really smart, fair, tough negotiator,” Saftler said.  

It’s been a challenging couple of years in the entertainment industry as streaming upends the entire ecosystem, but OConnell is bullish on the broadcasting that brought her here. 

“Broadcast is a very bright spot,” she said. “Broadcast is available anywhere and everywhere, while viewers have the opportunity to catch up on Hulu and Disney Plus. You have all of that as well as the fact that broadcast is so embedded in and important to communities.” 

ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro stepped to the microphone at May’s Dick Vitale Gala in Sarasota with the task of introducing the broadcaster, coach, teacher and humanitarian. Pitaro could have run off a litany of accolades for Vitale, including a decorated four-decade career as the unmistakable voice of ESPN’s college basketball coverage. Instead, he set the stage for Vitale’s entrance, which raised more than $24 million for pediatric cancer research, by summing up what Vitale’s presence and voice — even in its silence from announcing games in 2024 due to a series of throat procedures as he battles cancer — has meant to millions of fans.

“As wonderful as he is on air, Dick Vitale the humanitarian is even more impressive,” Pitaro said. “Despite his frustrations with not being able to work on TV, he never stopped working on behalf of humanity. That’s the essence of Dick Vitale.” 

Vitale is best known for his enthu­siastic approach to broadcasting in general and college basketball in particular. He started as a teacher and basketball coach at a New Jersey school following his graduation from Seton Hall University in 1962. He would then take the reins of the men’s basketball team at his alma mater, East Rutherford (N.J.) High School, in 1964 where, over a seven-year period, Vitale earned four state sectional and two state championships.

After a stint as an assistant coach at Rutgers, he was named head coach at the University of Detroit in 1973. He would lead the Titans to a better than .700 winning percentage over five years, including an NCAA tournament appearance in 1976-77. 

As a student at Michigan during that time, sports analyst Lee Berke was first smitten with Vitale’s passion for college basketball when the coach boisterously called for a match between the Titans and the Wolverines on a local radio station. “He was screaming at the top of his lungs about how the University of Detroit is a top contender and should be playing the University of Michigan,” Berke recalled. “He had all the passion and fire that Dick Vitale is known for. He’s been very consistent and energetic ever since then and remains a terrific communicator.” 

That passion led him to the NBA, as coach of the Detroit Pistons in 1978-79. He would find greater success with his next gig at then-fledgling ESPN. 

Vitale joined ESPN as an announcer months after the network’s launch, calling the network’s first-ever major NCAA basketball game. That Wisconsin-DePaul contest was one of more than 1,000 games Vitale would announce across six decades. 

“In 1979, when Magic [Johnson] and Larry Bird really started what we know today as March Madness, that was the first year Dick Vitale called a game,” Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes said during the gala. “Since that time, he has been the voice of college basketball. He’s taken our game to a level to where it’s as good as any game that we have.” 

Vitale’s catchy phrases have become known as Vitale-isms, including “Awesome Baby,” “Diaper Dandy,” referring to a freshman phenom, and “All-Windex Performer,” describing an aggressive rebounder.  

His approach to broadcasting has earned induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Sportscasters Hall of Fame.

Renowned Beyond Sports

Non-sports fans may know Vitale from his television and movie appearances over the decades, including The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad!, He Got Game, Love and Basketball and The Cosby Show. 

Vitale is becoming as well-known for philanthropy as for basketball. Along with the Dick Vitale Gala fundraiser, he sits on the board of The V Foundation, founded by Vitale’s late friend, former North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN broadcaster Jim Valvano, to raise money for cancer research.

Vitale reflected on his more than four-decade broadcasting career by saying that he continues to enjoy calling college basketball while always looking for opportunities to give back to those less fortunate.  

“My career has absolutely exceeded all of my dreams,” he said. “To make a living doing something you love is special. I feel very blessed and I would simply say it is ‘Awesome Baby’ with a capital A!” 

Long before becoming executive producer of Good Morning America, Simone Swink was an intern at ABC’s This Week. On Sundays, she would deliver newspapers to George Stephanopoulos, who had recently left the White House and was a contributor to the show.

“He was always very polite, very courteous and he knew every single person’s name in our office, from the interns to the researchers,” Swink recalled. 

He gave everyone Barnes & Noble gift cards, too. “He was a big reader and he gave others the gift of reading,” she added. 

Twelve years later, Swink rejoined ABC News as a writer on GMA and was introduced to Stephanopoulos on the set.

“He said, didn’t we used to work together?” she recalled. “And I didn’t say anything. You could have knocked me over, I was so surprised.”

Stephanopoulos had expected to follow his father and grandfather into the priesthood. He was a sportscaster at the Columbia University radio station and, while a Rhodes Scholar, did some reporting for the Christian Science Monitor and CBS.

After he came back from Oxford University, he applied for a job at ABC’s Nightline but didn’t get it. He’d caught the political bug, went to work in Washington and wound up as a senior adviser in President Bill Clinton’s White House.

Former ABC News president David Westin read Stephanopoulos’ book All Too Human: A Political Education. Westin was impressed and asked him to lunch at ABC.

“If you decided you wanted to go into news full-time, I think you can have a really great career here,” Westin recalled telling Stephanopoulos. “And he, to my surprise, actually said, ‘David, that’s exactly what I was thinking about doing.’ ”

Westin warned Stephanopoulos that he’d have to go back to square one and learn the craft of broadcast journalism. “And he said, ‘No, I’m up for that.’And that’s just exactly what he did,” Westin said. “He has a discipline to him that is truly remarkable.”

There were many who thought that a political operative didn’t belong at ABC News. “Peter Jennings called me and said: ‘This was a mistake. You shouldn’t do this. This man is not a journalist,’ ” Westin said.

Stephanopoulos wound up working with Jennings on stories for World News Tonight. “And to Peter’s great credit he called me back a few months later and said: ‘David you were right. I was wrong,’ ” Westin said. “ ‘He’s one of the best reporters we’ve got. He’ll go out and get sources and report back in the evening and he’s better than a lot of our career reporters here.’ ”

Stephanopoulos said he knew he had to prove himself at ABC News. “I had conversations with Ted Koppel and Charlie Gibson and Peter Jennings,” he said. “But I also knew that conversations alone wouldn’t assuage all the concerns. I had to show it in my work and prove I could be a fair and objective journalist. That’s what I’ve tried to do.”

Stephanopoulos was hosting This Week when Westin asked him to host GMA. He turned it down three times.

“I had a young family in D.C., and I’d been steeped in politics and political news and doing the Sunday show,” Stephanopoulos recalled. “I didn’t think it was necessarily a natural fit. But David had confidence in me and he was right and I was wrong. I just love the fact that every morning you’ve got an entire audience who are waiting to start their day with you. It’s a great privilege.”

In the Center of It All

Over the years he’s covered giant stories, from 9/11 to the Capitol attack on January 6. “The interview I did with President [Joe] Biden [July 5, following his debate with former President Donald Trump] was probably the highest-stakes interview of my career,” he said. After that interview, Biden decided not to seek reelection.

Stephanopoulos has had less than serious moments, too. He trained for a race up the Empire State Building against Olympian Apolo Ohno. “I was proud that I did as well against Apolo as I did — he gave me a good head start,” he said. But he resists — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — the annual push to wear a costume for the Halloween show.

Stephanopoulos may be more likely to show off his sense of humor at home, with his wife, comedian Ali Wentworth, and their two daughters. Elliott Anastasia Stephanopoulos has been a production assistant at GMA, but Dad isn’t pushing the girls into a job on TV. 

“I just want them to follow their dreams,” Stephanopoulos said. 

Throughout his decades-long career, Philip R. Beuth was an influential figure in television news. 

It all started for him after graduate school, becoming the first employee of Capital Cities Communications. He would be perfectly positioned 30 years later when the company acquired ABC. 

But as early as age 4, Beuth lived with his grandfather, who ran a junkyard on Staten Island. 

“That’s how I learned to sell, and how to deal with people,” Beuth said. 

Without much savings, Beuth was planning to attend a community college on Staten Island. However, his friend connected him with Union College in Schenectady, New York, and he ultimately received a full scholarship. 

“That was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

Beuth’s relationship with the school didn’t end with the degree. He spent 10 years on the board, and the Beuth House residency on the Union campus bears his name. He continues to support his alma mater with scholarships. 

While at Union, he got his first full-time broadcasting gig — WRGB Albany, originally an NBC affiliate. He worked himself up the ladder from page to occasional cameraman. 

Upon his graduation, the WRGB general manager asked Beuth about his future desires. “Well, I’d like to work here,” Beuth recalled saying. 

To have any chance for career advancement, Beuth needed a graduate degree. His boss saw enough work ethic and versatility to enroll him at Syracuse University for a Television Management master’s program paid for by owner General Electric. It was the first executive trainee class offered by WRGB. 

“That was another lucky break,” Beuth, who is 92, said. 

It was not his last one. Upon learning that the bosses were looking to sell WRGB, veteran newscaster Lowell Thomas put together a group to buy WRBG’s UHF competitor. Veteran advertising executive Thomas Murphy was hired, despite not having broadcasting experience. His staffing for the new venture was a clean slate and limitless possibilities. Beuth was loaned to Murphy. “They hired me over the phone,” Beuth recalled. 

He started as a $60-a-week film editor. Ultimately, Murphy and Beuth would meet and became partners for the next 42 years. The company would become Capital Cities, based in Albany. 

“Cap Cities was more of a brotherhood than a company,” Beuth said. “It was the best in the business by a lot of measures.”

While Cap Cities was buying up stations, it made the biggest purchase in 1985, acquiring the ABC Television Network for $3.5 billion. Beuth relocated his family from Los Angeles to New York. He ran Good Morning America for 12 years, bringing riches to himself and ABC as the morning show eclipsed NBC’s venerable Today. 

Beuth also was the executive in charge of specials and late night, where he attempted to get David Letterman over to ABC. “I never was successful,” he said.

But Beuth did bring Bill Ritter into the fold at ABC as anchor for the newly created Good Morning America Sunday.

“Phil was a mentor, in addition to being my boss,” Ritter, a longtime WABC New York anchor, said. “I was smitten with him from day one. I still am.” 

Beuth moved up at Cap Cities with 17 different positions, ultimately as president of the entertainment division, retiring in 1997.

Overcoming Hurdles

He attained professional triumphs, while faced with personal setbacks, including being born with cerebral palsy. 

“I haven’t let it get in my way,” he said. 

It was tough in the schoolyard, because running, and even walking, was an obstacle. Without insurance, “my mother would have to teach me how to walk,” he shared. 

By the time he was 11, Beuth was moving freely without the aid of a cane. However, his condition worsened with age. He has been in a wheelchair, unable to take a step for 20 years. Nonetheless, he said, “I feel like I’m 50.”

Family (second wife and four children) and philanthropy are the main priorities for Beuth, who spends summers in Buffalo and winters in the Caribbean, with his main residence in Florida. 

Mindful of the breaks he got toward forging his career path, Beuth and his wife are paying it forward with students who need their own break.

“We are very abundantly rewarded,” Beuth said. “It feels very good to sponsor a child … [giving] them a good start to get into college.” 

Early in Scott Herman’s freshman year at Brooklyn College in 1976, the newcomer was having a rough time adapting. “I wanted to drop out,” Herman remembered. “My father suggested I join a club.”

Scott’s first inclination was to join the school newspaper to write about sports, but “I didn’t like the kids,” he said, “so I didn’t join.”

He saw a sign for WBCR, the college radio station, which ended up giving him a weekly 45-second sportscast. It turned out to be a bit of work. 

“I’d sit in that student union building for four hours to write that 45 seconds to make it perfect,” said Herman, who as a kid would call New York Mets games into his tape recorder while watching on television with the sound off.

If it weren’t for that pivot, broadcasting might have lost out on a beloved executive, who retired in 2017 as chief operating officer of CBS Radio, where he spent 39 years. 

Herman became GM of WBCR in his junior year. His professor hosted a religion program for the all-news AM station WINS New York, at the time owned by Group W. “I was [Sister Camille’s] favorite student,” said Herman, who asked her for a recommendation letter. “The [WINS] news director asked me, ‘Do you know how to cut tape? Do you know news?’ ” 

Instead of an internship, Herman received a job working Saturday mornings as a news production assistant at $3.85 an hour in 1978. “I basically never left the company,” said Herman, who ended up overseeing all operations for CBS Radio’s 117 radio stations in 26 markets. 

He went on to work in television as well. In 1987, he became news director of KYW Philadelphia. Earlier in his career, he held the title at its sister radio station. “I probably would have never left television if it wasn’t for [former CBS Radio CEO] Dan Mason offering me in 1993 to be general manager of WINS, where I started my career,” Herman said, seizing the opportunity to return to New York.

Mason recognized Herman as “an up and coming rock-star who others gravitate to by spreading confidence all over the room,” Mason said. 

Herman’s lead-by-example style made an impression early in the career of Jennifer Donohue, now a senior VP at The Walt Disney Co. “Scott was always the first to arrive at the office or early for a client meeting,” she said, recalling meeting him in the early 2000s at CBS in New York. “Scott provided me validation that I could be myself in the industry, an Asian-American female leader.” 

Audacy market president Chris Oliviero noted Herman mentoring “coast to coast” radio professionals. “Most importantly, [Herman] achieved that success while maintaining compassion, decency and a genuine caring for all that crossed his path,” said Oliviero, who worked with Herman at CBS Radio for almost 20 years.

At the time of his retirement seven years ago, he was leaving “an incredibly profitable” company, he said, that did $300 million in cash flow and almost $2 billion in billings. 

“I’m very lucky that I made a great living,” Herman said. 

A Life’s Work of Helping

Herman had been offered a high-level executive position with Entercom (now Audacy), which bought CBS Radio from CBS Corp. (now part of Paramount Global) in 2017. “The more I thought about it the more I didn’t want to do it,” he said, without regrets opting for retirement and the foundation instead.

These days, Herman’s “life’s work,” he said, is chairing the Broadcasters Foundation of America (BFA), a voluntary position he began four years ago. The foundation gives annual grants totaling $2 million a year to several hundred industry professionals dealing with debilitating illnesses or in financial need as a result of natural disasters. 

He has another two years to go in the chairman role.  Herman remains a dedicated radio listener in retirement. In the car, he goes back and forth between a dozen Sirius XM and over-the-air radio stations, including WINS and WFAN. 

Many years after his sportscast debuted on WBCR, Herman remains a fan of the medium. He said, “I’m still a huge consumer of sports radio.” 

Well before Active International grew into a 600-person organization driving the media barter space, it was founder Arthur Wagner, struggling to make a buck. He had an office in Manhattan, standout sales skills and not much more.  

“I didn’t draw a salary for two years,” he said. “I didn’t have expense money. If you weren’t in New York, I couldn’t see you.”

The media barter world was filled with shady operators when Active launched 40 years ago, Wagner shared, and clients liked that the new player played it straight. 

“They became more than happy clients,” he said. “They became advocates, and they started to go and tell their friends, ‘Hey, if you need something like this done, this is the only place to do it.’ ”

Brooklyn Born

Wagner grew up in Brooklyn, went to Tilden High School, and did not attend college, outside of a half semester at Brooklyn College. He picked up odd jobs where he could, including selling household appliances and hearing aids. 

“I went out and I worked,” he said, “and it took me quite a while to be able to make a living.”

Wagner eventually found career-oriented work at a television rep firm, Kaiser Broadcasting, and learned the nuances of selling TV ad time. But he yearned to run his own business. After a decade at Kaiser, he founded Active. 

He had experience in ad sales. He had contacts in television. He had a gift for numbers, as noted by most everyone who has worked with Wagner. 

He even had a rent-free office. Wagner’s wife’s family was a “big deal in the music business,” he said, and they gave him an some space. 

Wagner built his client base one by one, and Active International, which invests in media assets today to secure media properties below market value in the future, began to take off. 

Jack Myers got to know Wagner when he took a job as a U.S. sales representative for a group of Canadian TV stations and Active International helped sell the stations’ media. He described Wagner as a mentor and an “incredible ally.”

“Arthur consistently demonstrates a visionary approach,” Myers said. “He has always stayed ahead of industry trends and built innovative strategies that in many ways redefined what barter was. He has navigated really complex business challenges with creative solutions that work for the benefit of everyone.”

One strategy that redefined media barter is the trade credit that many said Wagner established for the industry. “Arthur created the currency for that,” Active International president and CEO Bill Georges said. 

Wagner always brings stellar sales skills to a negotiation, his colleagues shared. “Arthur really is a salesman, an absolute sales guy at heart,” said Dean Wilson, global chief operating officer, Active International. “He lives and breathes sales and his passion and aptitude for sales is exceptional.”

Forty years after it launched, Active International has offices in Pearl River, New York; London; Paris; Dusseldorf; Madrid; Milan; Sydney; and other locales around the world. In Wagner’s Pearl River office, a Standard Directory of Advertisers dated to 1984 sits on a desk and reminds the founder of the company’s launch. 

The company’s hundreds of employees are like family to Wagner. “Arthur is incredibly loyal, and very family oriented,” said Georges. “Not only immediate family, but Active family — it’s clear how much he cares about both.”

Immediate family includes his wife Ellen, and children Irv and Dara, with both kids still at Active after long stints. 

All In

Wagner splits his time between homes in New City, New York, north of New York City, and Boca Raton. At age 84, his golf days are sadly over, but he remains an active poker player, where his knack for numbers serves him well — as do Wagner’s people skills. 

“Odds never take an off day, but people do,” he said. “People have good days, people have bad days. You can study them, you can play the people rather than your cards.” 

People may indeed take a day off, but Wagner is still turning up at work, leading Active International. He cannot imagine not being in the game. 

“Arthur loves sitting at the poker tables in Las Vegas, and sitting in his office in Pearl River is the same principle,” Myers said. “He just loves sitting at the table.” 

In 1971 a young analyst at Loeb, Rhoades & Co. named Mario J.Gabelli wrote that he was recommending broadcasters Capital Cities Communications, Cox Broadcasting, Metromedia and Taft Broadcasting to investors, despite worries about President Richard Nixon’s imposition of price controls that included television advertising.

While the loss of cigarette advertising would hurt, Gabelli added, the Big Three broadcast networks would benefit from new federal rules limiting how much programming they were allowed to put on stations.

Half a century later, Gabelli is renowned as a top investor and the chairman of GAMCO (Gabelli Asset Management Co.) Investors. “He’s a legendary long-term investor,” Jessica Reif Ehrlich, managing director, media & entertainment U.S. equity research at BofA Securities, said.

Once upon a time, broadcasters were seen as a growth stock, but Gabelli was interested in them as a noted value inventory. 

“He’s a very patient investor,” Reif Ehrlich said. “He hired really smart people and he’s a great guy and has great relationships with companies. He’s very respectful, even when he’s smarter than the people he’s dealing with.”

Gabelli grew up in the Bronx. As a teen, he would take a bus or hitchhike to Sunningdale Country Club in Westchester County, where Jon Voight was a caddy and Voight’s father was the pro.

When the other caddies were sent home, Gabelli would carry bags for guys who worked the floor at the New York Stock Exchange, who would play nine holes after the trading day ended. “I liked what they were doing, so I started buying stocks,” he said. “It’s not complicated.”

He got a scholarship to Fordham University and earned MBAs from Fordham and Columbia University. Then he went to Wall Street.

He was at Loeb, Rhoades when its broadcast analyst left. Gabelli convinced his boss to let him take that on. He joked that he pulled a bit of a fast one because, in addition to covering broadcasters, he got to evaluate the content companies and go to Hollywood.

From Analyst to Investor

He founded his own firm in 1977 and backed Sumner Redstone as he built Viacom and acquired Paramount Pictures and CBS, winding up the second-biggest holder of Paramount Global voting shares after the Redstone family. When Shari Redstone agreed to sell Paramount this year, Gabelli took legal action to ensure he and his clients were getting a fair price.

Gabelli remains a longtime investor in broadcasting. He was the second-largest shareholder in Media General when Soo Kim’s Standard General looked to merge Media General with Young Broadcasting in 2013. “He was fair and he was very supportive of the way the deal came together,” Kim recalled.

More recently, Gabelli was an investor in Tegna when Standard General’s offer to buy it was killed by delays created by an unusually long, inconclusive FCC review. Gabelli also holds stakes in Sinclair and Gray Television. Sinclair president and CEO Chris Ripley described him as a “stalwart investor.” 

“Mario understands broadcast’s importance to local communities, and as such has been an advocate for deregulation and the ability for broadcasters to compete against Big Tech and Big Media,” Ripley added.

Gray Media chairman and CEO Hilton Howell said Gabelli has been “a valued investor” in the company for over two decades. “We appreciate his support and his team’s constructive engagement with us every quarter,” he noted. 

Gabelli has seen TV change from a simple three-network industry to one where you can get data and content on billions of mobile devices. But he still sees value in the broadcast business. He thinks regulatory changes, like eliminating ownership caps, would “change the dynamics on the plus side.” 

That would start another round of consolidation, with broadcast groups being bought at premium prices. “Guys like [Nexstar Media Group CEO] Perry Sook will demonstrate how they make money and how they find synergies,” he said.

Gabelli also thinks the spectrum broadcasters control is a lucrative hidden asset. “I put a value of about $700 million on the spectrum that CBS has,” he said. “Nobody talks about that.”

What will separate the winners from the losers, he believes, is “which management can use the cash flow that’s inherent in the business, even though it may secularly decline, to find new opportunities to enhance the residual part of the business, or to grow into new businesses.” 

Politics brought Karen Dougherty Buchholz to Philadelphia. Persistence, vision and mentorship allowed her to succeed in a city that adopted her as one of their own.

“I have a very nonlinear path,” she said. “I gravitate to opportunities that have a legacy impact.”

As executive VP of administration for Comcast, Dougherty Buchholz navigates an array of responsibilities, including real estate, facilities, aviation, corporate services, travel and security.  

She got her start after college in Pennsyl­vania politics, as special assistant to Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz from 1988-1990. She was then special assistant to state Treasurer Barbara Hafer during Hafer’s 1990 gubernatorial bid.

Becoming a Builder

Post-politics, Dougherty Buchholz launched the Pyramid Club at the Mellon Bank Center in Philadelphia for ClubCorp. She said this project helped her realize she loved the building process. Others around her recognized this passion, which led to her next role as sales executive for Comcast Spectacor to develop the Wells Fargo Center.

In 1997, then-Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell appointed Dougherty Buchholz as president of Philadelphia 2000, the organization that brought the 2000 Republican National Convention to Philadelphia.

She transferred these various skills to Comcast, moving in a completely different direction but one where she’s able to build.

“I’ve never gone from one job to another that made sense,” Dougherty Buchholz joked. “We all have tools in our toolbox. You take what you learned and apply it.”

Dougherty Buchholz was brought on to establish Comcast’s first corporate communications infrastructure. She has led many facets of the organization and was the executive in charge of the development of the Comcast Technology Center, a $1.5 billion, 60-story tower adjacent to Comcast’s corporate headquarters, the Comcast Center. She also oversaw the development of the Comcast Center, a $750 million, 56-story tower.

“Karen is a wonderful advocate for Comcast and Philadelphia and has made a lasting impact on both,” Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said. “Since joining us more than 20 years ago, she has handled many critical roles, always bringing the same optimism and get-it-done attitude to each situation.” 

The best aspect of Dougherty Buchholz’s role, she noted, is that each day is different. She loves working with people “who strive to continually improve the lives of those we serve,” she said.

Dougherty Buchholz was quick to point out that in addition to vision and persistence, mentorship is key. “I’ve had the great privilege of being mentored by leaders I long admired, and who opened doors for me in the civic and corporate worlds,” she said. She cited Rendell as “a charismatic and visionary leader who can convince everyone in a room to get on board and achieve something no one else thinks is possible.”

In addition, “There is no greater mentor than David L. Cohen, former Comcast senior EVP and chief diversity officer, and current U.S. ambassador to Canada,” Dougherty Buchholz said. “David is a titan in the business and political worlds, whose work offers a master class in diplomacy, negotiation, transformative leadership and coalition-building.”

Dougherty Buchholz embraces the responsibility of lifting the next generation of talent. As a result, she is chair of the board of directors for the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau and is on the boards of Drexel University and The WICT Network, among other posts.

Mentorship Minded

“Karen intentionally provides meaningful development and opportunities to early to midcareer colleagues, especially women,” Comcast VP, local media development Ebonne L. Leaphart said. “Karen balances her high standards with a unique approachability and kindness that endears and empowers her mentees to remain at our company and to thrive.”

Dougherty Buchholz expressed that her goals are to make a positive impact and leave a legacy. Her work has left a mark on Philadelphia through building projects, hospitality, tourism and more.

But perhaps her most important legacy is that she’s the mother of two grown children. “Alexander and Julia have become two extraordinary young adults,” she said. “Their professional work ethic, service to others, and commitment to contributing to something greater than themselves make me so proud of them.”

Most young girls who grew up watching Bewitched wanted to be like Samantha, a cheeky witch navigating life as a 1960s housewife. 

Not Janice Arouh. Her attention was fixed on Samantha’s husband, an account executive at an ad agency. “All I wanted to do was be like Darrin,” she said. “I wanted to be an advertising executive and work at an agency.” 

After moving to L.A. to pursue agency life and working on accounts including McDonald’s and PepsiCo, a friend piqued her interest in the burgeoning cable business. It was a realm she knew little about, but Arouh perhaps more than anything loves a challenge. When she interviewed at Showtime Networks, she was initially told she wasn’t the right fit because she had no cable or sales experience.  

“This is my fuel,” Arouh said. “When someone says no, I say yes. My [career] inflection points have all had a lot to do with pivoting and change. This wasn’t the path I imagined, but it was a wonderful surprise. I never looked back and, 30-plus years later, here I am.” 

Pivot to Cable

She ended up getting the Showtime position. “She was in the advertising world, but she came with excellent brand and promotional experience and terrific in-cable recommendations,” Dotty Ewing, Showtime’s regional director of affiliate sales and marketing at the time, said. “It was our kismet, then, that I had the opportunity to hire such a bright young woman.”

Arouh’s next move was driving local ad sales at then-fledgling Fox Cable Networks, where she was part of the launch of FX in 1994. Her subsequent stop was Hallmark Channel, where as distribution chief she helped grow the franchise with the launch of a dedicated movie network.

In 2010, she got a call from a mutual friend about Byron Allen and his new company, then called Entertainment Studios. The entertainer-turned-entrepreneur had just launched six networks on Verizon Fios TV and was looking for an executive to helm the distribution strategy. Arouh jumped.

“At the time we had nearly zero subscribers and today we have 270 million,” she said. “I can’t begin to express how many times we faced what I thought at the time were insurmountable challenges. But strategically we worked through them.” 

Arouh forged new distribution avenues across the telco, satellite and cable arenas, and has been a principal player in Allen Media’s acquisitions, including The Weather Channel, theGrio and HBCU GO. “It’s wild that we have grown as quickly as we have,” she said. “Even though my primary responsibility is the distribution strategy on linear and digital platforms, having the opportunity to be with Byron, side by side, raising funds to acquire new assets, participating in the process, has been eye-awakening.”

“Excellent,” “gracious” and “fair” are the words Allen uses to describe Arouh. “Janice is extremely focused on increasing top-line revenue and keeping costs down,” he said. “Her leadership through the years has proven to be thoughtful and strategic.”

Arouh also credits her strong foundation at home with propelling her professional growth. “My husband has been my constant and raised our children together with me while I was traveling all over like a maniac,” she said. 

Relationship Builder

Arouh is a consummate relationship-builder with both co-workers and clients. “Even though we have tough negotiations, we have a camaraderie,” she said. “I’ve established long-term trusting relationships, and by having trusting relationships you’re able to navigate very difficult negotiations.”

Tom Montemagno, executive VP of programming acquisition at Charter Communications, concurred. “I’ve been across the table from Janice many times over the last 25-plus years, and as hard as each situation might have been, I always could count on Janice to be the ultimate professional who has a customer-first approach and looks to find solutions workable for both sides while avoiding unnecessary drama,” he said. 

What’s top of mind for Arouh right now? “Accelerating our growth … not only on the traditional side but to extend our brands and create new brands for the evolving digital marketplace,” she said. 

She is excited about what may be next for Allen Media Group, and for her. “I don’t necessarily know what the future will bring, but I do believe there are endless possibilities and opportunities,” Arouh said. “We’re never bored!” 

With Election Day looming, TV stations in America are in demand like never before. Steve Lanzano has been prepping for eons, gearing up partner stations to make the most of the largesse. 

The spending started early, he said, and has not let up. The Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) estimates stations will get some $5.35 billion in political ads this year, per Ad Impact. “Political has just been … God, it’s a new record every time in terms of spending,” Lanzano said.

Perhaps even more important to member stations is Lanzano’s focus on the core advertising that sustains them when the political spots go away. In terms of automotive, which might represent a quarter of a station’s revenue, that means frequent visits to manufacturers, whether they’re in Detroit or Texas or California. 

While stations battle a broadening array of streaming options for viewers’ attention, Lanzano likes where he sits. “I’m still very positive about local broadcast,” he said. “When I first started here 15 years ago, it was essentially just advertising as the source of revenue for the stations.”

These days, he added, it’s also retransmission consent, connected TV and, increasingly, ATSC 3.0. “We went from one revenue source to four,” Lanzano said. 

Class Act

Lanzano grew up in Rockland County, New York, a little north of New York City. He was a student at Seton Hall University and found himself in a media planning class. “I didn’t know what it was, but it seemed interesting,” he said. 

It inspired him to seek a career in advertising. He started with an internship at Katz Media Group his senior year, and moved to the agency side after he graduated. He mentioned Irwin Gotlieb, Beth Gordon, Mitch Burg and Charlie Rutman among those who have mentored him. “I’ve had great people that I’ve worked with what I learned from — how they work, how they think, how they manage,” he said. 

Lanzano was chief operating officer at MPG North America when he got a call about the TVB post. He said colleagues warned him that local broadcast was not a growth industry. “I told them I have a very different view of it,” he said. “I think the business is actually vital and has a unique position in people’s viewing in the media world, and it’s going to continue to grow.”

Lanzano started at TVB in December 2009. He shared about coming home after his first day. “My wife said, you look like a different person,” he said. “You look excited. You look like you’re having fun.”

Nearly 15 years later, he still is. Signs around his Manhattan office feature “Lanzanoisms,” such as “It Is What It Is” and “Life’s Too Short,” reminding him not to get bogged down in the small stuff. 

“You can’t work with Steve and have him not know what’s going on in your life,” VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham said. “It’s just part of his style. He’s so personable and cares about your family, and wants to know what’s important to you.”

What’s Working? What’s Not?

Representing 850 stations, the TVB breaks the year into thirds. The first third sees Lanzano and his colleagues on the road, going to conferences. The middle features the virtual sales conference (TVB Forward happened September 19), which counts 5,000 registrants. The final third sees planning for the new year. “What are our priorities next year?” Lanzano said. “What are we doing that works? What are we doing that’s not working? What should we be doing? That’s how our year works.”

Abby Auerbach, TVB executive VP and chief communications officer, has known Lanzano since they were in the same media training program at Ogilvy back in 1983. She called him “a spectacular advocate” for local television. 

“Steve believes in the value of localism and really gets it — the power of broadcast television to reach and persuade people,” she said. 

When he’s not working, Lanzano unwinds with his family, which includes a half-
dozen grandkids who live within a few minutes of his home in New Jersey. “We have the pool, so everybody’s over for Papa barbecues,” he said. “And the kids know they can get away with murder.”

When the weekend ends, it’s back to work, hustling on behalf of the TVB’s partner stations. Lanzano relishes the opportunity. “I’ve learned a lot and I’m still learning every day,” he said. “The key is to learn something new every day, and have the humility to change.” 

Bob Bakish was on the verge of becoming a partner at prestigious consulting firm Booz Allen when his career took a surprising swerve, one that landed him in his new professional home for the next quarter-century and now in the B+C Hall of Fame. 

“It wasn’t a thought-out thing,” the former CEO of Paramount Global said. 

After studying engineering in college and later getting an MBA, Bakish started at Booz Allen working on packaged goods before taking on media projects, including consulting for Viacom. 

One day, deputy chairman Tom Dooley took Bakish to breakfast to discuss Viacom’s future. Bakish thought Dooley wanted a consultant but, he recalled, “He said, ‘If you ever wanted to play the game on the field, instead of calling it from the sidelines, we should talk.’  ”  

Bakish made the leap soon after and spent the next two-plus decades proving time and again that he really did belong on the playing field. 

A consultant’s job is to give opinions, Bakish said. “It might be controversial and might piss people off, but that doesn’t matter. But when you’re inside the company you have to get things done. You have to figure out how the best idea can be implemented and then get people to buy in and do it. And first, you have to build up credibility.”

Bakish put his training to good use, so much so that one day an MTV business development executive said, “The thing I hate about your presentations is that by the time you get to the end I can’t help but agree with you,” Bakish recalled. “I said, ‘That’s the point.’ You have to craft the argument in a way to build support. And then you have to build the management skills to bring people along.”

Bakish earned enough credibility to quickly climb the corporate ladder, gaining diverse experiences and gleaning valuable insights along the way. 

He started at Viacom in 1997 as VP of planning and development and within two years was executive VP of planning and business development for MTV Networks. He quickly rose to executive VP of operations for Viacom as well as executive VP of Viacom Enterprises. 

Bakish consistently challenged the status quo, persuading his bosses during his ad-sales days to break the silos between Viacom’s networks and sell package deals for all of MTV Networks. 

He said his most “satisfying and fun role” began in 2007 when he became president of MTV Networks International. MTVNI was an unprofitable dead zone, with the complications that come from trying to appeal to many different cultures. But what Bakish reveled in was the full plate of responsibilities with no one above interfering. 

Bakish proved himself at MTNI with the savvy restructuring and merging of units and, again, breaking down what he saw as “a confederation of independent nations” to be run as one company. He doubled revenue, making MTVNI hugely profitable. Later, he became president and CEO of Viacom International Media Networks, making it the company’s most successful division.

Smooth Operator

In 2016, Bakish ascended to president and CEO of Viacom, where he began a major restructuring to focus on core brands, introduce an emphasis on new technology like apps and streaming services and replace executives in nearly every unit.  

“Bob has made an indelible mark on our industry,” NCTA–The Internet & Television Association president and CEO Michael Powell said. “He wields his talent with good humor, kindness and equanimity.”

Ray Hopkins, a fellow B+C Hall of Famer who Bakish picked as president, U.S. networks distribution at Paramount, praised his former boss as “authentic, direct and candid.”

Bakish’s personal touch proved crucial to rebuilding outside relationships and improving morale, Hopkins said. “I remember heading down from the 52nd floor with him and he’d greet everyone who got on and then he held court in the lobby,” he said. “He’s genuine and a good guy and made everyone feel part of the team.”

Within two years, Bakish had turned the company around. He ran it until earlier this year, when he departed among shifting tides and internal politics. 

Bakish isn’t sure what’s next, but he’s also in no rush to find out. 

“I don’t want the phone ringing at 10 at night,” he said. “I want time and flexibility for my family. And then it will be time for the next chapter.” 

When Marianne Gambelli got her start in advertising, women were never part of teams that sold sports, beer or cars. But in her first sales job at Grey Advertising, she worked on the Miller Beer account. That was only the first of the ceilings that she burst right through.

Gambelli was later on the NBC Sports team, ending up as president of sales
and marketing for NBCUniversal. She led upfronts worth several billion dollars, often setting the market in NBC’s “Must-See TV” era. 

Gambelli went on to spend 10 years as Horizon Media’s chief investment officer, where she got an education in advanced advertising as ads moved away from Nielsen ratings and demographics and toward data-based metrics and impressions. She then brought that education to Fox, where she was president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships.

“I wasn’t one of those who had to be promoted,” Gambelli said. “I just did the work. I felt like that work got recognized and then things happened, doors opened that weren’t open before. I honestly don’t feel like they had to have a female so they picked me. I felt that I earned it.”

Gambelli’s performance in all of her roles has certainly opened doors for other women to come through. “We grew up with heads of ad sales all being men; now they are all women,” Keith Turner, who worked with Gambelli as NBC’s president of ad sales, said. “She never panicked and was always able to operate effectively and lead.”

That sense of confidence gave other leaders confidence in her, allowing her to both to lead as she saw fit and also influence overall corporate decisions. “Whenever we were in the room — and I was often with her in rooms that included the likes of Bob Wright, Jeff Zucker and Steve Burke — she was always a commanding presence,” Ed Swindler, an independent media consultant to Fox who formerly held several executive roles at NBC, said. “She always had a point of view that they wanted to know and she was trusted. Trust is the basis for most of her success.” 

One of the things Gambelli learned is that “you’re interviewing for the job when you don’t even know you are interviewing for it.” For example, she developed a tight relationship with Jeff Zucker when he was NBC’s head of West Coast entertainment in 2000. When he was promoted to CEO of NBCUniversal Television group in 2005, he knew right away who would lead his ad-sales team. 

“Watch the relationships you have as you are growing. They are what comes back to you,” Gambelli said. 

Relationship Builder

Cultivating strong relationships is what brought Gambelli to Fox in 2017. About a year and half prior, a mutual friend introduced her to Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Aber­nethy. They met for breakfast. “When we got there, I think we were both like, ‘why are we here,’ but we hit it off,” she said. “It was probably one of the best meetings I’ve ever had. A year and a half later, when the head ad sales job opened, he called me.” 

Gambelli spent the last seven years of her career at Fox, years that she said were her favorite because “they let you run your business, but there was also lots of support.” In 2020, Gambelli launched the Fox Ad Sales Diversity and Inclusion Council with the mission to build and enhance the culture of inclusivity.

“I feel the more voices you have that are different, the better off you are as a whole,” she said. “You need different ways of thinking. That lets the whole team rise up.” 

Kristi Curcio-Nolan, VP, ad sales, strategic and business initiatives, engagement and events, office of the president, said diversity and inclusion were always a focus for Gambelli.
“She has always wanted to bring everybody up,” she said. “She was always doing these things but she never needed to be in the spotlight.” 

Gambelli retired from Fox in January after a satisfying four-decade career. “I did things that I never thought I would do,” she said. “I went to the Beijing Olympics, Wimbledon, the French Open. I had so many experiences that one person should never have in one lifetime. If I don’t do anything else for the rest of my life, I will have lived well.” 

Douglas V. Holloway has had the magic touch throughout his decades-long career, finding success on the marketing, sales and programming sides of the broadcast, cable and digital businesses while serving as an industry ambassador to help others achieve success, too. 

“Douglas is a true legend in the media business and a humble leader whose vision, creativity and tenacity created and built key brands into powerhouses,” Ann Carlsen, founder and CEO of executive recruiting firm Carlsen Resources, said. 

Holloway’s first taste of the television business came as a toddler in his hometown of Pittsburgh, as a guest on Romper Room in 1957. “My mom was all about making a pathway for me to have as much opportunity as possible,” Holloway said. “She must have heard me say I wanted to be on Romper Room. I believe I was the first Black kid on the show.”

Holloway would graduate from Emerson College in 1975 with a degree in mass communications and television production. He enhanced his TV aspirations with an MBA from Columbia University three years later. 

“At that point, I wanted to be president of a television company in 20 years, even though I didn’t know much about broadcast television and didn’t know anything about cable,” Holloway said. “But I had a plan and I was determined to see it through.”

After a marketing stint at General Foods, Holloway joined CBS in 1980 as a strategic planner. “The executives there wanted me to focus on new technologies, so I worked on a business plan for the network’s entry into the [cable] business,” he said.  

Holloway would then take his talents to Time Inc. as national accounts manager for startup magazine TV-Cable Week before an opportunity arose in 1983 to create the affiliate relations department at upstart USA Network. By 1988 he would head it up. “[USA Network founder] Kay Koplovitz was looking to set up an affiliate relations group, so I took the opportunity and the rest is history,” Holloway said. 

After the 2004 NBCUniversal merger, Holloway would take on the roles of NBCU president, Network Distribution Partnerships and Affiliate Marketing and president of NBCUniversal’s Cable Investments, where he oversaw the launches of cable networks such as Syfy.

Holloway’s welcoming approach to his business dealings endeared him to his clients. “Doug is all about partnership, so he was never pushing an agenda that was not in collaboration with the agenda of his clients,” Mediacom Communications group VP of programming Glenn Goldsmith said. “He always looked out for you and always reached out to help pull up the next person.” 

Indeed, Holloway’s influence has also been felt outside the C-suites as a tireless supporter of the television industry’s multicultural efforts. He played a key role developing the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC), and served as a mentor to executives of color looking to climb the corporate ladder. 

Clearing a Path for Others

“Doug is a real pioneer in the business, and he worked very hard to make sure people of color were taken care of in the industry,” HBCU Go president Curtis Symonds said. 

During his distinguished television career, Holloway racked up numerous awards and recognitions, including the NCTA’s Vanguard Award for Marketing, inductions into both the Cable Hall of Fame and the Cable Pioneers and a NAMIC Lifetime Achievement Award.  

In 2011, Holloway shifted gears and moved to Ion Media Networks as its president of multichannel distribution. He would later realize his entrepreneurial dreams, launching Homewood Media in 2015. The company in 2020 launched multicultural streaming services URBN-TV and UKW Media. 

As for the future, Holloway has his sights set on grander aspirations. “I want to put together the largest Black-owned media and entertainment company,” he said.

Those that know him believe he’s capable of doing anything he sets his mind to. “Doug never stopped learning, growing and reinventing himself and his companies … a truly rare thing these days,” Carlsen said. “He’s developed new streaming networks and now owns his own successful media company. He’s done all of this while always remembering where he came from and appreciating
all those who paved the way ahead for him.” 

Coming up in the cable industry’s heyday, B+C Hall of Fame chairman William McGorry built his career in publishing the old-fashioned way: strong handshakes, stories of family, drinks after dinner and being there for his colleagues. 

An Irishman and a New Yorker through and through, McGorry grew up in Queens. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he won a marksmanship award, and married his wife, Phyllis, at 21. The McGorrys had six children — one son, Tim, and five daughters, Pam, Jenny, Amy, Sarah and Regan. (“No one ever explained it to me,” McGorry joked. “I was Irish and I was Catholic.”) Phyllis wrote for the New York Daily News for some years and all of the kids worked in media at different points in their careers, a point of pride for McGorry. 

McGorry’s first publishing job was with Mart Magazine, a consumer electronics trade that took advantage of McGorry’s earlier work at General Motors. He was hired as an account executive in 1981 but was quickly made publisher.

His first job in media came when Mart was being sold to Gordon Publications and McGorry jumped to Broadcast Management Engineering (BME) magazine in 1984. He stayed there for three years before that magazine was sold — to Norman Lear-owned Act 3 — and McGorry jumped again, this time to oversee two cable trade magazines that were published out of Denver: bimonthly Cablevision and monthly Communication Engineering Design (CED) magazine. In 1987, McGorry was personally welcomed to the group by cable legend Bill Daniels, who was a major cable broker and owner of cable systems and sports teams in his day. “Our industry needs these magazines,” McGorry said Daniels, who passed away in 2000 at age 79, told him. “It’s important to have two or three voices, we can’t have a single voice. I want you to do what it takes. This is a mission.”

McGorry took Daniels seriously, and the group took off.  “That was a great growth period that went on for about four years,” he said. 

McGorry made two key hires at that time: Joel Berger, who had been publisher of Channels Magazine, and Marianne Paskowski, hired as editorial director. About three years into the group’s run, Berger told McGorry that he had contracted AIDS and didn’t have long to live. 

Working with industry group Cable Positive, which ran from 1992 to 2009, McGorry and others created the Joel Berger Award. The honor was handed out every year, and eventually to McGorry. “That was a major moment in my career, one that was important to me both personally and professionally,” he said.

In 1991, Cablevision and CED were sold to Fairchild Publications, part of Capital Cities/ABC. That deal brought with it weekly Multichannel News, creating a small cable trade publishing group for McGorry to oversee. The group later launched two more publications, Wireless Week and Multichannel News International.

Disney acquired Cap Cities/ABC In 1996 and one year later, sold the cable magazines to Cahners, which brought Broadcasting magazine to the group. Broadcasting, which began in 1931, was considered to be the voice of the broadcasting industry. Cahners launched the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1991 and renamed the magazine Broadcasting & Cable in 1993. Unbeknownst to McGorry, the Hall of Fame would become one of his lasting legacies. 

McGorry’s leadership was such that he won over even those who were skeptical.

“After corporate shuffled me and Broadcasting & Cable into McGorry’s group, I was wary,” Harry Jessell, former editor of B+C and founder and editor at large at TVNewsCheck, said. “I figured that as the newcomer we would not get the same care and feeding his other magazines did. But Bill quickly allayed my concerns. He embraced the magazine, respected its long traditions and gave me his support, even though I know I stretched his patience at times. As a boss, he was like a good baseball manager — affable, stoic and savvy. He kept the clubhouse loose, gave a good pep talk and, when the game was on the line, made the right calls.”

Helming the Hall of Fame

McGorry retired from overseeing the publishing group in 2007, but remained chairman of the Hall of Fame. He held that position until this year, which will be his last as chair. One of the things he’s most proud of over his nearly two decades of overseeing the Hall of Fame is its increased focus on inducting women and people of color. 

“That was a natural evolution of the business, but we were always mindful that they needed and deserved a presence in the Hall of Fame,” McGorry said.  

Throughout the years, the B+C Hall of Fame has inducted many of the media industry’s finest talent and executives, including Lucille Ball, Emily Barr, Michael J. Fox, Gayle King, Hoda Kotb, Kelly Ripa, Judge Judy Sheindlin, Alex Trebek, Oprah Winfrey and so many more.

This year, McGorry himself will be inducted into the organization he so carefully tended for almost two decades.

Said Dennis Wharton, former executive VP of communications at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), who helped McGorry wrangle many a broadcaster over the years, “He’s like a fine Irish whiskey, he ages very well.” 

Mounting shows in first-run syndication has become financially daunting as production costs have risen and ratings have plummeted. As a result, TV stations and producers are finding innovative ways to get offerings on the air — acquiring shows off streaming services, allowing them to air concurrently on other platforms, expanding existing programs and creating local offerings that can also run regionally. While local linear television is an increasingly challenged business, broadcasters are devising interesting new solutions to solve their programming problems. 

“It’s really hard to pay for things these days,” Fox Television Stations executive VP Frank Cicha said. “People are figuring out how to do some interesting stuff to pay for new programming. That’s the upside and the optimism of it all.” 

Dual- (or more) stream financing is “necessary now,” Stacy Rader, senior VP, first-run development and brand extensions at CBS Media Ventures (CMV), said. “Single-source financing is hard to pull off these days, particularly for new product.”

Fox this fall will launch six programs: Good Morning Football: Overtime from NFL Network and Sony Pictures Television; Flip Side from CBS Media Ventures and Game Show Network; and two new true-crime shows: Warner Bros.’ True Crime News and Trifecta’s Crime Expose With Nancy O’Dell. Fox has its own limited-edition news program, Battleground, which is airing across its own group and on a few other stations. And Fox picked up an off-network run of Suits from NBCUniversal that will air weekly in primetime on its MyNet stations. Separately, Warner Bros. is debuting Chuck Lorre’s off-CBS Bob Hearts Abishola on stations across the country.

Fox has a big advantage over other station groups in clearing shows, with duopolies in the top three markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and plenty of periods to fill. As a result, all roads lead through Fox. 

Fox Likes Live and Local

Fox has some specific priorities for its syndicated programs: ideally they are day-and-date — a mandate filled by shows like GMFB: Overtime and True Crime News — and it’s even better if they offer a live component. Fox also seeks shows that allow close integration with its owned TV stations. True Crime News plans to work with its local affiliates to showcase crime stories from their markets, for example. Fox already has sent its Good Day LA team from KTTV Los Angeles to Inglewood to shoot on the SoFi Stadium-based set of GMFB: Overtime. 

Fox also is producing more shows that work regionally. For example, The Jason Show comes from Fox’s KMSP Minneapolis-St. Paul but airs regionally in 11 markets. 

Lifestyle talk show Portia airs on Fox-owned stations in Atlanta, Orlando and San Francisco, as well as on Fox-owned streamer Fox Soul, which is programmed to connect with Black audiences, and on faith-based streamer Impact Network.  

Fox this fall also is doing something completely different with Battleground, a news-oriented program that will cover politics in the country’s swing states. In its final 60 days or so, the presidential election continues to be hard-fought, dramatic and too close to call. Fox aims to help viewers keep track of it all via Battleground, which is hosted by S.E. Cupp and features reporting from across Fox’s station groups and from reporters from Gannett, McClatchy and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

“It’s really hyperlocal and it’s all about the swing states,” Stephen Brown, executive VP, programming and development, Fox First Run and Fox Television Stations, said. “We’re in every single market in Michigan and Wisconsin. We’re leaning into what we see on the ground and how that’s affecting the race.” 

This fall’s biggest swing, GMFB: Overtime, is a two-hour expansion of Good Morning Football, a two-hour sports talk panel that has aired on NFL Network since 2016 and has relocated to Los Angeles from New York. The expansion series will run on streaming service Roku and on TV stations, with Fox Television Stations serving as the show’s broadcast launch group and the show cleared in 92% of the country. Half of the stations who are airing the show will be taking it live, Flory Bramnick, executive VP, distribution, Sony Pictures Television, said. 

Stations also can air the show in two-hour blocks or split it into two separate hours to run at different times of day. GMFB: Overtime is a prime example of a show that’s being produced under a more flexible economic model.

Even back when executive producer Michael Davies was pitching the show to the NFL, he knew that “the show needed to be more famous” than just one daily run on the NFL Network could make it. 

“In an era of declining linear cable, we needed to be more distribution forward.” Davies said. “I really believed we could make this show work and not just as an NFL show or a sports-talk show. This goes beyond sports.” 

Davies brought with him a lot of experience in syndication, having developed and produced Who Wants To Be a Millionaire for ABC in primetime and then in syndication from 2002-2019, and having executive produced Jeopardy! since 2021. 

Sony and the NFL also had preexisting relationships with Roku, so it made sense to bring the streaming service in as well. 

“Overall, as a business, we are always looking for ways to expand the reach of our content, whether that content is live games or studio content and shows,” NFL Media VP, original content and entertainment Angela Ellis said. “This came up as an opportunity to get the GMFB brand out there in a way that gives it a lot more exposure.” 

And TV stations are more than happy to share: “Roku Channel is chipping in in a big way for GMFB: Overtime,” Cicha said. “To me, that needed to start happening about five years ago.”

True Crime Fits the Bill

Switching gears, True Crime News, hosted by Ana Garcia and produced by Warner Bros./Telepictures, will cover the day’s top crime stories. It’s been staffed up with assignment editors and producers who formerly worked for such news organizations as ABC, CBS, CNN, Vice and more. 

“We are the only program that will be covering true-crime news as it happens,” Albert Lewitinn, executive producer of True Crime News, said. The show is also executive-produced by Extra’s Jeremy Spiegel and Theresa Coffino. “We also have the ability to leverage all of the affiliates that are taking part in this. Fox, Scripps, Tegna, Hearst — they are all on board and it’s great to see them being partners with us in this. It’s a lot of back and forth between us and our affiliates — they’re the eyes and ears.”

That kind of collaboration appeals to stations looking to grab broader reach for their local news brands.

True Crime News is cleared in 98% of the country and in 204 markets. It already has a website, a YouTube channel and a video and audio podcast, hosted by Garcia, that have been up and running for years. The website gets an average of 2.5 million viewers per month, while the YouTube channel has 5.45 million subscribers. 

Also coming online this fall is Crime Exposé With Nancy O’Dell from Trifecta, Michael Eisner’s Tornante and Scott Sternberg Productions, with Sternberg as executive producer. Sternberg, who also has a strong reputation for producing game shows, has been in the true-crime business for years. ID’s On the Case with Paula Zahn, which Sternberg’s company executive produces and also streams on Max, just got renewed for a 15th season.

While True Crime News will cover the true-crime news of the day, Crime Exposé will focus on one murder in each half-hour episode. All cases that make it to air will already be through the trial and conviction phase, so every story has a beginning, middle and end — a format that true-crime addicts can’t seem to get enough of. 

“No one has done a true-crime murder story every day in first run,” Sternberg said. “But this makes sense because this audience just wants to consume as much of it as they can.”

It’s a bit of a homecoming for O’Dell, who is best known for her stints hosting Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, but who worked as an on-air crime reporter in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier in her broadcast career.

Crime Exposé With Nancy O’Dell is cleared in just under 98% of the U.S. with 24 weeks of original programming. 

Trifecta also has renewed iCrime With Elizabeth Vargas for a third season, and the two shows are expected to be paired in many markets. iCrime relies on clips submitted by users, and in season three, plans to use even more clips at a faster pace. Both Crime Exposé and iCrime are sold on an all-barter basis. 

‘Flip Side’ Looks To Connect

Finally, CBS Media Ventures has partnered with Game Show Network to produce Flip Side, a half-hour game show starring Jaleel White, who audiences know as Steve Urkel from ‘90s sitcom Family Matters. 

White came to producers’ attention after making several appearances on current syndicated game shows Pictionary and 25 Words or Less.

“I feel like my place in the business is connecting with people,” White
said. “The celebrity thing is about how you make the viewer feel about themselves.”

White also is charged with ensuring the show stays on track while also keeping it fun and fast-paced. He’s been part of the show’s development since it began in 2020, joining CBS’s John Budkins, production company Keller/Noll and executive producer Ken Ross on Zoom calls once things really started picking up in the winter and spring of 2023.

“We liked Jaleel and wanted to find a vehicle for him,” Budkins, senior VP, programming and scheduling, CBS TV Stations, said. “We built the show around him and his talent for working wth people.”

Flip Side premieres September 9 on CBS-owned stations — mostly duopoly stations in top markets — and September 16 on GSN. CBS stations get the first run with GSN getting a second run shortly thereafter. 

“All of the platforms are completely different and social followers now are much savvier,” Rader said. “I look at the social piece as a way to get people engaged in playing the game so they want to see more of it on the linear side.” 

With more series coming to syndication from other platforms, the line between first-run and off-network is getting increasingly blurred. One interesting entry this fall is Suits, a one-hour drama from Universal that originally aired on USA Network from  2011 to 2019, and starred Patrick J. Adams, Gabriel Macht and Meghan Markle, who went on to marry Prince Harry and become globally famous. 

The show started running on Netflix in 2023 and shot to the top of the streaming charts. NBCUniversal Syndication Studios executive VP of syndication sales Sean O’Boyle saw the opportunity and took the show out to stations to run on an all-barter basis. MyNetworkTV, which airs one-hour off-net dramas in primetime, took NBCU up on its offer and will air Suits in a two-hour stack on Tuesday nights. It’s also been sold to stations covering more than 93% of the country (not including MyNet) on a “flexible scheduling” basis, meaning that stations can schedule the show however they want, whether that’s as a strip or once a week. 

Another off-network show coming to syndication this fall is Judy Justice, which stars Judge Judy Sheindlin and originally aired on Amazon Freevee. Judy Justice is the only new court show coming to syndication this fall after several years where multiple court shows were offered. 

Looking ahead, executives agree that first-run syndication will likely be financed by this type of creative dealmaking.

“Streaming and linear are complementary audiences and we are going where the viewers are,” Bramnick said. “Having multiple platforms and players involved means that the economics of the shows hold up.”

The 22nd Annual Hispanic Television Summit, set for September 11, offers a daylong series of conversations that focuses on how TV is authentically reflecting Latino stories.

One conversation will feature actor John Leguizamo with filmmaker Ben DeJesus of NGLmitu and Luis Ortiz of Latino Public Broadcasting. They discuss American Historia, a three-part series that uncovers the overlooked contributions of Latinos in history.  It premieres on PBS in September.

“Here we are in the 21st century, and my son can’t see himself in history textbooks,” Leguizamo said earlier this year at the PBS Annual Meeting. “We’re not anywhere in history textbooks, and we helped build America.”

Another session focuses on how Latino stories are reflected in the news and features journalists Cristina Navarrete, weekend anchor and general assignment reporter for WNJU New York (Telemundo 47); Jessica Formoso, reporter for WNYW New York (Fox 5); and Tanya Rivero, WABC New York weekend anchor. 

A different session focuses on Latino stories in new productions and includes programmers like Hortensia Quadreny Tenchi of  Warner Bros. Discovery, Oswald Mendez of Canela TV, Frank Scheuermann of Endemol Shine Boomdog and more.

A discussion on streaming and distribution features executives including Jen McBride from Condista; Luis Torres Bohl of Castalia and Mexicanal; Doris Vogelmann of V-Me and Evan Redwood of  Google.  In another session, Comcast’s Jose Velez Silva will discuss Now TV Latino, Xfinity’s new streaming platform for serving Latino audiences. 

A session focused on media strategies features Marina Filippelli from Orci; Ron Mendez, with GroupM Multicultural; Alex Minicucci at Horizon Media; and Carla Kelly from NBCUniversal Media.  An opening keynote address is presented by another media star, Isabela Sanchez of Zubi Advertising, who is the current chair of the Hispanic Marketing Council.  Plus, the agenda also includes new research findings from Altman Solon, AIMM, Nielsen and Horowitz, plus a lunchtime mariachi performance.

Award Winners Honored

A popular segment is the presentation of the Hispanic TV Awards. This year’s recipients will be recognized for their contribution to the business of TV for Hispanic audiences in the U.S. and worldwide.

Chiqui Cartagena is the director of CUNY TV and an author. She is one of the two recipients of the Rafael Eli Award for Pioneer in Hispanic Television. Her inspiration comes from her friendship with TV talk show legend, Cristina Saralegui. Cartagena covered news in her early career, and claims this for her success. She used her journalistic skills to develop new Spanish-language media and marketing products. She said receiving this award gives her courage.

The other recipient of the Pioneer Award is Javier Saralegui, CEO of Danger TV. His mentor is Jerry Perenchio, a pioneer in Hispanic television at Univision. Saralegui shared that he was often the first employee hired for new projects and that made him realize that he would be underresourced and require him to develop an “outside the box” mindset.  He said this mindset is a key to his success.

Three awards will be presented for leadership in Hispanic Television.  One goes to Isabel Rafferty Zavala, founder and CEO of Canela Media. She credits her mother for her ability to remain committed to her vision of securing $32 million in funding, making Canela Media the most heavily funded Latina-owned company in the media industry. Rafferty Zavala said that her success is due, in part, to surrounding herself with people who elevate the company and share a common vision.

VAB CEO Sean Cunningham is also a leadership recipient.  He believes most advertising successes come when leaders allow young, bright people to go as far as they can as quickly as they can handle it. Cunningham said he has worked with many in the Hispanic space and being thought of as a peer leader to them gives him great personal satisfaction.

The final award for leadership is presented to Michael Roca, executive director of Omnicom Media Group’s cross-cultural center of excellence. He grew up in Queens as the child of Guatemalan parents. Roca said his mother is his inspiration in his career and influenced him to develop traits of humility, ambition and empathy.  He said programs like Sabado Gigante, Jorge Ramos and Betty la Fea were staples of his childhood.  This award represents the importance of positive representation in storytelling that can only be found in Hispanic TV and media, he said. 

The Hispanic Television Summit, programmed by Schramm Marketing Group during NYC TV Week, will be held at etc.Venues, 360 Madison Ave., New York. For more information, visit nyctvweek.com. 

Click on the gallery below for photos from Comic-Con San Diego and the Summer TCA Press Tour, plus photos from the Queer Eye guys' 20th anniversary visit to the White House and more. 

It’s a disruptive time in the TV industry as shifting business models are leading to sea changes in how video content is watched, distributed and monetized. Fortunately, there’s also no shortage of rising industry stars who are up to the challenge of being creative and innovative enough to keep things moving forward. 

For over a decade, Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV have honored a select group of industry pros under 40 — both established veterans and up-and-comers — as part of the 40 Under 40 New York awards program.  

The 40 Under 40 awards are designed to honor those at the forefront of a changing industry. Through a nomination and judging process, B+C Multichannel News has selected a group of creative, tech-savvy visionaries helping to lead media in new directions, wherever the viewers are. 

The 2024 New York 40 Under 40 class will be honored at a gala party September 12, capping off Future B2B’s NYC TV Week of events, which also includes Advanced Advertising, the Hispanic Television Summit and the Next TV Summit. The 40 Under 40 awards party will take place at the 230 Fifth Rooftop at 230 5th Ave. in Manhattan. 

For more information and to register, visit tvweek40under40.com. 

Below, read more about the 2024 40 Under 40 New York, listed alphabetically. 

Greg Barnard
Senior Director, Content Acquisitions and Strategy, Vizio
Barnard has elevated Vizio’s WatchFree Plus streaming service to the next level. With a portfolio boasting more than 300 channels and 15,000 on-demand titles, he has led negotiations with numerous media partners. He has secured exclusive content deals for acclaimed shows such as @Home with Tori, featuring Tori Spelling, and The Pantry, hosted by chef Tom Colicchio. He oversees the team responsible for negotiating and closing content, service and tech agreements for WatchFree Plus, all while unifying processes, implementing efficient project management strategies and strengthening relationships. With more than 17 years of industry experience, Barnard’s influence extends far beyond Vizio. This is evident in his roles as a founding board member for HRTS Associates NYC, adviser for Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) and mentor with the T. Howard Foundation and Ghetto Film School. Barnard’s relentless dedication and visionary approach continue to shape the future of entertainment.

Kevin Belbey
Sports Media Agent, Creative Artists Agency
Belbey represents many top sports broadcasters, including Noah Eagle (NBC Sports), Fabrizio Romano (an Italian sports journalist) and Kevin Brown (Baltimore Orioles/ESPN). He also signed former NFL stars Devin and Jason McCourty, negotiating a multiyear, seven-figure-per-year deal for Devin to join NBC Sports as an analyst for Football Night in America, and a deal for Jason to join CBS Sports as an NFL and college football game analyst, in addition to co-host of NFL Network’s Good Morning Football. Belbey also hustled to sign Ian Eagle in 2022, who recently succeeded Jim Nantz as the play-by-play person for the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four for CBS Sports and TNT Sports. Upon NBC Sports’ acquisition of Big Ten media rights, Kevin orchestrated several prominent moves that would see CAA clients define NBC’s coverage, including Noah Eagle as the featured voice of NBC’s Big Ten Saturday Night football package. He also represented Drew Carter in his contract to join the Boston Celtics as a play-by-play announcer.

Noella Charles
VP, Development & Original Production, Unscripted, WE tv/AllBlk
Charles has helped revitalize WE tv’s offerings, executive-producing brand-defining, celebrity-driven ensemble docuseries, including Keke Wyatt’s World, chronicling the journey of R&B/gospel artist Wyatt; Toya & Reginae, following Atlanta’s dynamic mother-daughter duo; Bold & Bougie, featuring five women determined to live unapologetically on their own terms; The Barnes Bunch, following NBA champion Matt Barnes, his fiancée, model Anansa Sims, and their blended family of six children; and Love During Lockup, about couples fighting to keep their love alive while one partner is incarcerated. While at Viacom, Charles helped lead BET’s music series 106 & Park to its highest ratings with various segments and larger awards-show initiatives and worked as a coordinating producer on MTV’s Wild ’N Out. At Fuse TV, she launched shows such as Trending 10, and was a producer for The People’s Choice Awards on E!

Beau Decker
VP, Growth Marketing, Endeavor Streaming 
Decker leads a team of marketing strategists, analysts and data scientists who operate as an extension of Endeavor Streaming’s clients to help them scale their businesses through marketing, analytics, data and technology, and to drive efficiencies across acquisition, retention and monetization of direct-to-consumer businesses. He has established himself as an effective leader who is highly proficient in implementing unified business strategies that embrace the complexities of the modern media ecosystem. His unique mix of business expertise, understanding of advanced technological marketing and data capabilities and his customer-centric approach directly impacts clients’ ability to maximize the value of their direct-to-consumer streaming businesses. Decker developed the Endeavor Streaming Audience Development team as a direct result of a market challenge: Regardless of an organization’s size, OTT teams often lack the resources to run and scale a streaming service efficiently. Since its inception in 2022, the team has successfully supported a substantial number of high-profile clients, including UEFA.tv and UFC Fight Pass.

Kirby Dixon
Director, Publicity, History 
Dixon has spearheaded the communications campaigns for tentpole History series including Alone, which The New Yorker recently called “the best reality series ever made;” The Harlem Hellfighters, executive produced by Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts; 761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers from Morgan Freeman; and The Curse of Oak Island, among others. She stands out for her thoughtful, creative and nuanced approach to every project, her co-workers said, mining each story for the significant and often untold aspects. Her never-give-up attitude has led to key placements for programming with New York Magazine, The New Yorker, MSNBC, GMA, CNN and other key media outlets. In the past year alone, Kirby has worked to gain access to some of the most high-profile U.S. government locations and officials for key press events. She facilitated a conversation between the nation’s first Black secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, and Morgan Freeman at the Pentagon to discuss 761st Tank Battalion. She’s also a tireless champion for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at History and parent A+E.

Tori Fernandes
VP, Corporate Communications, The Walt Disney Co. 
Fernandes has unified Disney’s narrative across its streaming, digital and linear properties as one authoritative entity, and the integrated strategy has reinvented the way the company comes to market. In January, her corporate communications team spearheaded all press for Disney’s Global Tech & Data Showcase, which took place in person for the first time at CES. The team created an intentional campaign that cascaded throughout the week. This strategic plan included a press preview with key executives and journalists; exclusive stories with various publications aligned with the timing of the showcase; six separate executive interviews and panels during the week that led up to the event; and live social media coverage that extensively followed the excitement on stage. Amid an incredibly competitive CES news cycle, Disney Advertising clinched over 50 unique headlines for exclusive feature stories and organic placements. Also helping cut through the noise was a video message from CEO Bob Iger that Fernandes helped produce. 

Joe Fitzpatrick
Director, Programmatic Partnerships, NBCUniversal
Sitting at the crossroads of technology and addressable advertising, Fitzpatrick has rare knowledge of the industry landscape. Whether engaging with clients and understanding their challenges or seeing opportunities in the content provider world, his multifaceted approach to solutions has been a boon for the companies he has worked for and with. Fitzpatrick joined NBCU in June, following stints at Minute Media, USA Today Network, AP and Fox News Channel. He drives the continued adoption of automated, data-driven and programmatic media buying across NBCU’s portfolio of digital and streaming assets. Colleagues said his commitment and versatility are key character traits in establishing him as a pioneer in the programmatic world, and his personality makes for a warm presence at conferences, industry think tanks and group lunch meetings. 

Chris Giliberti
Co-Founder and CEO, Avail
Giliberti launched Avail in July 2021, after he had been global head of TV and film at Spotify. Avail offers studios and talent agencies a script summarization tool and is increasingly focused on the content/intellectual property licensing and AI search space. In July, Avail launched Corpus, which enables creators and media rightsholders to license their work to AI model developers. Corpus leverages collective scale to get smaller publishers and creators in on the licensing action. Giliberti’s background in TV and film has made him well-versed in the painstaking process of producing successful series and movies and the so-called “pain points” that can be addressed to make production faster and better. He has emerged as a key figure at the intersection of Silicon Valley and Hollywood and an increasingly trusted voice in that relationship. 

Alexander Groysman
VP, Advertising Product Development, Spectrum Reach
Groysman has been instrumental in bringing innovative products to the advanced advertising space. He oversees 20 diverse product managers and analysts emerging as leaders, and has authored two patents related to the converging linear and digital TV ecosystems and enablement of transparent marketplaces for premium TV media. He has been a key leader in transforming Spectrum Reach, the ad-sales business of Charter Communications, to adopt programmatic technologies and expand the availability of addressable targeting solutions in a privacy-compliant manner to better service customert. Groysman also leads several initiatives around measuring and optimizing supply quality and performance attribution, ensuring that every campaign is executed and optimized against the best media possible. In a remarkable step forward for linear addressable advertising and the industry, Groysman and his team found a way to expand linear addressable multicast ad inventory, where many people view the same network feed. 

Shannon Guarascio
Senior Manager, CBS Affiliate Relations
Guarascio’s resilience in navigating challenges in an ever-evolving television landscape, whether it’s broadcast rights or pivoting strategies to keep original programming at its peak during the writers and actors strikes of 2023, proves she can thrive amid any obstacles. She has spent 15 years at CBS. Due to her efforts to ramp up promotion with affiliates for February’s Super Bowl, it was the highest-viewed network broadcast of all time, with more than 120 million viewers tuning in. Guarascio is now working in a hybrid role of overseeing and managing affiliates in addition to communications and operations for CBS Affiliate Relations. As a member of the Paramount Veterans Network, she has also supported and influenced the work between military veterans and CBS programming. 

Walid Hamri
AVP, Media Systems Engineering, Sinclair
Hamri’s leadership in engineering next-generation media systems creates substantial opportunities for content creators, producers and broadcasters, encouraging them to move away from legacy operating models. His work to create more adaptable media ecosystems allows media organizations such as broadcast giant Sinclair to innovate by leveraging the latest technologies. He has designed and
helped architect massively scaled distribution systems, capitalized on emerging cloud capabilities to drive media supply-chain optimization, and harnessed the latest in
media signaling to streamline media operations. Prior to joining Sinclair, Hamri was chief product officer at SeaChange International, where he led the product and solution team in promoting the multiscreen Video Delivery Platform. Before that, he was VP of solutions & business development at Ateme, a specialist in video compression and delivery solutions. He holds both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France.

Christina Haubrock
Senior VP, Advertising Strategy, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships

Haubrock conceptualizes and develops new ad products for NBCUniversal’s Peacock and its additional streaming assets. Regularly reimagining the advertising experience to maximize effectiveness, she acts on behalf of two customers: the viewer and the advertiser. By creating custom ad experiences for different types of content and introducing innovative ad formats, she plays a critical role in rewriting the advertising playbook, driving ultimate engagement for consumers and meaningful impact for marketers. Prior to Peacock launching in 2020, she was an integral voice in architecting NBCU’s AVOD vision and has evolved the go-to-market strategy as the streamer has scaled. In 2022, Haubrock
helped bring NBCU’s streaming portfolio to market with Peacock Premier, leveraging Peacock’s premium AVOD platform to deliver maximum impact for clients; and Peacock “AX” (Audience Extension), leveraging the entire footprint of NBCU’s streaming assets to deliver maximum reach. 

Alix Hoberman
Managing Director, Sales, LG Ad Solutions 
Hoberman joined LG Ad Solutions in 2021 and has become integral to the company’s business, helping to build and develop LG’s Media & Entertainment East Coast sales efforts.  When she joined LG, Hoberman was a senior account executive coordinating and managing advertising campaigns for smart-TV ad inventory — and she quickly proved to be a rising star, developing positive relationships throughout the organization, and with clients such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, BET, Fubo, Pluto, A&E and the NBA. She also fostered several key agency relationships, including with Horizon Media and Hearts & Science. Hoberman now takes the lead on many go-to-market sales packages, collaborating with marketing and sales and contributing to the development of LG Ad Solutions’ measurement strategies. She oversees a team of sellers responsible for more than $30 million in revenue — a 200% increase compared to her first year with the company. 

Isaac Holub
Co-Founder and Head of Development, Lucky 8
Holub has played a crucial role in establishing Lucky 8, one of the unscripted industry’s most successful fully-independent production shops. Lucky 8 shows include Unlocked: A Jail Experiment, which premiered on Netflix in the spring and highlights a daring approach to the challenges of incarceration. Holub is an executive producer on the show and is also behind two of History’s That Built America franchises: He launched Season 5 of The Food That Built America in early 2024 and will launch Season 2 of The Mega-Brands That Built America later this year. In 2023, Holub was integral to the creation, development and sale of Extraordinary Birder With Christian Cooper for Disney Plus and Booked: First Day In for A&E. Holub also executive produces Nat Geo’s long-running hit To Catch a Smuggler. He was a producer at National Geographic prior to co-founding Lucky 8, where he produced Brain Games, Border Wars and American Weed, among other shows.

Annmarie Hordern
Anchor/Chief Political Correspondent, Bloomberg
Hordern is a co-anchor on the Bloomberg Television morning show Surveillance, where the anchors’ “daily conversations with leaders and decision-makers from Wall Street to Washington and beyond cover the latest in business, investment and geopolitics,” the network said. She conducts interviews with world leaders and newsmakers, including the energy ministers from Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Russian Federation. She also serves as chief political correspondent. In addition to her work with Bloomberg Television, Hordern has contributed to Bloomberg.com, Quicktake and Bloomberg Businessweek, among other platforms. In 2022, she wrote a Bloomberg Businessweek piece sharing a personal story on efforts to evacuate a colleague’s family following the collapse of Afghanistan. Prior to her work on Surveillance, Hordern co-anchored the politics and policies program Balance of Power. Before that, she was the executive producer for Bloomberg TV’s EMEA newsroom, managing a team of more than a dozen producers from Dubai to London. 

Lawrence Jones
Co-Host, Fox & Friends, Fox News Channel 
Jones was the youngest Black man to helm a solo program in cable news history when Lawrence Jones Cross Country launched on Fox News Channel. The program saw him talk to people across the country who often feel like their voices are not heard. He spotlighted local stories that spoke to larger issues, such as gun violence and the fentanyl crisis plaguing the United States. During his time as an enterprise reporter, Lawrence traveled to 49 of the 50 states for network reports. In fall 2023, he moved up to morning program Fox & Friends, where he continues to tackle the big stories of the day and break them down in a digestible way. He has also brought a younger perspective to the program. Born the son of a teen mother in Texas, as a child Jones dreamed not of working in television, but of being a police officer. 

Sean Kelly
Senior Director, Ad Sales, Vizio
Kelly joined Vizio in 2019 as a founding member of the Vizio Ads organization, tasked with establishing an East Coast ad sales presence. At the time, the region had generated zero in revenue. Since then, revenue has grown to over $135 million annually, and Kelly oversees about $110 million. His team’s clients include a diverse roster of general-market advertisers across verticals such as auto, pharma, telco, insurance and travel. Promoted to his current role in 2023, Kelly’s responsibilities include negotiating long-term commitments with several large agency holding companies based on spend volume, unique offerings and partnership benefits. During his tenure at Vizio, he was instrumental in the creation of the associate director program, which provides junior employees with professional development opportunities and management skill training. He also continues to mentor both account executives and new employees, fostering a culture of collaboration and inclusivity. 

Madeline Kissel
VP, Business Development and Affiliate Relations, Viamedia 
With her unique blend of rapid adaptability, innate sales skills that have closed major deals, marketing acumen that has led to successful innovative advertising campaigns and a network of cable TV industry relationships, Kissel is a visionary transforming media advertising in North America. She cultivates and manages partnerships with video service providers and advertisers, including over 60 sales partnerships across 70 cities. Viamedia’s managed services business line has seen a staggering 300% increase, evolving into one of the company’s highest profit-margin segments. Her exceptional sales insight has not only signed 20 new partners and renewed over 50, but also significantly boosted revenue while maintaining a 100% renewal rate. Kissel’s development and implementation of dynamic advertising educational content have propelled industry-wide advancement, demonstrating her exceptional ability to drive growth and foster innovation in a highly competitive industry. One of her key accomplishments has been securing a partnership with cable operator Sparklight that brought 300,000 subscribers to Viamedia.

Amanda Klecker
SVP, Marketing & Franchise, pocket.watch
Klecker is head of marketing and brand strategy for pocket.watch, the largest independent kids and family studio, working with the biggest children’s programming creators in the world to create global franchises. That includes engaging more than 1 billion subscribers and 661 billion views on YouTube alone, according to pocket.watch. She leads various teams, including marketing, franchise, press, social, e-commerce and creative, changing the way families connect with media. In the last year, Klecker paved new ground for both the creator economy and kids entertainment by driving first-of-their-kind collaborations and AI innovations with megabrands that had never before considered working with intellectual property hatched on YouTube. That includes her work with grocery brand Dole, personalized video outfit Cameo Kids and tech company Veritone. She also launched the first creator-only record label, pocket.watch Records, distributed by Universal Music Group. 

Andrew Longworth
VP of Advanced TV, Innovid
Colleagues describe Longworth as an innovator and a driver of action, both of which set Innovid up well for the future. Across measurement, optimization and creative, he works with major publishers to spearhead key initiatives. His accomplishments include bringing interactive ads to the Super Bowl; closing the measurement/optimization gap with Instant Optimization, which allows advertisers to immediately optimize ad performance in flight; and making granular, cross-platform measurement more accessible to local advertisers. Longworth’s ability to demystify complex technology and strategy has made him an invaluable asset within Innovid and the broader ad tech industry. In 2024, he continues to be laser-focused on sell-side innovation. He will be behind big news around new ad experiences during live events, real-time optimization initiatives at scale and the global expansion of Innovid’s measurement footprint. He also works to support sell-side players in their efforts to embrace AI initiatives.

Adam Lynch
Advanced Advertising Systems Engineer, Viamedia
Co-workers describe Lynch as someone with an innovative spirit to go with his unparalleled resilience and technical acumen. With more than 14 years of technical experience, he holds a remarkable eight patents. He has architected multiple one-of-a-kind advertising solutions that bridge linear and digital advertising, serving 70 pay TV providers in 27 states and placing over 1 million ads daily. Born with dyslexia and ADHD and being on the spectrum, Lynch has harnessed these conditions as unique strengths. His ability to break down complex problems into manageable tasks has led to innovative solutions and technological advancements that many deemed impossible. His knack for seeing processes amidst chaos drives unprecedented creativity and problem-solving, making him an invaluable asset to Viamedia. His projects include the creation, development and implementation of QTT, which integrates the digital ecosystem with premium linear cable TV ads; and innovations within dynamic ad insertion, with the development and implementation of Viamedia’s Parrot ADS. 

Zachary Malet
Senior Director, Sports Business Development & Innovation, ESPN
What his colleagues describe as Malet’s relentless pursuit of innovation comes from introducing groundbreaking ideas directly to sports fans. He has played a pivotal role in ESPN’s alternative broadcasts, spearheading the live, animated NHL Big City Greens Classic — the first telecast of its kind. His role also involves negotiating and overseeing ESPN’s extensive portfolio of third-party business agreements/partnerships, with a keen emphasis on driving strategic innovation, maximizing revenue and fostering crucial technology partnerships. Malet’s expertise has led to the successful negotiation of several multimillion-dollar deals for the sports giant. His tenure since 2012 has been marked by significant contributions across various divisions, including Disney Platform Distribution, where he managed distribution of Disney properties (including ABC, ESPN and Disney Plus) with cable and streaming partners, and in the content strategy and college sports groups at ESPN programming and acquisitions. 

Rachel Marcus Fawkes
Director of Content and Editorial, Amagi
Marcus Fawkes got her start at ESPN shooting and editing video. While at ESPN, she pushed for video tech beyond the realms of cable, making sure younger users could access video through their phones and tablets before that behavior was the norm. She covered the NBA Finals, College Football Playoff, NBA draft, College World Series and X Games while at ESPN, among other giant sports events. Marcus Fawkes shifted to Wynn Resorts, where she was director of content, and joined Amagi in July 2023. She is currently building and leading content marketing strategy for the company, a leader in unified cloud workflows for TV and OTT. She also spearheads Amagi’s Airtime webinar series and quarterly FAST industry report. A Syracuse grad, Marcus Fawkes worked at SNY earlier in her career, where her role included covering ’Cuse sports.

Sean Mathew
VP, Media Director Investments, Mediahub
After working to invigorate brands like Google/YouTube and Kohler, Mathew joined Mediahub as a supervisor on the video investments team in 2019 for a new challenge: going beyond “spots and dots” media buying to harness the power of data-driven storytelling to drive key business results. Since then, he’s been working with brands across a variety of sectors, including entertainment, retail and financial services. Focusing on Mediahub’s Navy Federal Credit Union and Netflix accounts, he negotiated a unique promotion for Netflix’s Your Place of Mine on ABC’s The Bachelor. Mathew takes an active role in both agency and personal team development. He meets weekly with his team, dedicating time to training and mentorship, and often shelling out any useful financial and investing tips that he learns outside of his industry expertise. A testament to his leadership is his team’s minimal turnover rate — 90% retention over the last three years.

Bill Melugin
Correspondent, Fox News
Melugin joined Fox News Channel in 2021 as a Los Angeles-based correspondent after a stint as an investigative reporter at Fox-owned KTTV Los Angeles. He has spent several hundred days reporting from the U.S.’s southern border, breaking a number of stories. In 2022, Melugin was one of the first national reporters on the scene at Robb Elementary School following the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Some of his notable reporting included an interview with a grandfather of a missing child and dispelling rumors the suspect was being chased by U.S. Border Patrol prior to the shooting. During his time at KTTV, his reporting appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle, among other Fox News programs. Melugin always strives to bring the human element into the stories he covers. In 2023, he was profiled in the Los Angeles Times and described as a “rising star” for his well-sourced and dedicated coverage.

Heidi Meyers
Director of Marketing, AMC Networks
Meyers is a neuroscience researcher-turned-digital marketer who brings a unique perspective to strategy. She is a proven expert at cultivating the fandoms behind AMC’s shows, and her work on the launches of Mayfair Witches and Interview With the Vampire, as well as Season 2 of Dark Winds, drove critical praise and ratings. Meyers got her start in digital media at an online dating company, which offered her a unique look at consumer behavior. She moved to WebMD, where she led paid-media strategy for pharma clients, government agencies and household brands such as Johnson & Johnson. Shifting to HBO, where she was digital and social media coordinator, she worked on the content strategy for Game of Thrones, Westworld and Mosaic, among other series. She also founded a microcontent firm that specialized in branding strategy and content creation for live events, from local improv to national theater tours. She joined AMC Networks in 2021, where she pioneers e-commerce strategy, launching fan-centric campaigns such as “Best Fandom Ever.”

Ryan Murray
Senior Manager, Content Distribution, Roku 
Murray oversees the development and negotiation of app and channel partnerships across SVOD, AVOD and FAST business lines on the Roku platform. Whether he’s leading a multilayered distribution agreement with Tier 1 media partners or strategizing internally, he speaks with substance, confidence and an eye toward a solution, his co-workers said. Prior to joining Roku, he was director of U.S. Distribution at Paramount Global, where he led negotiations for MVPD and OTT deals across the company’s cable networks and CBS. His career began at Viacom, where he was a member of the content distribution rotational program. He transitioned to a role within the sales and business development team, focusing on content partnerships and distribution agreements. Murray is making his panel debut this year at the StreamTV Show in Denver, where he will speak on “Approaching a New Frontier of Sports, Weather, & News Broadcasting & Streaming.”

Joseph Nuñez
Director of Communications and Public Relations, Brightcove
Nuñez spearheads global corporate communications, public relations and social media functions for Brightcove, the streaming technology company that powers top media and TV organizations. Since he joined Brightcove early in 2023, his work leading the company’s thought leadership and executive communications efforts has resulted in more than 50 interviews and placements for the CEO among key national programs and publications, including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business Network and Sirius XM. Prior to joining Brightcove, whose partners include AMC Networks, BBC Studios and The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Nuñez had a stint at Twitter and previously led consumer publicity efforts for NBCUniversal’s Spanish-language broadcast and cable networks. There, he led the publicity efforts to launch Telemundo morning show Hoy Dia. He also ran the PR efforts for more than a dozen show launches and new seasons, including Telemundo’s Exatlon and La Casa de los Famosos. 

Eric Ortega
Executive Producer, ABC News 
Eric Ortega, executive producer on ABC News Live With Linsey Davis, is a decisive newsroom leader who builds stronger newscasts and journalists wherever he works, according to colleagues. An innovator, he frequently proposes new ideas for presenting material that brings greater awareness to impactful stories. His efforts are paying off: ABC News Live With Linsey Davis was nominated for four News & Documentary Emmy Awards this year and became the first streaming newscast nominated for best live news program. He joined ABC News in late 2022 after a stint at Vice News, where he ran Vice News Tonight. Before that, Ortega worked at NBCUniversal, starting in the page program, then moving on to line producing at Early Today and MSNBC and producing on MTP Daily with Chuck Todd and The Briefing With Luke Russert, among other programs. Before his television career began, Ortega worked on Capitol Hill, including his time as legislative assistant to former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). 

Reid Pakula
VP of Talent, IF Management
Across his six years at IF Management, Pakula has amassed a client list that includes many rising stars in news. He has helped his clients make the move from smaller markets to some of the nation’s largest, including Chicago and Philadelphia, while helping them think of different ways to improve their on-air delivery. Bringing high levels of energy and engagement to his role, Pakula has been able to create great relationships with news directors and executives at all levels. A University of Maryland graduate, he earned a degree in finance with a fellowship in sports management. He was a student manager for the men’s basketball team and interned with the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA. Prior to joining IF, he worked for Octagon Sports & Entertainment. Paklula’s love for news goes back to boyhood, when he’d watch the 6 a.m. newscast before school.

John-Marcus Phillips
VP of Product, Effectv
Phillips manages a team of 35 product leaders at Effectv, the ad sales division of Comcast Cable. He leads the introduction of innovations to the ad platform that drive better outcomes across all stages of the marketing funnel. Phillips and his team played an instrumental role in  developing a new suite of ad solutions geared to political advertisers, aimed at helping marketers reach, engage and connect with voters in an election year. He has been involved in efforts to combine the best aspects of traditional linear advertising with the power of digital, most recently partnering with the Comcast and FreeWheel technology teams to introduce dynamic ad insertion capabilities across new live viewing platforms such as Xfinity Stream. He has also helped introduce new measurement capabilities for ad units on the Xfinity guide experience. Phillips addresses each challenge with curiosity and passion, co-workers said, describing him as a “transformational leader.”

Bijan Razzaghi
Director, Business & Legal Affairs, Brightcove
Razzaghi is a key asset for the streaming company in terms of motivating teams, leading projects and driving results while navigating complex legal issues specific to the intersection of software and streaming. A dynamic attorney with extensive experience in the cloud-based technology industry, he provides strategic counsel on a range of commercial matters spanning Brightcove’s corporate, business and legal affairs to drive growth. He has also negotiated groundbreaking deals for Brightcove’s partnerships with Google, Magnite, SpringServe and Pubmatic. He supports Brightcove’s largest and most strategic partnerships, vendor and commercial relationships, privacy program, mergers and acquisitions and new company initiatives. Before joining Brightcove, he was corporate counsel at Parallel Wireless for nearly five years, having started there as an intern. He joined Brightcove in early 2021 as commercial counsel and has moved up rapidly.

Gardner Reed
Senior VP of Development, Wheelhouse Entertainment 
Reed developed three series for the studio that launched last year, including King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch and Designing Miami for Netflix and Secret Restoration for History. He’s also behind the upcoming HGTV series Divided by Design, having found the talent, developed the concept and sold the show, as well as an unannounced dating series on OWN, a celebrity-driven pilot in production with Prime Video, an ensemble docuseries in development with Netflix and other projects for TLC, Max, Bravo, E! and National Geographic. Reed gets a true rush from finding unique characters with distinct points of view, developing viable concepts around them, and ultimately selling them through for the world to see. As an avid consumer of unscripted programming, his love for the type of content he develops fuels his initiative-driven approach, which has resulted in a growing track record of success. Colleagues said Reed is obsessed with what he does and that passion shines through in the content he creates.

Zack Rosenberg
Founder and CEO, Qortex
Rosenberg founded Qortex in 2020, setting out to connect video content with advertising outcomes by pioneering a unique in-video ad experience called On-Stream. This noninterruptive experience delivers overlay ads during editorial content for greatest viewability. To optimize for viewer engagement and sentiment, Qortex’s proprietary AI engine contextualizes each frame of a video to determine the highest moment of impact and serve a contextually relevant message. A few years before he launched Qortex, Zack founded WatchFantom, a sports media company that amplified independent sports leagues and sports radio shows. After acquiring the rights to multiple leagues and recruiting hosts from across the country, the company became a hub for local and national sports content with more than 600,000 daily viewers. Qortex is off to a promising start: In 2022, it was named Programmatic Power Player by AdExchanger. Last year, it closed a $10 million seed round of funding.

Bradley Singer
Partner, WME
A talent agent, Singer’s clients include journalists, thought leaders, production companies and publishers. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University, he joined WME’s mailroom training program in 2009. He was named partner at the agency in 2021. Over the years, Singer has been involved in the packaging and sale of such programs as Netflix’s Explained, CNN’s History of Comedy, Disney/ABC’s Tamron Hall, Apple TV Plus’ Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn and ESPN’s Skin in the Game. His long client list includes The View co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend, PBS NewsHour co-anchor Amna Nawaz, ABC News anchor Linsey Davis, actor LeVar Burton, author Ibram X. Kendi and academic Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. Working on behalf of his clients, he saw Collins moved into a primetime slot at CNN and Nawaz become anchor on PBS NewsHour, among other promotions. 

Gaëlle Smagghe
Director, Product Management, LG Ad Solutions 
Smagghe is a driving force behind LG Ad Solutions’ product and engineering team. As one of the earliest hires at the company, she has advanced over the past five years from business analyst to director. Smagghe collaborated with LG Electronics to introduce a dynamic rotating carousel ad unit on the LG smart TV home screen. The unit expanded ad space by 10 times and drove a remarkable increase in click-through rates while enhancing user experience and engagement on the TV home screen by over 10% by improving ad load time and seamlessly integrating auto installation of apps into the user workflow. Smagghe has also led the company’s participation in beta programs, including the introduction of video advertising on the home screen, as well as innovative ad offerings like the screensaver ad unit, which have diversified content offerings and boosted performance metrics.

Lydia Tefera
Director, Brand Marketing, AMC Networks 
Tefera joined AMC Networks over six years ago, coming on board as social media marketing coordinator and moving up to digital marketing and social media manager by the fall of 2021. A graduate of Loyola University (Maryland) with a master’s degree in emerging media, colleagues said Tefera brings relentless drive for innovation to the workplace, developing pioneering marketing strategies that propel brand growth and market differentiation. She was instrumental in the rebrand of Allblk, which rejuvenated the former Urban Movie Channel. She is campaign lead for original series Parish, conceptualizing and executing a comprehensive marketing campaign that effectively targeted key demographics and maximized engagement across various platforms. She is now spearheading the marketing strategy for the rebrand of WE tv. Prior to her current role, Lydia was social marketing Lead for Allblk. She is in touch with how younger viewers consume content, thanks in part to her background as a content creator on YouTube, where she shares beauty tips.

Camille Thelemaque-Bearden
Director, Marketing, Partnerships and Local Ad Sales, TV One
Thelemaque-Bearden is a seasoned marketing professional whose career spans dynamic roles where she has demonstrated expertise in integrated brand partnership strategy and executive-level activations. Her track record reflects her adeptness at relationship building, strategic planning and fostering cross-functional collaboration. Her proficiency in storytelling and cultural relevance underscores her ability to deliver impactful marketing solutions. She executes partnership marketing strategies across digital, retail and in-market platforms. That includes this year’s launch of UPLIFT, a multi-market digital equity partnership with Comcast that provides visibility and support resources to advance economic mobility in Comcast-identified communities; and last year’s “Black to School Campaign,” a cross-platform, multi-market retail partnership with Verizon in urban markets. She was also behind “Cocktails & Conversations: Bosses Don’t Code Switch (Bosses),” an in-market activation with distribution partner Spectrum; and Thank You Black Women and Hey Black America, short-form content series developed to support affiliate pro-social efforts at the height of the pandemic.

John Weinand
IT Supervisor, Mediacom Communications
What makes Weinand stand out is his ability to overcome obstacles. Born deaf, he has made steady progress in forging a career with cable operator Mediacom, joining his uncle Rocco B. Commisso, the company’s founder, and his mother, executive VP of programming and HR Italia Commisso Weinand, in moving the corporation into the 21st century. His involvement began with summer internships in high school, which grew to a full-time position after college. As an IT supervisor, Weinand focuses on Mediacom’s evolving technology needs as it adapts to meet the challenges of today’s digital landscape. He serves on the team developing 5G/0G community and business services that are expected to improve the vital health, economic and educational sectors in the underserved communities where Mediacom does business. His communication skills make Weinand a shining example to others that no matter your disability, dedication and commitment are the keys to success. 

Fethi Ziyadeoğlu
Senior Director, Programmatic Sales Development, Fubo
Ziyadeoğlu was one of Fubo’s first employees dedicated solely to ad operations. He built a team of talented ad ops and ad tech experts and under his oversight, the team was able to successfully fulfill nearly all of the campaigns they managed throughout the year. Ziyadeoğlu has also been instrumental in optimizing Fubo’s programmatic advertising technology, and has helped the MVPD to seamlessly integrate with a new ad server, enabling it to build ad-serving tech internally and to optimize demand and other KPIs. His improvements to Fubo’s ad tech stack also made the company’s ad inventory available to a greater number of advertisers simultaneously. Ziyadeoğlu is also responsible for overseeing many programmatic advertising partnerships across the industry. He launched with new partners in Canada, a growing region for Fubo. After two years of optimizing Fubo’s ad operations, he was promoted to a new role overseeing the company’s programmatic ad-sales efforts. 

Women pro combat-sports fighters are punching their way to the top of high-profile pay-per-view and televised fight cards as the familiarity of top female athletes in boxing and mixed martial arts, along with the quality of their fights, clicks with both distributors and fans.

Once considered a novelty, industry observers said female fighters are now garnering an unprecedented level of acceptance and respect. “Women fighters used to be a big joke, but now people look at them and say they actually can fight,” said Tony Paige, a former boxing broadcaster and sports-talk host on WFAN New York. “No one’s running to the fridge anymore because a women’s fight is on TV.” 

Women have been in the boxing game for decades, with such names as Laila Ali, Christy Martin and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde bringing attention to female fisticuffs back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Martin’s 1996 bout against Deirdre Gogarty was among the first women’s bouts to appear on a major PPV telecast as an undercard fight to Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno. Ali and Frazier-Lyde, the daughters of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, respectively, fought in 2001 in what is considered to be the first PPV event headlined by a women’s boxing match, according to ESPN.

Paige, who currently writes sports stories for the New York Daily News, said back then there weren’t enough good women fighters to keep female boxing competitive and interesting. Also, past and current critics of female boxing point to the specialized rules set for participants — including 2-minute rounds compared to 3 minutes for men’s matches, as well as larger glove sizes for women — as a detriment to putting women fighters on par with male boxers.

Today’s crop of female boxers are plentiful, talented, and not afraid to fight each other in very competitive matchups, Paige said. 

Taylor-Serrano Stirs Interest

Indeed, Netflix will stream one of the biggest bouts of the year between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano as a co-main event on its November 15 Jake Paul-Mike Tyson card. Taylor and Serrano’s 2022 fight, streamed by DAZN, was the first ever to feature women headliners at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Taylor’s split decision win over Serrano was named Sports Illustrated’s 2022 fight of the year.  

This past July, multiple world women’s boxing champion Claressa Shields headlined a DAZN pay-per-view boxing telecast as she defeated Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to win the women’s heavyweight title.

DAZN has put female fighters at the forefront of its boxing cards for years, according to VP of marketing Alfie Sharman. He would not provide specific PPV numbers for the Shields Lepage-Joanisse event but said it surpassed purchase expectations. 

“If you put two people at the top of their game in any field, even if you’ve never heard of them, you’d be hard-pressed not to be impressed by them,” Sharman said. “The more these talented athletes want to fight at the top level, the more the consumer is going to enjoy it irrespective of gender because at the end of the day, it’s good, quality action.”

Women fighters also fight on major UFC mixed martial arts PPV and televised events. This past July, ESPN’s UFC Fight Night featured as its main event a women’s strawweight bout between Amanda Lemos and Virna Jandiroba, one of four female-led cards the network televised this year. 

Female fighters have appeared on UFC PPV and in televised events since 2013 when Ronda Rousey fought Liz Carmouche in the first-ever women’s UFC fight. 

UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter has also prominently featured women. The recently completed 32nd season of the ESPN Plus-distributed reality show, where 16 male and female prospects fight in an elimination tournament, was coached by UFC stars Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko. 

The show’s 30th season also featured two female fighter coaches in Julianna Pena and Amanda Nunes. 

Other female fighters such as Profess­ional Fighters League (PFL)-owned Bellator women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg and UFC fighter/two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison are also advancing the awareness and appeal of women’s combat sports.

ESPN VP of acquisitions Matt Kenny said shows like The Ultimate Fighter as well as live, televised fight cards that feature marquee female fighters tend to draw both hard core fans and casual viewers — including women — to the sport.

“Those events featuring female athletes have the ability to cut through the clutter, whether you’re a diehard mixed martial arts fan or not, so we know that it’s going to attract a huge audience,” Kenny said. “We know that combat sports also skews younger, so there’s so much that we’re bullish on with respect to the category.” 

Women fighters are scheduled to appear in several high-profile events through the fall. Along with Netflix’s November Taylor-Serrano boxing match, ESPN’s September 27 fight card will feature as its main event a bout between welterweight champion Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer. 

In the octagon, UFC flyweight champion Grasso will defend her belt against Shevchenko as part of the highly-anticipated September 14 UFC 306 in Las Vegas. Also, Bellator’s Cyborg is set to co-headline an October PFL PPV fight card.

It’s inevitable more women combat athletes will gain exposure from marquee televised events, according to Kenny. “The beauty about combat sports is there’s no shortage of compelling storylines, so there’s really no ceiling,” he said. “The women’s division continues to be a prominent aspect of the UFC and we’ve had a number of PPV events on our platforms that have featured women athletes, including Amanda Nunes and Claressa Shields. For us, it’s about covering and celebrating the absolute best in the sport.” 

Popularity Outside the Ring

The growing interest in female combat sports athletes can also be seen on screens big and small. Movies like Netflix’s 2021 Halle Berry starrer Bruised and documentaries like HBO’s 2024 The Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez have chronicled the lives of both fictional and true-life fighters.

This December, MGM’s film The Fire Inside will follow boxing champion Shields’ life through her difficult childhood to her eventual gold medal-winning performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Shields would also win gold in 2016.

The growing interest in all women’s sports, including the WNBA, softball and soccer, has helped lift the profile of women combat sports beyond the ring and octagon, said Mark Taffet, Shields’ promoter. 

“The values of society have changed and progressed, and that has created opportunities for these talented athletes to excel within the sports and entertainment space,” Taffet, a former HBO Sports executive, said. 

It’s the year of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, of Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky — a year when T-shirts declaring “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” are seemingly everywhere. 

This sudden shift in the sports landscape was actually years in the making. And while behind-the-scenes momentum behind the scenes has been far more gradual, industry leaders are hopeful this year of women in the game will help spark further change. 

“There’s so much momentum around women’s sports right now and I’m a big believer that all ships rise together, so there’s real opportunity here,” Women Leaders in Sports CEO Patti Phillips said. “We really want to leverage this momentum to create change for good — we need women in the room where decisions are being made.” 

Still, Phillips believes that while change is happening, it’s the pace that is lagging. “It has been a slow go and there are a lot of things that aren’t said publicly,” she said. “But if you heard honestly from women about their life working in sports, it’s not good. While there are more men who are allies and who are becoming aware of unconscious bias, there’s still a long way to go. The culture still is not where it should be.”

Mountain West Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, the first Hispanic commissioner in NCAA Division I history, agreed. “You see a lot more women in the pipeline but not at the top echelons,” Nevarez said. “I can’t tell you how many times a job opens and the media riffs about a list of potential candidates but they don’t even include a woman. In the job, softer skills — collaboration, building consensus, coming at issues with humility — are an asset, but we aren’t getting in the interview pool and when we do there are inherent historical biases. There’s just a long way to go.” 

Still, the younger generation is more optimistic. “I definitely have not faced as many challenges as my peers in the past,” said Jill Schwartz, marketing manager for FAST Studio Streaming Networks, which includes the fledgling Women’s Sports Network. 

Added Courtney Stockmal, who directs football and soccer games for Fox Sports, “In the 15 years I’ve been in the industry it has definitely changed.”

NFL Network senior director Sara Ries agreed. “Now there are so many jobs for women,” she said, which was not true when she graduated college in 2005. 

And as they ascend the ladder, these younger women are mindful of reaching back. “As you grow in a company and have more of an influence and more of a voice, you can speak up,” NBC Sports senior producer Alexa Pritting said. “Making workplaces more inclusive is such a huge priority for me.” (As lead producer of the Paralympics, Pritting emphasizes diversity efforts toward other underrepresented communities, particularly people with disabilities.)

“Representation matters,” she added. “If you see somebody else doing the job that you want, then you know that it’s available to you.” 

More Than Just a Game 

This year may be remembered for the achievements of Biles, Ledecky, Clark and Reese, but there’s another woman seeking to be a game-changer at a totally different level. Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign represents the chance to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling. And that, Nevarez and Phillips said, could have an impact that goes beyond politics to the sports and media worlds. 

Any time a woman is elevated into any leadership role, it encourages girls and women to pursue their dreams in any and every field. “That would have a ripple effect over generations quicker than anything else could,” Nevarez said. 

Colie Edison
Chief Growth Officer, WNBA

KEY STATS: This position was created for Edison, who started in early 2022. She oversees all revenue generating business operations: corporate sponsorships, media partnerships, digital products, business development and bringing in new partners, app upgrades, sports betting and merchandising. Edison is particularly proud of a recent deal adding used car retailer  CarMax to the “Changemaker” roster of top sponsors that get more involved in the league. 

“This year I’ve seen more demand from the fans and the corporate partnership
side,” she said of the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese phenomenon. “We can’t keep our merch in stock.”  

VARSITY STATUS: Edison joined Bowlero Corp. as VP of marketing in 2013 before becoming chief customer officer in 2017; two years later she began simultaneously working as CEO of the Professional Bowlers Association (the first female CEO in PBA history), where she landed a new partnership with Fox Sports. 

“I was as good a bowler as I am a basketball player — for basketball in fourth grade, I was voted MVP, which was Most Valuable Passer, because whenever I got the ball, I would just pass it to somebody else,” said Edison, whose high bowling score is 133. “I have always been in love with the business of sports and how to elevate niche or emerging sports and leagues and bring them to the next level.” 

IN HER OWN WORDS: “I grew up watching Knicks games with my father, and I was able to take him to Knicks playoff games as he turned 70 and was going through remission of a cancer treatment, which was the proudest moment of my life. This job didn’t exist when I was starting out but I had my passion for sports and entertainment mixed with my salesmanship and my revenue generating capabilities. I also had this drive to elevate the underdog. And I’ve always been a fan of basketball and female empowerment and encouraging women to strive for what they believe in and to never let anybody else set limitations for them. This league allows me to bring those passions to life in a way that has such a big impact on so many people.” 

Gloria Nevarez
Commissioner, Mountain West Conference

KEY STATS: Nevarez became commissioner of the Mountain West in 2023, focusing on revenue and distribution while also keeping the conference united and “maintaining our position in the NCAA ecosystem,” she said. 

Nevarez must build consensus among a majority of her constituents, whether they are university board members, athletic directors or coaches. “Right now we are all aligned and rowing in the same direction with a common vision with our most recent contracts,” said Nevarez, who is also president of Women Leaders in Sports.

VARSITY STATUS: In her previous role as commissioner of the West Coast Conference, Nevarez became the first Hispanic-American to lead an NCAA Division I conference. She had previously worked at senior levels in the administration of the Pac-12 Conference and at the University of Oklahoma, the University of California, Berkeley and San Jose State University. She attended the University of Massachusetts on a student-athlete scholarship for basketball and then earned a law degree from Berkeley. 

IN HER OWN WORDS: “While in law school I did an externship with the school’s athletic compliance folks and it was the first time I had really thought about how you can use a legal background. I went into labor litigation, thinking I could get into pro sports that way, but I came sniffing back around colleges and became San Jose State’s first full-time compliance person. I took a 50% pay cut. My parents said, ‘What are you doing?’ But I got to build a program from scratch. I wasn’t thinking about becoming a commissioner, I was just so thrilled to be in sports and in such a new field. I didn’t really have aspirations of leadership until I got to the WCC the first time and started serving on national committees and saw a pathway.” 

Patti Phillips
CEO, Women Leaders in Sports

KEY STATS: Since Phillips took over in 2010, Women Leaders in Sports has experienced triple-digit growth in membership while attendance at its national convention has grown by 250%. She oversees the organization’s leadership events and programs, including podcasts for career advancement for women.

“We prepare and position women to work and lead in sports,”Phillips said, adding that the organization is seeking to “leverage the momentum happening right now around women’s sports. Everyone is into women’s sports right now, which is awesome. But no one’s talking about women working and leading in sports and that’s where we come in.”

Phillips also created and leads the Women Leaders Performance Institute, a development program for all business industries, designed through the lens of sports.

VARSITY STATUS: Phillips took over as CEO in 2010 when the organization was the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators. She led the shift to focus on advancing women into leadership positions; she eventually helped rebrand the organization in 2017 as Women Leaders in College Sports before expanding its purview with the current title last year. She said 80% of the group’s members are still in the collegiate space, but they now work with the NFL and their women’s program, with the LPGA and with several NWSL teams. 

Phillips made her name coaching basketball and volleyball at Ottawa University in Kansas, remaking a losing basketball program into a nationally ranked one. Then she worked for the NCAA as the CHAMPS/Life Skills program coordinator. She was also color analyst for collegiate women’s basketball and volleyball. Phillips spent 11 years as executive director of the Women’s Intersport Network in Kansas City, a nonprofit focusing on leadership development in girls and women through participation in sports.

IN HER OWN WORDS: The NACWAA was an advocacy group that was writing letters saying, “we don’t like this or that,” but it had lost the energy and focus for what was needed so I wasn’t interested in the job initially. But I saw potential in women coming together to have a voice, so we rebuilt with the idea of women helping women so we changed our mission statement from an advocacy organization to a leadership organization. We’ve become a career leadership and career strategy organization. We advocate by advancing leaders. 

Alexa Pritting
Senior Producer, NBC Sports

KEY STATS: Pritting oversees the network’s coverage of the Paralympic Games and produces NBC’s Olympics figure skating and gymnastics broadcasts. She is also a producer on many national and world championships, such as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She has won four Sports Emmy Awards.

VARSITY STATUS: A competitive figure skater in high school, Pritting later studied broadcast journalism at Syracuse University. After briefly working at ESPN as a figure-skating researcher, she joined NBC for the 2008 Torino Winter Olympics. This year marks her 10th Olympics and sixth Paralympics. She has been overseeing Paralympics coverage since 2017.

IN HER OWN WORDS: “This is just a dream job and it keeps growing and getting better. When I went to Syracuse, I was a little burned out from figure skating and looking for a fresh start where no one knew me as that figure-skating girl. But then when the 2008 NBC Torino Olympic internship came around, Molly Solomon, who’s now my boss, asked if I knew about any of the sports being covered. I actually thought, ‘Should I say it?’ But I did tell them. My initial intent was to get as far away as possible and then it sucked me back in.  But I loved it and wanted to go to as many Olympics as I could. It will never cease to be exciting. And overseeing the Paralympic productions has been invigorating.  It still has so much potential and I want to apply everything I’ve learned at the Olympics to growing the Paralympics. There is just so much we need to do still on that property.” 

Sara Ries
Senior Director, NFL Network

KEY STATS: Since ascending to senior director in 2022, Ries has taken on more responsibilities for big-picture planning. “I’m doing more on the creative side of planning larger events, like the remotes we put together for international games and relaunching Good Morning Football, which was previously in New York, for the West Coast,” she said. 

But her proudest achievement has been her contributions to the new NFL Media studio in Inglewood, California. “We really got a chance to design a studio from the ground up, laying out sets and stages,” Ries said.

VARSITY STATUS: Ries joined NFL Network in 2006 after one year as an anchor/reporter for KQTV St. Joseph, Missouri (known as KQ2), after graduating from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. She’d been inspired in high school by a local sports reporter who spoke to her class. “I thought, ‘This is not a real job,’ ” she recalled. “I thought I’d have to be in a cubicle 9 to 5.”

While she initially presumed she’d pursue a career in front of the camera, her time at KQTV   — “putting on makeup in five minutes in the van, pulling the camera, getting a four-minute hit and being done for the night” — quickly lost its appeal. 

At NFL Network, she was drawn to the energy and excitement of the control room. “I wanted to be calling the shots,” she said. After three years as a production assistant, she rose to senior associate director and then, in 2014, she became a director. Ries was promoted to her current title in 2022. 

IN HER OWN WORDS: “As a senior director, I get to do more hiring and make more decisions about the people coming into our building. As you come up the ladder, you have more of a voice and can say, ‘Maybe we aren’t casting our net wide enough.’ I think we’re doing a better job at being very concerted in our efforts now. That’s been a big push in our production department. When you bring those voices into the room, women and minorities who weren’t getting the chance but who are super-qualified, that feels awesome.” 

Jill Schwartz
Marketing Manager, FAST Studios Streaming Networks

KEY STATS: Schwartz’s portfolio at FAST Studios includes the Women’s Sports Network (the first 24/7 streaming network dedicated to women’s sports); Team USA TV, the official Team USA free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel; and Racing America.
She designs all marketing materials, including presentations, sales one-sheets, channel key art, tune-in graphics, CTV billboard campaigns and additional branding assets, and works with the sales team to execute request for proposal (RFP) decks for brand partnerships. As lead designer in deck proposals she helped land high-profile sponsors in 2023, including Michelob Ultra, Frito-Lay and State Farm. “We’re really seeing the growth of these leagues,” Schwartz said. “We now have 17 league partners with the Women’s Sports Network, which is really exciting.” 

VARSITY STATUS: Since graduating from Emerson College, Schwartz has worked in marketing, publicity and creative services at Allied Global Marketing, DistroTV and B2+: The Custom Content Company.

IN HER OWN WORDS: “I always wanted to find the center between art and business, and marketing is kind of that sweet spot. I love to do art on the side, and I just felt like it was a really creative industry to get into. I didn’t follow a ton of sports growing up, but jumping into the FAST space, I became more of a fan and it has been quite a journey. Working for a start-up means having a really hands-on job and wearing a dozen hats, learning about everything from channel development to content production. Launching our first signature studio show, which is kind of the women’s version of SportsCenter, was incredibly exciting and I was on set every day watching the production, which was led by a women-driven team of producers, hosts and editors. It really became a groundbreaking initiative.” 

Becky Somerville
Senior Director of Production, FanDuel TV

KEY STATS: Somerville joined FanDuel TV (formerly TVG) in 2017 as senior producer, which led to her current job. She oversees horse-racing content for FanDuel TV, running the production of content and managing teams both behind and in front of the camera. 

VARSITY STATUS: Somerville grew up loving horses. “I started out watching horse racing on TV with my mom,” she said. “Then a racetrack opened in Minnesota, not far from where I lived, and I went out there and completely caught the bug. I wanted to be a jockey but got too big so I went to the racetrack industry program at the University of Arizona.”

While working as an assistant trainer at Santa Anita Park, she was given a shot as on-air talent for HRTV. Knowing that life on the back side of the track was limited and led to burnout, she seized the chance. She later moved into production and worked as both producer and talent for several years. 

IN HER OWN WORDS: “My former boss at HRTV saw potential in me. They had done a feature on me when I was an assistant trainer and she loved the way that I looked on camera. I would never have seen it — when I was in school, I was nervous giving speeches, you would hear my voice tremble, but you just take a leap of faith. I like being on the production side more. But I had no idea how TV was put together and had to learn everything from scratch. But I have a rounded experience and can see the race from the viewer’s side, the industry side and the gambler’s side, and felt like I was the one who could pull it all together. I still do get to go to the big races and I can still go and pet horse noses any time I want.”

Courtney Stockmal
Lead Director, Fox NFL Kickoff, Fox Sports 

KEY STATS: In recent years, Stockmal has been the director for Fox NFL Kickoff, Fox’s Super Bowl pregame and postgame, the FIFA Women’s World Cup and World Cup, plus MLB on Fox, Fox College Football and other shows. 

“One of my proudest moments in the last five years was being part of the Super Bowl pregame show in Miami in 2020,” Stockmal said. “But the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was one of the most difficult projects we could ever do — trying to do television in the Middle East with a crew that spoke a different language, had a different religion and outlook, while we were moving an entire American production halfway across the world. But our team just knocked it out of the park.” 

Stockmal also cited her work with virtual-reality sets for recent soccer tournaments as a rewarding project; she produced 200 hours of live programming over 30 days. “The only real things were the talent and the desk that they sat at,” she said. “Everything else was completely created on a computer screen and it’s never been done before.” 

VARSITY STATUS: Stockmal joined Fox Sports in 2013 and, as an associate director, worked on the 2015 World Series, Super Bowl and World Cup.  While working at Fox Sports, Stockmal has also freelanced as an associate director for The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Entertainment Tonight. She also worked on the 2016 and 2020 Olympics for NBC.

IN HER OWN WORDS: “I was an elite swimmer growing up and I knew I wanted to do something in sports, maybe medicine or psychology. My dad married a local news anchor and in high school she took me to work and I got to see behind the scenes of how TV worked. My eyes lit up and it was like the angels were singing, I had found what I needed to do.”

The unveiling of the 2024 AIM/PAR Workplace Diversity Study highlights the annual Diversity Week of gatherings recognizing diversity and inclusion efforts within the media and entertainment industries. 

The week of events begins October 21 with the WICT Network Leadership Conference, followed by the October 22 NAMIC Conference and the October 23 Kaitz Dinner, now under the auspices of the NCTA Educational Foundation (formerly the Walter Kaitz Foundation).

WICT and NAMIC will once again team to offer the latest AIM/PAR Workplace Survey, a biennial report on the current state of ethnic and gender diversity within the media and entertainment industry. Industry executives hope the new survey will surpass the results from the 2022 report, which showed major gains for women in the workforce but a decline in the share of people of color employed compared to 2019. (The 2022 survey was delayed a year due to the pandemic.)

“It’s going to be fascinating to see how the industry fared in terms of women and people of color,” WICT Network president and CEO Maria E. Brennan said. “Depending on what kind of company you keep there’s either a stronger commitment than ever to diversity, or one that looks at DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) as some sort of entitlement program where it personifies the complete misunderstanding of what diversity and inclusion means for everyone across the board.”

NAMIC president Shuanise Washington also hopes this year’s survey will show an improvement. “Those companies who are absolutely committed to diversity see an ROI (return on investment) in terms of better outcomes and better business results, as well as positive work environments and work cultures in those companies,” she said. “Those efforts hopefully will continue to grow despite the tangential conversations that will be taking place to some degree.” 

WICT, NAMIC Set To Gather

The two-day WICT Network Leadership Conference & Touchstones Luncheon kicks off Diversity Week October 21 under the theme “Fuel­ing Your Power and Purpose,” and will focus on the leadership qualities and the importance of fostering an inclusive workforce culture.

The Touchstones Luncheon will honor its 2024 Women of the Year winners Amy Blair, Liberty Global chief people officer; Johnita Due, CNN Worldwide executive VP, integrity and inclusion; and Sandy Howe, ATX Networks board director. The organization will also honor three Women to Watch during the luncheon: Charter Communications head of operations, sales and marketing Julie Unruh; AMC Networks executive VP, linear and streaming products Courtney Thomasma; and Amazon Web Services Global director of solutions architecture for media & entertainment, games and sports Steph Lone. 

MSNBC president Rashida Jones is honorary chair of the NAMIC Conference, set for October 22-23. “We are honored to have Rashida Jones as this year’s honorary chair,” Washington said. “Her leadership and vision are transforming the media landscape, setting new standards for excellence and inclusion.”

Essence Ventures CEO Caroline Wanga will keynote NAMIC’s 38th annual conference. Washington said the conference’s theme, “Diverse Voices! Defining the Future …,” will focus not only on empowering diverse voices not only within the industry, but exploring potential partnerships with tangential companies.

“This year’s conference embodies a pivotal moment of change and progress as we navigate and shape the future of our industry together, ” Washington added. 

“Do Good. Be Better. Impact Tomorrow.” is the theme for the October 23 Kaitz Dinner diversity fundraising event. The dinner is the first since the Walter Kaitz Foundation was fully integrated into the NCTA Education Foundation in May. The NCTA Education Foundation is dedicated to leveraging the industry’s positive impact on communities, NCTA said. 

The NCTA Education Foundation will continue the former Kaitz Foundation’s grant-making programs and support for legacy industry organizations and efforts, according to NCTA. 

The Kaitz Dinner will honor two ChangeMakers “who have made a significant impact and resonance around diversity and inclusion in our industry over the last year,” said the organization. Comcast NBCUniversal is the Ambassador Sponsor, with Charter Communications the Champion Sponsor. 

Last year’s 40th anniversary Kaitz fundraising dinner raised more than $1.1 million toward the media and connectivity industry’s DEI efforts. 

The Summit is a competition series set in New Zealand, where 16 Americans have 14 days to climb a mountain, which includes a 100-mile hike. Each contestant has one-sixteenth of $1 million in their backpack. If one leaves for a medical reason, their share of the cash disappears. If they are voted out, it is divided up among the remaining contestants. 

“It will be the ultimate test of their character and courage,” host Manu Bennett said. 

The scenery is breathtaking (the ubiquitous mountain seems all too fitting for a show on a Paramount Global network), and the contestants offer some intriguing individuals, including Jennye, a mixed martial arts referee; Therron, a waiter; and Rose, a stay-at-home mother with a background she does not reveal to her colleagues — flying a helicopter in combat. 

“I used to be a badass, and I’m looking to find that again in myself here,” she shares. 

One challenge sees two contestants at a time cross a scary rope bridge high above the rocky ground, though the tension is alleviated a bit in that they are affixed to ropes that will prevent an injurious fall. 

The bridge crossing sees one contestant as the odd one out after everyone else has gone, and the rest of the group must vote to leave them there, and save some time, or figure out a way to get them over to their side and perhaps delay their arrival at the next camp. 

Nine checkpoint camps are set up along the way, and if the group moves too slowly to make one, they sleep in “bivy camps”— sleeping bags, drinking from the creek, eating freeze-dried food. The arrangements at the checkpoint camps, including tents and wine, are far more inviting. 

But each checkpoint camp also features a vote, which sees the loser sent home, and their cash divided up. Unlike on Survivor, where ballots are stealthily slipped into an urn during tribal council, voting is a show of hands out in the open. 

Is The Summit worth watching? It might be. A handful of contestants reveals themselves early on to be entertaining to watch. Host Bennett, an actor, is gruff, and the pilot does not reveal much of his personality other than no-nonsense.

And while the Summit format borrows from other competition series, the presence of lots of cash on each contestant as they hike makes for a unique dynamic. 

St. Denis Medical is a comedy set at an underfunded hospital in Oregon. Created by Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin, the show features a mockumentary format. The cast includes Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman and Josh Lawson. 

The pilot sees Tolman’s Alex, a supervising nurse, aiming to get out of work — after her shift ends — to see her daughter in a school play. But those who work with her know that when a crisis hits the hospital — which seems to be about every day — Alex is the last one to leave. 

“A workaholic control freak,” is how ER doc Ron, played by Grier, describes her. 

This crisis went down because the hospital’s clueless boss, Joyce, played by McLendon-Covey of The Goldbergs, acquires a 3D mammography machine that St. Denis can ill afford and which crashed the hospital’s system. McLendon-Covey plays the part deftly, but we’ve seen the clueless boss in many, many comedies before, be it The Office or American Auto, both of which Spitzer worked on. 

Alex drives the plot in the pilot. We loved Tolman in season one of Fargo, and we like her in this as well. Few actors can express as much through facial expression alone. 

Matthew, a new nurse who lacks any hint of nursing skills, carries the second episode. Played by Mekki Leeper, Matthew grew up in an extremely religious household. That’s not how he’s living his life these days, but his God background is strong enough to notice the hospital’s interfaith chaplain isn’t up to snuff. After seeing the chaplain mess up a parable he shares with a patient, Matthew tells the camera, “I learned this stuff when I was 7. In a coloring book!”

The second episode breaks down the battle between superstition and science, with Dr. Ron in full voice of science. To prove his point, he puts a hex on the hospital, and a lot of bad stuff starts happening. Examining a patient’s horrific snakebite, surgeon Bruce, played by Lawson, exclaims, “That was one snake?”

St. Denis Medical offers some laughs, but viewers may find they’re drawn to a few of the nuanced characters more than the guffaws. 

UP Entertainment celebrates its 20th anniversary in October with a large footprint for its family-friendly content across cable (UPtv, which launched in 2004, and Aspire TV), subscription streaming (UP Faith & Family and AspireTV Plus) and free, ad-supported TV (FAST) services (Aspire TV Life and Cine Romantico). In addition, the brand has recently expanded to include acquisitions GaitherTV Plus, featuring country, gospel, bluegrass and Christian-music content, as well as a partnership with Christian-themed, kids-targeted SVOD service Minno.

Spearheading UP Entertainment’s business operations is CEO Charley Humbard. The cable veteran has steered UPtv to a top-50 Nielsen ranking among cable networks in households thus far in third-quarter 2024 — up 10 spots from the second quarter.

Humbard, the son of late television evangelist Rex Humbard, spoke to B+C Multichannel News senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead about UPtv’s successful two decades within the entertainment industry, as well as the continued expansion of the brand across multiple platforms. An edited transcript follows.  

As you approach 20 years at UPtv, how has the brand evolved compared to when you initially launched the service? While the brand has evolved from music — when it was originally the Gospel Music Channel — to now with general-entertainment content, it has stayed consistent in the genre of providing uplifting content. As I look back now to where we were then, we have been the creators and definers of uplifting entertainment over the past 20 years of our journey. 

Given today’s crowded television environment, is there a place and audience for uplifting, family-friendly entertainment? I think so, now more than ever. I hate to say it, but the general environment today is supercharged and full of a lot of negativity. People really need a refuge and a place to go and get away from it all and get good stories that inspire them and remind them that faith, family and relationships are still so important. I think that speaks to why we are having the success that we’re having in experiencing the greatest growth in revenue and profitability for our services. It’s the perfect storm for us right now. 

How do you see AspireTV developing as an outlet for African-American viewers looking for programming catered to them? We wanted to stay true to what [AspireTV founder] Magic [Johnson] really wanted to establish for the network, which was a place for Black and urban viewers to see themselves in a positive light. We’ve added lifestyle programming such as cooking and travel to the network’s lineup. We recently launched AspireTV Plus, and we’re seeing really great success with that. 

How aggressive will you continue to be in expanding the UPtv brand into the streaming arena, as well as through content acquisitions? We’re looking at opportunities constantly to acquire things that I think can really help serve this audience. We recently completed a partnership with Ovation where we now represent [both companies] to advertisers and to cable operators and distributors. It’s a great addition for us. But with anything we always want to remain a reliable place that people can trust and know that the content is going to be right for them and their family. That philosophy works great for our distributors, advertisers and viewers.

Why is it important to you to extend the UPtv brand beyond television through community initiatives like “UPlift Someone,” which promotes acts of kindness and social responsibility? Nothing makes your brand more real than putting your sweat, blood and tears and personal time into it. I think that the kind of people we hire and the culture that we have built up at UPtv makes our people eager to go out and uplift others and do these things. Being uplifting to others is a core value of our company, and I think it’s really important that you live your brand. 

Rescue: HI-Surf, about the lifeguard life on Hawaii’s North Shore, premieres on Fox September 22. The drama comes from Matt Kester, executive producer and co-showrunner. He grew up in Hawaii, surfed a lot and saw how much more lifeguards do than sit and soak up sun. 

“We see lifeguards a little differently there, a little bit like a guardian angel,” he said. 

The show is shot entirely in Hawaii. Before shooting began, cast members were informed they’d be in for a real workout. “We were very upfront with everyone we considered, that this was going to be a physical job,” Kester said. “They knew they would be in for an immersive experience.”

Training began a couple of weeks before production and the cast “became very capable, competent water people,” Kester said. 

The cast includes Robbie Magasiva, Arielle Kebbel and Adam Demos.

Kester spent “a ton of time” observing and chatting with lifeguards to get the characters right. “You realize as you listen to them, the incredible experience they have with rescues,” he said. “They essentially have Ph.D.s in the ocean.”

John Wells is an executive producer. Kester and Wells worked together on Animal Kingdom. 

What about Rescue stands out? “It’s entertaining and fun and beautiful to look
at, and it’s about people doing good things, trying to save people,” Kester said. “There’s a positive message behind it. I’m done with the antihero.”

Matlock, a rethink of the Andy Griffith legal drama from days of yore, starts on CBS with a sneak peek September 22. Kathy Bates portrays Madeline “Matty” Matlock. 

Executive producer/showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman had Bates in mind for the title role from the start. She was sent Snyder Urman’s script, and they met. Bates loved the script, said don’t change a word of it, and adored the character as well. 

“She gave me a huge gift,” said Snyder Urman. 

Bates then pulled up her laptop and the two got to work. 

Snyder Urman described the show as a series with “layers.” 

“It’s not solely a procedural,” she said. “There’s a big overarching mystery. There’s a lot of comedy and drama and tone changes and Kathy bridges them all. She can make you cry one moment and laugh the next moment.”

The producers and writers “are very conscious of doing a different show,” Snyder Urman said, than the one that debuted in 1986. What plays out in the courtroom will reflect what one sees in real-life news. “All of our cases deal with things we are grappling with,” she said. “It definitely has current moments in its heart.” 

ABC NEWS
ABC News political director Rick Klein has been named VP and Washington bureau
chief. Klein, who joined the network’s news division in 2007, will oversee bureau operations and manage all of the division’s news teams based in Washington, D.C.

ACCUWEATHER
Matt Gillis has joined AccuWeather as chief business officer. He most recently was president of Digital Turbine, where he handled go-to-market efforts including sales, marketing, business development and operations. 

ANTHEM
Anthem Sports & Entertainment has tapped Brian Doherty as president of
ad sales for AXS TV and HDNet Movies. Doherty was executive VP of multiplatform advertising sales for Nexstar Media Group and its national properties, including The CW, NewsNation and The Hill.

ASTOUND
Toni Murphy has joined Astound Broadband in Princeton, New Jersey, as executive VP and chief operating officer. The 20-year cable and telecom most recently was chief marketing officer and senior VP, sales and marketing in Comcast’s Atlanta-based Central Division. 

CBS NEWS AND STATIONS
CBS News and Stations has elevated Jennifer Lyons to regional general manager and president of WBBM Chicago and WWJ Detroit. Lyons was president and GM of WBBM and had been interim GM of WWJ since Brian Watson left the company in May.

CBS NEWS AND STATIONS
CBS News and Stations has named Kennan Oliphant as VP of news and station manager at WWJ Detroit, reporting to regional GM Jennifer Lyons. He comes from WXYZ-WMYD Detroit, where he had been senior director of news.  

COMCAST
Lance West has joined Comcast as executive VP, federal government affairs and head of its Washington, D.C., office. Most recently VP of federal government relations at the American Petroleum Insitiute, he was chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). 

ELF LABS
Alyse Rosenberg was named senior VP of content at Elf Labs, a kids content studio that launched in April. She created wrote, directed and executive produced such series as Ready or Not for Disney Channel, Braceface for ABC Family and Little Bear for Nickelodeon. 

FETV
Family Entertainment Television, owner of FETV and Family Movie Classics, has hired Christine Carbia as VP of national sales, based in New York. She joins FETV with almost 25 years of experience at companies such as USA Network, Syfy, Fox and E.W. Scripps Co. 

MPA
Larissa Knapp has joined the Motion Picture Association as executive VP and chief content protection officer, responsible for anti-piracy efforts, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. She had led the FBI’s Security, Training and Human Resources Divisions.  

NCTC
Phil Spencer was named to the board of directors of the Lenexa, Kansas-based National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC). He most recently was CEO of Vyvve Broadband and had been serving as a board member and adviser to that company. 

NIELSEN
Akhil Parekh was named chief solutions officer of digital product at Nielsen, a new post. He was previously executive VP, managing director at ad agency Publicis Groupe, where he was responsible for building a media platform for agency planners and buyers.

NEP
Media services firm NEP Group has added Sandy Case to its Creative Technology Group as London-based senior VP of sport, tasked with growing its global sports business. He had been CEO of iSportConnect, a private network of sports executives. 

OPB
Rachel Smolkin has been named president and CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting, effective this month upon the retirement of CEO Steve Bass. She comes from CNN in Washington, D.C., where she was senior VP of global news for CNN News Digital. 

SCRIPPS
E.W. Scripps has named Charlie Grisham VP and general manager of ABC
affiliate WRTV Indianapolis. He joins Scripps from Allen Media Group-owned ABC station WSIL Carterville, Illinois, where he had been VP and general
manager since 2019. 

SINCLAIR
Sinclair has named Dean Ditmer VP and general manager of KATU-KUNP in Portland, Oregon, succeeding the retired Cortlandt Cuffee. He comes from KPNX-KSMB-KTTU in Tuscon, Arizona, where he was president and general manager. 

TELLY
Mike Shehan has joined Telly, the company that offers free TVs to consumers in exchange for their viewing data, as the company’s first chief revenue officer. He is the co-founder and was CEO of video advertising and monetization platform SpotX.

WLS CHICAGO
ABC-owned WLS Chicago has elevated Doug Whitmire to VP of news, succeeding the retiring Jennifer Graves. Formerly assistant news director, Whitmire joined the station in 2003 as a newswriter/producer and was promoted to his prior role in 2021. 

Briefly Noted

Former WarnerMedia executive Tony Goncalves has joined measurement company Mediaprobe as an adviser. He also recently started The Evrose Group, an advisory firm. … Nexstar Media Group has promoted Olivia Pennington and Britt Milstead to VP and general manager. Pennington will run WHNT and WHDF in Huntsville, Alabama; Milstead will manage KLBK Lubbock, Texas, and oversee Nexstar’s agreement to operate Mission Broadcasting-owned KAMC Lubbock. … TelevisaUnivision has named Juan Pablo Newman as interim chief financial officer, with CFO Carlos Ferreiro stepping away from his role for health reasons. Newman had been chief growth officer of TelevisaUnivision Mexico.  … Streaming technology provider Zone-tv has elevated Doug Edwards to president. He had been chief product and technology officer.

Jessica Fang has spent almost her entire career at Fox, coming on board in 2002, and all of that time she’s been a key part of the team that negotiates distribution deals for Fox’s networks on pay TV platforms. Fang has climbed the ranks steadily as the industry has rapidly evolved. 

Also Read: Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Honoring the West’s Best

“We will sell Fox content to anyone who wants to buy it the way we want to sell it,” Fang said. “We don’t discriminate — the more distributors that are out there, the better for us and for consumers.” 

In the past several years, Fang has had to absorb a few shocks.

Rolling With the Changes

In March 2019, The Walt Disney Co. acquired much of what was then 21st Century Fox for $71 billion, leaving the new Fox with a much-leaner portfolio that today includes Fox Entertainment, Fox News Media, Fox Sports, the Fox Television Stations and Tubi, a free advertising-supported streaming television (FAST) channel.

That year, Fang was promoted to executive VP of network distribution and marketing, a move up from senior VP, distribution, with affiliate marketing added to her purview.

Last August, Michael Biard, then president, operations and distribution at Fox, left to join Nexstar Media Group as president and chief operating officer. Biard’s departure after more than 23 years at Fox came as an initial surprise, Fang said, but she’s proud of the way she and her team kept going.

“It was difficult to imagine how we were going to do this without him,” Fang said. “At the time, we were in the middle of our renewal cycle, which spans about two years, with a big chunk of revenue we had to renew. But we really didn’t miss a beat.” 

David Espinosa, who was promoted to president of distribution when Biard left in August, said, “Jessica is a well-rounded executive; it’s not just one thing.”  

Espinosa and Fang have been working together since he arrived at the company in 2006, for much of that time as peers.

“Jessica is incredibly smart,” Espinosa said. “She’s had all of these years of experience and as her role expands, it’s clear she grasps all of the key elements of the business. Along the way, she has built very strong relationships across the industry. She works very hard and what’s amazing to me is that she still somehow finds time to balance work and life.”

Having those strong relationships is the key to success in this role, Lisa Richardson, Fox Corp. executive VP, business & legal affairs and associate general counsel, said. “She’s great at developing relationships with our partners on the other side.” 

Richardson and Fang have worked together for nearly 20 years and have a “very collaborative relationship,” Richardson said. “She’s funny and witty and very good at being able to be a tough negotiator while still maintaining friendly relationships with all of these distributors. There’s just a mutual respect there.” 

‘You Can’t Do It All Yourself’

“We sort of grew up together, now we’re both very senior here,” Richardson said. “She has developed a great ability to manage people, to take on more, to give responsibility and credit to her team. I think that’s what you need in order to rise in an organization. To be a strong leader you need to know that you can’t do it all yourself.” 

Oren Lieber, who has been at Fox since 2001 and worked with Fang the entire time, is one of those long-standing team members.

“Having her as a boss has been really positive,” Lieber said. “It may not be the traditional boss-employee relationship. She and I recognize that we have skill sets that really complement each other. She lets me run with certain things and she does that with other team members as well.”

While Fang’s job can entail long hours as she works through deal details and negotiations, Fang says she wouldn’t be able to do it without her team.

“If you have to work the rest of your life, it should be with a product that you like,” Fang said. “I’d much rather sell TV than plumbing parts. I could be doing anything, but I couldn’t be doing it with the team I have here.” 

Season four of Trying, with Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a married couple with two adopted children, has begun on Apple TV Plus. The season jumps ahead six years, and daughter Princess is focused on finding her birth mother. 

Spall said the six-year jump stops a show from getting set in its ways. “It’s a way of shaking things up a bit,” he said in an interview. “Pushing the envelope, moving the story forward in a way which is fresh and interesting.”

Nikki and Jason’s relationship has been redefined as they’ve evolved into parents. “Inevitably, because of their different roles to each other now in a household,” said Smith, “they’ve become less of just being each other’s partners.”

Nikki is a romantic, added Smith, and has to deal with “the loss of who they once were with each other.”

The actors said they hear from viewers who relate to the show, whether they have adopted, have been adopted, or have battled fertility challenges. Smith mentioned DMs she gets on Instagram. “People share really personal stories with how much they feel they’re represented by the show or feel less alone,” she said. “That’s such a lovely thing to read.”

The 1% Club, an offbeat game show with Patton Oswalt as host, starts on Fox June 3, following its premiere on Prime Video. The show is not so much about answering trivia questions, but how quickly the players can use logic to come up with an intelligent answer. 

“It has nothing to do with education or trivia or information,” Oswalt said. “It has to do with, how does your brain work in the moment? How fast are you on your feet with logic and intuition and, especially, listening and putting things into context?”

Oswalt had no game show host experience previously. He was sent episodes, loved the format and saw how much interacting the host does with the 100 contestants. “The fact that it dealt with so much crowd work, thinking on my feet,” he said, “I thought, ‘This could be energizing for me.’ ”

Asked about game show hosts he’s enjoyed, Oswalt mentioned a couple from Family Feud. Richard Dawson “brought a very distinct, almost un-game-show-like personality to a very structured show,” he said. 

Steve Harvey, meanwhile, “is having fun and making it his own thing,” he said. 

Oswalt also mentioned Drew Carey on The Price Is Right: “He’s so clearly having a ball.”

Did Oswalt ever see himself joining the host club? “It had never crossed my mind in a million years,” he said. “And I love it.” 

A+E NETWORKS
A+E Networks has elevated David Bank to chief financial officer, succeeding the programmer’s retiring interim CFO, Art Vomvas. A former equity research analyst covering the media sector, Bank was A+E’s executive VP, chief strategy & corporate development officer.

ABC NEWS
ABC News has promoted New York-based Ike Ejiochi to correspondent. Ejiochi, who joined the network in 2021 after working as a general assignment reporter and substitute anchor at Fox-owned WTTG Washington, had been a reporter.

COGECO
Frédéric Perron has been named president, CEO and director of cable operator Cogeco Communications and Canadian broadcaster Cogeco Inc. Perron had been president of Cogeco Connexion, the company’s broadband business in Canada.  

COMCAST
Comcast has elevated Shannon Dulin to senior director, community impact for Comcast Cable’s 13-state Central Division. She had been director of community impact for Comcast’s Heartland Region, including Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan.

CONTINUUM MEDIA
New York-based media and advertising solutions provider Continuum Media has tapped Becky Lofstrom as head of its managed service platform, designed to help agencies of all sizes manage linear TV campaigns. The 20-year media veteran had worked for Cadent, MTV and Dish Network.  

COX MEDIA GROUP
Cox Media Group has elevated Marian Pittman to president of content and WSB Atlanta, succeeding Ray Carter, who is retiring after nearly 40 years at the station. Pittman had been the leader of CMG’s Content, Product, Innovation and Research teams.

FREMANTLE
Jeff Boone has joined Fremantle’s North American scripted team as VP, scripted development. He comes from Bad Wolf, where he was VP of development, spearheading the U.K.-based company’s producing efforts in the U.S.

GRAHAM MEDIA GROUP
Sean McLaughlin has joined Graham Media Group as VP, news, responsible for the company’s seven local media hubs. He comes from E.W. Scripps, where he was senior VP of local news with oversight of local news operations in 41 markets. 

GRAY TV 
Gray Television’s Washington News Bureau has promoted Peter Zampa to senior national correspondent, based in New York and covering national and international stories for Gray stations and Local News Live. He joined Gray in 2015 as a multimedia journalist.  

HORIZON SPORTS
Kerry Bradley was named senior VP of strategy at Horizon Sports and Entertainment. She had been chief operating officer at research company Sports Innovation Lab and was VP of strategic partnerships at Exos, where she worked with Google, Adidas and Intel.

KATZ MEDIA GROUP
Craig Broitman has been promoted to president of media representation firm Katz Media Group, succeeding Leo MacCourtney who will retire from the company effective July 1. Broitman had been chief operating officer at Katz since 2012.

OPENX
Omnichannel supply-side platform OpenX Technologies has promoted Joel Meyer to senior VP, engineering, tasked with leading the company’s engineering function. Meyer joined the programmatic advertising firm in 2009 as a senior software engineer.  

SCRIPPS
Seth Walters has joined the E.W. Scripps sales leadership team as head of CTV sales. He comes from LG Electronics, where he was head of LG Channels in North America, overseeing the consumer-electronics firm’s free ad-supported television (FAST) business.

TELEMUNDO
Telemundo Station Group has promoted Amy Alvarez to news director at KULX Salt Lake City, Utah, known as Telemundo Utah. She comes from KVDA San Antonio, Texas, another Telemundo outlet, where she had been executive producer after starting in 2018 as a news producer.

TENNIS CHANNEL
Matthias Hahn has joined Tennis Channel as its Munich, Germany-based general manager of German-language platforms, executive responsible for building its business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He had been senior sales director, EMEA, at TiVo.  

UNIVERSAL STUDIO GROUP
Blossom Lefcourt joined Universal Studio Group as global head of business affairs. Most recently executive VP, global business & legal affairs, television at eOne, Lefcourt had also worked in business-affairs roles at ViacomCBS.

VCTI
Broadband and network technology firm VCTI has named Pragash Pillai to its board of directors. Most recently chief technology and information officer at Altice USA, the cable veteran also worked at Cable­vision Systems and Bresnan Communications. 

XR EXTREME REACH 
Kevin Arrix has joined global entertainment tech firm XR Extreme Reach as chief growth officer, spearheading XR’s global creative platform sales. A 25-year media and ad-tech executive, he most recently was senior VP of Dish Media. 

Briefly Noted

Fox Sports has added a pair of ad sales VPs: Jen Durda, formerly with Warner Bros. Discovery and Turner Sports, will be based in Detroit; and Kathy Lydon, who led a multimedia sales team at Disney/ESPN, will lead sales for Chicago-based Big Ten Network. … Gray Television-owned KCTV Kansas City has named Melissa Meeder as afternoon meteorologist. She had been with Gray’s KOLN Lincoln, Nebraska, since May 2022. … ShowSeeker, the company behind the Pilot cloud-based order management system, promoted Jeff Blaszak to senior VP of business operations and strategy. He had joined the company in 2020 after serving as VP, strategic partnerships. … WESH Orlando has added Jesse Pagan as an anchor/reporter. He comes from KFMB San Diego, where he was an evening anchor/reporter.

B+C and Next TV have announced the winners of the Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show. Products were judged by a panel of industry experts at April’s convention based on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency and overall performance. 

Also Read: Learn About All the NAB Best of Show Winners in the 2024 Guidebook

The Best of Show Awards, from B+C, Next TV, TV Tech and other Future B2B brands, were chosen from companies that exhibited at NAB Show and submitted nominations.

Here are edited excerpts from product descriptions furnished by the winning entrants. 

Broadcasting+Cable

Dina, part of Fonn Group
Dina

Dina is a cloud newsroom system that enables digital-first workflows and facilitates story creation, planning and publishing across multiple platforms. It integrates with technologies such as LiveU and Mimir, providing immediate media access. The system also includes a mobile application, Dina Mobile, ensuring seamless integration with the newsroom and flexibility for journalists on the move.

ROXi
ROXi FastStream

ROXi’s new interactive TV platform, FastStream, makes broadcast TV channels on NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) fully interactive with no need for users to download or launch a TV app. FastStream-powered TV channels benefit from the instant accessibility of a broadcast TV channel but with the full interactivity and functionality of an app. Many analysts believe FastStream will make broadcast TV relevant to younger customers who expect to be able to pause or skip any segment, TikTok-style.

Sony Electronics
HXC-FZ90 Studio Camera System

Sony’s flexible new HXC-FZ90 Studio Camera System combines 4K image quality with seamless integration and streamlined live workflows. Ready for today’s live productions, the HXC-FZ90 supports HD HDR out of the box and has an easy path to accommodate those looking towards a 4K (HDR) future. For ultimate flexibility, 4K capability on the HXC-FZ90 is available as a weekly, monthly or permanent license.

AMD 
AMD Alveo MA35D Advanced Media Accelerator

The Alveo MA35D media accelerator is designed to support up to 32 times 1080p60 streams, ensuring high channel density and superior video quality at ultra-low latency. The accelerator’s optimized architecture helps reduce rack space, network bandwidth and power consumption, making it an efficient solution for infrastructure and content providers to scale cost-effectively while delivering an optimal experience quality.

MEDIAGENIX
MEDIAGENIX FAST Scheduling Artist

Mediagenix FAST Scheduling Artist enables broadcasters to launch FAST channels at the click of a button. Automatically generated schedules include commercial ad breaks, promo intervals and specific channel branding. Mediagenix’s intuitive FAST cockpit allows real-time monitoring with operational metrics such as the amount of times content has been aired, the status of material and rights clearances. Its FAST algorithm ensures the most-suitable content is scheduled. 

TAG Video Systems
TAG Language Detection

TAG Language Detection streamlines caption monitoring, significantly reducing the need for operator intervention. Integrated within TAG’s existing comprehensive caption monitoring suite, Language Detection automatically identifies subtitle language and precisely analyzes quality as defined by the language-specific dictionary. The feature also reduces the risk of human error and helps ensure captions adhere to compliance regulations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Workflow Monitor for AWS Media Services and CloudFront

In just a few clicks, the AWS workflow monitor can discover the resources associated with a media workflow. Discovery can begin at any supported service, including AWS Elemental MediaConnect, MediaLive and MediaPackage, and the workflow monitor will create an end-to-end signal map. A customer can view all video workflows on a single page and filter for specific ones based on name or status. They can also view which resources are in use and their status, which can be updated every second. 

Next TV

Ross Video
Media I/O UX 

Media I/O redefines the live capture and playout landscape by offering support for a myriad of input sources, workflows, codecs and formats. It facilitates instant access to live ingest content, seamlessly integrating with post-production, media asset management and delivery workflows. Its unique capability to support edit-while-ingest processes fast-tracks production for both logging and editing workflows, enabling creators to harness the speed of live production without compromising on quality or flexibility. 

Vimond
VIA App Builder

VIA App Builder is designed to simplify the creation and management of front-end video streaming applications. It accelerates the development process by offering dynamic building capabilities and seamless CMS integration, courtesy of its connection to the Vimond VIA platform. It enables creators and broadcasters to swiftly launch their streaming services, reducing the focus on technical complexities and allowing more time for content creation.

Cleeng
Cleeng’s Subscriber Retention Management (SRM) 

Cleeng’s SRM suite helps service providers manage subscribers, keep them engaged to increase their lifetime value and introduce new monetization techniques with actionable insights throughout the subscriber journey. Customers using Cleeng’s full SRM product suite typically lower their churn rate by 30% in three months, increase revenues by 15% by adopting tailored pricing and upselling strategies and retain 25% of at-risk customers through AI churn prediction.

ThinkAnalytics
ThinkFAST

ThinkFAST seamlessly transforms existing content libraries into captivating FAST channels tailored to diverse audience preferences, significantly reducing the time and costs associated with manual curation and scheduling. It leverages advanced content-understanding techniques and first-party viewing data to optimize channel schedules, driving engagement and increasing advertising revenues. Powered by AI algorithms, it offers real-time recommendations across extensive content catalogs. 

MEDIAGENIX
MEDIAGENIX Ratings Artist 

MEDIAGENIX Ratings Artist leverages machine learning models trained on historical ratings data enriched with content and context metadata to predict TV ratings for all content types, with dedicated predictions per target demographic. To effectively manage time constraints, Ratings Artist generates intelligent predictions automatically based on new actuals and schedule changes. It adapts to the unique characteristics of each target demographic using a machine learning model, resulting in a 70% FTE enablement. 

Evergent
Evergent Captivate Product Suite 

The Evergent Captivate Product Suite offers a comprehensive toolkit to proactively anticipate and combat all forms of churn. The suite comprises Captivate Flow, Captivate Smart, Captivate Proact and Captivate Essentials, each designed to target specific aspects of churn through AI-powered technology and data-driven insight. Captivate Smart’s payment recovery engine has increased the industry recovery standard from 59% to 70%. 

Zixi
Live Event Manager: ZEN Master 

ZEN Master serves as the central hub for managing configurations and monitoring activities across the Zixi Enabled Network, including Zixi’s live-streaming platform and related devices. This software significantly reduces operational costs while enhancing production efficiency for media entities. Tailored for the complexities of remote live event workflows, ZEN Master offers powerful event scheduling capabilities, dynamic resource provisioning and real-time performance analysis. 

TMT Insights
Polaris Operational Management Platform 

Polaris is the result of over a decade spent researching, architecting and deploying digital media supply chains. The platform accesses all necessary tools and data — within a single pane of glass — to manage disparate systems across end-to-end media supply chains. This cloud-native and tech provider-agnostic platform is hosted within the customer’s cloud environment. It securely organizes and monitors fulfillment data from various integrated systems; surfaces actionable insights in one view within a customizable, intuitive UI; and provides granular control over specific tasks and jobs, both manual and automated. 

Lifetime this year marks its 40th anniversary with a continued focus on operating as the premier programming destination for women. Leading the network’s charge is senior VP of unscripted development and programming Brie Miranda Bryant, who has developed several successful and buzzworthy documentaries showcasing high-profile personalities while shining a light on important, women-centric social issues. 

Since joining Lifetime in 2017, Bryant has served as executive producer of such culturally-defining documentaries as the 2019 Emmy Award-nominated series Surviving R. Kelly, exposing violence against women and reaching more than 26 million viewers, and Where Is Wendy Williams?, this year’s docuseries about the controversial former talk-show host’s attempted return to TV amid physical and mental obstacles. 

This month, Bryant will oversee the launch of The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, in recognition of the 30th anniversary of her infamous death and in collaboration with the National Domestic Abuse Hotline. The network also plans several public service announcements for its “Stop Violence Against Women” initiative during the two-night event. 

As Lifetime celebrates four decades on the air, Bryant spoke to B+C Multichannel News senior content producer, programming R. Thomas Umstead about the A+E Networks-owned network’s commitment to serving its target audience amid a crowded television marketplace. An edited transcript follows.  

Why is it significant for you and the Lifetime brand to profile the stories of high-profile women? It’s always an honor to feature real stories about high-profile women. At Lifetime, we also make a concerted effort to amplify the voices of lesser-known women, as we find their stories to be equal in value.

Are you surprised that Lifetime shows such as Where Is Wendy Williams? and Surviving R. Kelly have become such cultural touchpoints that extend beyond the subjects that are profiled? I am floored. It’s completely unimaginable how many people both projects have affected and inspired. It’s a privilege to have worked on them. 

How important is it to you for Lifetime to support organizations dealing with such women’s issues as domestic violence, mental health and breast cancer? We try to be a genuine reflection of the everyday challenges women encounter. As most of our stories are rooted in the real lives of real women, all of these issues are a natural reflection of what women face every day. Inspiring change through entertainment is very powerful.

How does inclusion in front of and behind the camera factor into Lifetime’s overall programming strategy? It is paramount. Diversity in our subjects, their stories and our approach — in front and behind the camera — are paramount to our programming strategy. We cannot be successful otherwise.

How does Lifetime continue to remain relevant in a very crowded television marketplace?  Our team continues to look for really remarkable women with extremely compelling stories to tell. When we find them, we work on creating the most authentic vehicles with which to tell those stories. We’re sticking to that — and it’s been working well. 

Nicole Clemens has a broad range of experience across her career, and that varied background serves her well as a studio president. Paramount Television Studios is set to launch some big-swing shows, and Clemens has her fingerprints on all of them. 

“My background is first as a television executive, and then as an agent for film and TV, and then as a producer and a buyer,” she said. “I’ve done all the roles, so I’m very, very, very hands-on.”

Also Read: Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Honoring the West’s Best

Paramount Television Studios series include Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Prime Video, The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, Station Eleven on Max, and Paramount Plus shows such as The Offer. 

Partners know they’ll get a positive and collaborative experience at Paramount, Clemens believes. “Our goal is for it to be an incredibly beneficial and enriching and supportive process,” she said, “as opposed to someone not feeling like the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.”

Golden State Girl

It was in high school in Long Beach, California, that Clemens’s career path took shape. She took part in a project at the Long Beach Museum of Art’s video archive, where students produced a magazine program that went on local access TV. “I was like, ‘Oh, I like this,’  ” Clemens said. “I want to do this.”

She moved to Los Angeles after college “because I met somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody,” she said. Temp work led to entry-level jobs, and bigger things followed. 

She worked at Rod Holcomb Productions and Spelling Television, spent 16 years at talent agency ICM, was executive VP of series development at FX and was at Anonymous Content before landing at Paramount in 2018. 

Clemens cited role models, including former CBS Entertainment chair Nina Tassler, former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing and agent Nancy Josephson, among others, and eagerly looks to mentor young colleagues. “I think one of the benefits of getting older, besides gravity having an effect on every part of your body,” she said with a laugh, “is that you start to realize that the real joy is in giving back.”

She has notably hired an all-female leadership team, across development, current, production, business affairs, casting and marketing. “She’s a great leader who is very protective and supportive of her team,” said George Cheeks, CBS president and CEO (and part of Paramount’s new “office of the CEO”). 

Cheeks also mentioned Clemens’s superb relationships with talent, which came into play with The Spiderwick Chronicles. The first season was in the can, but Disney Plus canceled the show before it debuted. It premiered on The Roku Channel last month, and had the best first weekend of any on-demand Roku show. 

Showrunner Aron Eli Coleite said Clemens initially pushed him to take on Spiderwick, encouraging the reluctant producer to give the script one more read. Clemens then pushed him to “go deeper” on characters and story. 

He also saw her scramble to find a home for the show after its surprise cancellation. “It showed me just how much Nicole is a champion on this project,” Coleite said. “She’s been relentless about it ever since. She never abandoned us, and never let the show go.”

It’s typical Nicole Clemens, Cheeks said. “Nicole is a fearless, tenacious advocate for her projects,” he said. “She has great creative instincts but she’s never walked away from her agenting skills. She has a mastery of where the industry is headed. She knows the right places to go to set up her projects.”

‘A Passionate Advocate’

Things are characteristically busy at Paramount Television Studios. Projects include the Taika Waititi-Jemaine Clement Time Bandits series and Billy Crystal drama Before, both at Apple TV Plus. Morgan Wandell, head of international development at Apple TV Plus, described Clemens as a triple threat. “She has impeccable taste, is a passionate advocate for her projects and is a trusted partner known for being both fair and tough when needed,” Wandell said. 

Clemens unwinds from a challenging work day by hopping on a sailboat. “There’s always something to do — you’re always keeping your eye on something,” she said. “It’s very relaxing and it puts things in perspective.” 

Tana Nugent Jamieson’s father was a foreign correspondent for Newsweek and she thought she would grow up to be a journalist. She was, for a while. But her father steered her away from that declining medium and she channeled her storytelling into producing hit TV movies (Peter Benchley’s The Beast, for starters) and miniseries for the likes of NBC, TBS, The WB and A&E, where her scripted credits include Longmire, Bates Motel and Roots. 

Also Read: Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Honoring the West’s Best

In 2013, she moved from the network to become co-head of A+E Studios, which now has more than 70 projects in various stages of development and shows on a variety of top platforms. 

Seizing an Opportunity

First among equals might be Netflix series The Lincoln Lawyer, from David E. Kelley and author Michael Connelly. 

Jamieson was the one who identified Lincoln Lawyer’s potential, knew Kelley was interested and led A+E to pounce precisely when the rights became available — like the minute after, according to studio president and co-head Barry Jossen. 

“Obviously, the rest is history,” Jossen said. The Lincoln Lawyer, now in production on a third season, has been Netflix’s top returning series and a Top 10 show in 81 countries. It’s a global calling card for A+E, and Jossen thinks it might also have helped audiences find and re-embrace the legal drama Suits this year.

Jossen made sure Jamieson was credited as co-head soon after she came over from the network and said they have a successful partnership where either executive can sign off on a decision and where roles aren’t pigeonholed. They communicate throughout the day, he said. (Jamieson agreed: “We’re each other’s best friend,” she said, adding: “I think at the end of the day, I help him with the bigger-picture thinking.”)  

“I’ve never had a better experience working with a partner, collaborator, colleague than I’ve had with Tana,” Jossen said. “She’s very smart, knowledgeable and skillful. She’s excellent [at] working with creatives. Her relationships are stellar and her commitment to quality is really high.” 

She’s not only smart and creative, but “her understanding of the business and what makes sense in a very dynamic time in our industry is really gratifying, and makes it possible for us to do what we’re doing,” he said.

Bela Bajaria, chief content officer at Netflix, has been a close friend for a long time. She said they have worked very well together regardless of which one is buying for a network or supplying from a studio — like when Bajaria ran Universal Television and Jamieson was at A&E and they did Bates Motel together for five years.

“She was incredibly supportive of the show and of the talent and always is so great about being a collaborator and just being partners with the talent and the creator in the studio,” Bajaria said. “Just having that real great mindset of, we all want the same thing. We want to make a great show that a lot of people watch. And she’s such a warm, kind, authentic, genuine person.”

A Fulfilling Role

Jamieson acknowledged that she’s been able to pivot often, from doing TV movies to series, from the network to the studio, and loves where she has ended up. 

“This is my favorite job, by far,” she said. “It’s just great. I get to be creatively fulfilled with all different kinds of shows.”

Other A+E Studios shows of note at the moment, among many, include Parish, with Giancarlo Esposito, on AMC and AMC Plus; Flowers in the Attic: The Origin for A+E Networks-owned Lifetime and the in-development Lazarus serial-killer drama for Apple TV Plus, with Tom Hardy and Zazie Beetz. 

Outside of work, she and her husband, J.J. Jamieson, a longtime TV executive, actively volunteer with Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), a charitable organization that helps underserved kids in the city, and they helped establish the George Perry Floyd Jr. Scholarship for Racial and Social Justice at Santa Monica College. They also have raised triplets, two boys and a girl, who are now 23 years old. 

It seems pretty unusual for an industry executive’s résumé to list being an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer and filmmaker, entrepreneur, podcast host and research scientist. Yet theGrio’s Geraldine Moriba can lay claim to all that and more.

The Toronto native attributes her various pursuits to her mother, who encouraged her at a very young age to diversify her interests. “I was curious and interested in as many things as a kid as I am as an adult,” she said. “The one thing you could not say to my mom is that you were bored, because her response would be to get a book to read and use our imagination.” 

Also Read: Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Honoring the West’s Best

Moriba’s curiosity would lead her to major in political science and women’s studies at the University of Western Ontario. But it would be her first job out of college as a trainee news reporter at Radio-Canada in 1990 where she would be introduced to the world of entertainment. “That job ended up changing the direction of my career,” she said. 

Made a Name in News

In 1992, Moriba moved to the United States and took a job as a researcher for ABC newsmagazine Primetime Live. She moved to NBC in 1994 as executive producer for Dateline. Her work at NBC earned multiple Emmy Awards as well as a Peabody Award.  

CNN hired Moriba in 2010 as executive producer for the Original Program Development team, as well as VP of inclusion. While there, she spearheaded CNN’s Emmy-winning In America franchise of documentary specials on issues affecting communities of color.

In 2015, she formed her own production company, Moriba Media, where her first project was a documentary about the life of a teenager diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Until 20 was a personal journey for Moriba, who survived the same sarcoma disease that befell the movie’s protagonist, James Ragan, whom she had met in the hospital. 

“My production company started with that film about a young man who had the same cancer that I had, and that just motivated me to keep going,” she said. “Ultimately, the documentary is about how we measure the value of life.”

She would also produce such documentary series as Sinking Cities and Chasing the Dream for PBS under the Moriba Media banner. 

Continuing to stretch her creative talents, Moriba in 2018 pitched a year-long science research fellowship study to Stanford University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the merging of computer science and artificial intelligence. “I was in the news and in the field of storytelling and reporting, but I continued to hold a real passion for science and data,” she said. “For my fellowship, I focused on computer science and artificial intelligence and how we as journalists should be using these tools to help us measure not only how many people are reading, but actually measuring our content.” 

Her interest in media and culture extended in 2020 to hosting the Sounds Like Hate podcast, funded by the Southern Poverty Law Center and focused on people who engage in extremism.

In 2021, Moriba joined Allen Media Group-owned theGrio as senior VP of news and entertainment, in charge of content development and brand sponsorships. The next year, she launched theGrio’s streaming network and mobile app, as well as theGrio Black Podcast Network, all featuring content on political, social and entertainment issues affecting Black culture. 

“Geraldine continues to pave the way in delivering high-quality African American-focused content,” Allen Media Group founder/CEO Byron Allen said. 

Amplifying a Culture

“This is my moment to use all the skills and all the knowledge I’ve gathered to this point, to figure out how to apply it to a newsroom and see if I can amplify stories we care most about, just as effectively as possible, to represent our lived experiences,” she said.

Moriba, who has an adult son and daughter, said future projects she has been researching include a novel about a Black woman’s immigrant experiences and a play about an enslaved woman living in Montreal during the 1700s. 

A mentor herself, Moriba said up-and-coming female executives should be open to all opportunities put in front of them.

“Don’t look where you’re standing, look at where you’re going,” she said. “Because if you keep your eyes forward, you’ll be able to identify the obstacles that you have to overcome and create a strategic plan. By doing so, you’ll have the most control over your destiny.” 

Since joining WE tv in 2014, Angela Molloy has shepherded some of the network’s longest-running unscripted shows, including Mama June, Love After Lockup and the Marriage Boot Camp franchise, now in its 17th year. In 2023, Molloy was promoted from VP of development for WE tv to senior VP of development & original production, overseeing unscripted shows for both WE tv and ALLBLK. In her new role, she greenlights and develops new projects and oversees current productions. 

In choosing new projects, Molloy has always looked for characters and stories that audiences would want to follow for years. “There’s an endless supply of compelling and unique stories about people in the unscripted space,” she said. “But the needles in the haystack are stories that pop and can sustain over time.”

A Feel for Audiences

Shahram Qureshi, an executive producer and independent showrunner, first worked with Molloy 12 years ago. “Angela knows what’s going to be entertaining,” he said. “Angela has a really good sense of what will resonate with the audience.”

Also Read: Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024: Honoring the West’s Best

Molloy began working in the fledgling genre of reality TV two decades ago as manager of development at TLC, where she acquired unscripted shows from the U.K. and the Netherlands. She next moved to production house 3 Ball Productions. One of the first original shows she sold to a network was Scott Baio Is 45 and Single, about the former heartthrob’s work with a relationship coach. “He said to me in our first meeting: ‘My parents have been married for 50 years. I feel like I should be married and I can’t get there,’  ” Molloy recalled. She called it her “aha moment.” 

“It was an authentic journey that someone was going on, would take us, on in real time,” she said. Many people are willing to share their personal lives for the length of a TikTok, but Molloy looks for subjects with long-term aspirations and a willingness to share them. “When we talk to someone who wants to have their own show, we ask, ‘Are you willing to show the ups and downs of your life?’ ”

The nine years she was a showrunner and field producer on shows such as Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, Room Crashers and Life With La Toya influenced her leadership style. “I think my super power is flexibility,” she said. She understands how cast members’ lives can suddenly take storylines in unexpected directions. 

“Angela isn’t asking me, ‘What are you going to do now?’ ” said Erin Kelly Richards, executive producer of Marriage Boot Camp, Mama June and other shows. “She’s saying, ‘OK, let’s talk about this and figure it out.’ ” 

Molloy “makes the whole process feel like a creative, collaborative effort,” Richards added. She also praised Molloy for “the grace with which she navigates heavy decisions.” 

Last year, Mama June Shannon’s oldest daughter, Anna Cardwell, asked the crew to follow her through her cancer treatment. When Cardwell died in December, Richards said, Molloy called to check on “the mental health of the field crew with genuine care and not just reading off a page in an HR handbook.”

Producing also taught Molloy that “good ideas come from anywhere,” she said. On set, Molloy said, “I have no problem asking the PA or the audio tech, ‘What did you think of that scene?’ ” 

Open Door for Pitches

At AMC, she values the “open-door” policy that encourages employees to pitch ideas. The idea for Love After Lockup was suggested by a producer within WE tv, she noted. To serve a predominantly female and African-American audience, Molloy leads an all-women team, and said their candid dialogues help them address family crises, criminal justice and the challenges of reentry after incarceration. 

“We shouldn’t shy away from tough conversations,” she said. “If you’re telling a story about what it’s like to be Black or to be a woman in certain circumstances, we should be specific and confront that conversation. As executives internally, we’re very open to talking about gender and race, to getting feedback and asking tough questions of each other.”

Molloy is less interested in hot topics than relatable human experiences. In a constantly changing business, Qureshi said, Molloy’s consistency has been her strength. 

“Angela has a very authentic approach to how to tell a truthful story that will be a snapshot of someone’s life,” he said. “She knows what’s going to work, and that’s what’s led to her success.”

Sonia Coleman, senior executive VP and chief human resources officer for The Walt Disney Co., effusively describes Judy Agay as a person who genuinely cares and who has a high emotional intelligence, but said the two keys to understanding Agay are that she is “really strategic and incredibly adaptable.”

Those phrases are essential not just to Agay’s success as senior VP for human resources at ESPN and Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology, but to her entire career. 

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The daughter of two nurses, Agay was born in New York and then lived in New Jersey before coming back to the city to attend Fordham University. At that point, while studying communications, Agay said she knew definitively what she wanted to do with her life.

A Dream Fulfilled

“I wanted to work in a big ad agency,” she said. “That was my dream.” And she fulfilled that dream, landing a job at a midtown ad agency working on packaged goods products, only to run into a major career obstacle. 

“After two years, I realized I hated it,” she recalled. “You were at the whim of the client and you’re selling products and sitting in a focus group. Learning about personal products was just not my thing.”

What Agay really loved was “the people connection,” and she realized she was meant to be in human resources. When she couldn’t navigate a transition at her agency, she adapted. “I was early in my career and was willing to start from scratch,” she said, so she took a job at Tommy Hilfiger, going back down the ladder and working as a scheduling recruiting assistant in HR. 

“I was just hungry to learn and I had people willing to teach me,” she said. And she did learn, rising over five years to become human resources director. (She said that before she took the job, one HR executive told her, “You’re going to hate people at the end of it,” and her response was, “I’m going to prove him wrong.”) 

Agay then moved on to The Gap. It was there, she said, that she first realized how high she could rise in her world — at that time, Jenny Ming was president of Old Navy. “That was very inspiring,” Agay recalled. “She was a marker for me in terms of seeing a woman, and an Asian woman, in a substantial role.”

Agay joined The Walt Disney Co. in 2005 at Disney Publishing Worldwide, eventually finding her way to Los Angeles in 2013 as director of human resources for Disney Consumer Products. She kept climbing up the ranks, becoming senior VP, human resources for The Walt Disney Co. in 2021 and then taking on her new role last year. Agay currently oversees HR business support, serving as a strategic adviser to the C-suite, focusing on change management and long-term planning. She also oversees employee recruitment, development, engagement and compensation, ensuring Disney attracts and retains the best talent to achieve its current and future business goals. 

Just as Ming once inspired her, Agay now says she feels it’s important “for me to be able to lift others up, to see that it’s possible.”

Keeping People Supported

Even as she ascends, Agay said she has not lost sight of what matters. And while she is, as Coleman described, a shrewd strategist “with a great command of the business,” Agay said that her leadership skill set flows from a different direction. As she notes, she’s in the only department that has the word “human” in the title. 

“I want people to feel supported and feel like they have the tools they need to do their jobs the best that they can,” Agay said. “And I think one of my strengths is that I know that even in this business, you can be kind and compassionate.” 

Sometimes this means giving people the validation they need. But sometimes it simply means letting them know exactly how they are performing, how their side of the business is doing and where they stand. “It’s not my quote, but I do think that clarity is kindness,” she said. 

In her senior year at UCLA, Karey Burke got an internship at NBC “and absolutely got hit with a lightning bolt,” she said. With plans to be some kind of international business executive, she learned it was possible to make a career in television. 

She secured a permanent position as an assistant at the network during, as she put it, the Brandon Tartikoff and Warren Littlefield years, and moved up to development executive. 

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For the past three and a half years, she has been president of 20th Television, The Walt Disney Co.-owned studio that produces about 60% of in-house-produced programs for Disney Entertainment outlets (ABC, Disney Plus, FX, Hulu, etc.) and supplies myriad platforms including NBC, Apple TV Plus, Showtime, Fox and CBS. 

Building Big Hits

Recent credits include Tracker, the CBS drama starring Justin Hartley that debuted after the Super Bowl and had a successful first season, leading all Big Four network programs in total audience and in the 18-49 demographic. 20th also produces 9-1-1 for ABC, among several other Ryan Murphy Productions franchises; Only Murders in the Building for Hulu; The Chi for Showtime; and Percy Jackson and the Olympians for Disney Plus.

But back to the “Must See” years at NBC. What shows did she work on? Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, L.A. Law and Quantum Leap were the first three she mentioned. “I was lucky enough to work on Friends the year we developed that show, and was able to stay with that for most of my career there,” she recalled.

After segueing to production, partnering variously with Jamie Tarses, Ashton Kutcher and Todd Holland, she embraced the challenge of joining Disney when it was rebranding ABC Family to Freeform. “By that time, my children were in their teenage years and that’s what they were watching, shows like Pretty Little Liars and The Fosters,” Burke said. 

From there came “the opportunity I could absolutely not say no to”: president of entertainment at ABC, starting in December 2018. “It was an incredible time, a heady time for the network,” Burke said. “And we took ABC from No. 3 back to No. 1.” 

Then, Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden called two years into that job to discuss a new position that came from combining Fox 21 and 20th Television. “I was honored to get that call again, something I hadn’t done before,” Burke said. “I feel like I’ve always tried to pivot when I could learn something new. I’ve sort of been driven and led by my curiosity, and a hope to grow and keep learning.”

At 20th she gets the chance to, as Disney says, champion an inclusive culture and slate. She cites her work on Freaks and Geeks as an early source of pride, and now she’s particularly proud of We Were the Lucky Ones, an uplifting story about a family of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. Directed by Thomas Kail, it recently launched on Hulu.

Kail also directed the musical series Up Here for 20th, which ran for one season on Hulu. “Two shows with great ambition and two shows that were in many ways unlikely to exist,” Kail said, crediting Burke for championing and advocating them. “She cares deeply and I feel like she leads with her humanity.”

Still Bullish on Broadcast

As you might expect, Burke also is a champion of broadcast TV. “I’m bullish. I’m all in,” she said. “There’s no greater reach platform than the broadcast networks. And it’s an incredible place for stories to begin and for libraries to get built over time that ultimately serve our streaming platforms. I think it’s no surprise that when you look at the rankers of shows that do well on streaming services across the business, the bulk of the top 10 are shows that began life in broadcast. A show that we produced, The Resident, that story that popped about how well it’s doing — we’re so proud of that.” 

It was an eventful first year on the job, to say the least, for Heather Olander, and year two at The CW shows no sign of letting up. Named to her current position in February 2023, Olander was intrigued by the prospect of a network undergoing a makeover. 

“I had obviously heard that Nexstar had bought the network, and they were going to completely change the programming and the schedule,” Olander said. “And I love a challenge like that, so I was very up for the opportunity.”

Unscripted fare plays a much larger part on The CW’s schedule than it used to. While Penn & Teller: Fool Us and Whose Line Is It Anyway? have been on for eons, newer The CW shows include Inside the NFL, FBoy Island and Crime Nation. 

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Olander is also at work on a couple of game shows based on beloved intellectual property: Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble, which are slated for a fall debut. “I’ve been watching the casting for both of those shows, and it’s wild to me how passionate people are about both of those games,” Olander said. “It’s very invigorating to know that those two brands still resonate in such a huge way.”

Hollywood’s Holy Grail

Olander knew from a young age what kind of work she might pursue as an adult. She described herself as “a huge, huge, avid TV watcher” growing up in San Diego. She started in advertising upon her arrival in Los Angeles, and had friends working as assistants in the entertainment industry. Olander saw, in her words, “a pathway”
for herself. 

“There was a thing called the UTA job list, which existed 100 years ago and had all the jobs in town,” she said. “That was like the Holy Grail, and I got my hot little hands on that.”

Olander started at talent agency ICM and worked her way up. She spent seven years at MTV, making it to VP of original series development and current programming. Olander shifted to NBCUniversal in 2011 as senior VP of alternative development and programming at USA Network. That was a precursor to her current role, as USA began venturing into unscripted. She worked on Chrisley Knows Best and Miz & Mrs., among other reality fare. 

Over time, Olander added oversight of alternative programming at Syfy and Peacock. 

Then Brad Schwartz, The CW entertainment president, was looking for an unscripted chief. “First of all, every single person in town told me to hire Heather,” he said. They mentioned Olander’s standout taste, vast experience in development and production and straightforward nature. 

“She’s a superstar executive in so many ways,” Schwartz said. “She’s incredibly intelligent, incredibly driven and is very direct. The entire industry loves her because she doesn’t mess around.”

Straight Shooter

Many in Hollywood are reluctant to say no to a project, and keep a producer’s hopes up, he said. Olander plays it straight. 

“We’re not a giant, huge portfolio,” she said. “I know it’s hard to navigate for producers, hard to get answers, hard to get things pushed forward” at other networks. 

She likens The CW, on the other hand, to a startup.

The CW president Dennis Miller said Olander took on a “daunting task” when she came on board. “She doesn’t suffer fools, she’s whip-smart, she cuts to the chase, and she’s very hands-on with producers,” he said. “She’s had an awesome first year.”

Olander takes time to mentor younger colleagues and proudly notes how many former assistants have moved on to significant entertainment posts. “I do feel like it is my responsibility as a manager, to mentor and to help guide anyone who works for me,” she said.  

When she’s not working, Olander keeps busy with her family. When not chauffeuring her daughters, ages 8 and 11, to games and parties, they enjoy watching the likes of America’s Got Talent and America’s Funniest Home Videos together. “The adults have the adult dramas and the kids have their Disney stuff,” Olander said. “But the broadcast stuff is stuff where we come together and look forward to watching.” 

Alisa Bowen, president of The Walt Disney Co.’s premium streaming service Disney Plus, is known as someone who gets difficult jobs done.

“She’s been here from the beginning, from before launch [in 2019], and she’s one of the people early on that I connected with,” said Joe Earley, president, direct-to-consumer at Disney Entertainment. “She understands every aspect of the streaming business, from pricing through technology. 

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“While other people would be worried about politicking, she wanted to get stuff done,” Earley said. “We formed an early connection and recognized that while other people were distracted, we could move this forward. It’s still a great partnership today.”

Bowen embraces her get-it-done mojo. “I like to describe myself as the co-pilot, not the pilot,” she said. “My strength really comes to bear when I’m supporting a team of people on the creative side.” 

She said she’s not jealous of Disney’s creative people. “I am constantly in awe of them. I find it inspiring and I love making sure everything is in place for them to be successful.”

Meeting the Ad Challenge

Launching the ad-supported version of Disney Plus is one of Bowen’s recent achievements. “It’s now live in dozens of markets around the world, and each one of those markets has very unique regulatory environments that govern the way that we can collect data, the way we can use data and the way we can manage ad preferences from consumers,” Bowen said. “Advertising wasn’t part of the original concept of Disney Plus, so adding that in was pretty complicated. Navigating all of those local requirements added an extra layer of complexity.”

Because Disney already had ad technology from Hulu, “on day one, our capabilities were far more robust than several of our competitors who were also launching ad tiers on their streaming services at about the same time.”

When Bowen joined Disney seven years ago, she was part of an initiative to understand how and when the company would begin the transition from linear to internet protocol-delivered video.

“I think that was the first time we began to imagine what streaming could be,” she recalled. “We were so motivated to figure out the right time and strategy for charting that transition because we were observing how consumers were spending their time and how much time was now untethered from the set-top box in the living room, particularly in key markets.”

Bowen came by her streaming expertise over several stops. Born in Australia, she originally wanted to be a journalist and studied media. She started out in public relations and shifted to the business side, helping Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones and News Corp. transition from print to digital.

At The Wall Street Journal, she led the effort to offer advanced targeting capabilities for ad sales. At News Corp., her experience in managing subscriptions and setting up paywalls came to the fore.

Having spent time at News Corp. was a plus when Disney acquired assets from 21st Century Fox, another company controlled by Rupert Murdoch. “In both organizations, there’s a real premium placed on being able to collaborate across the organizational structure,” she said.

Lauren Tempest, general manager of Hulu, remembers her initial impression of Bowen was, “Wow, this woman knows her business inside and out.”

Now, she said: “Alisa just wants to get the job done. There is very little ego involved — her only requirement is that the idea or decision is the best one for the business. It does not matter where the idea came from or whose agenda it’s ultimately driving.”

Support at Home

Bowen has two teenage daughters, a benefit when working on a product like Disney Plus. Her older daughter, Emilia, is into anime and is an aspiring animator. “I love getting her input on new projects that we’re thinking about or exploring,” Bowen said.

Emilia is a big fan of Marvel’s X-Men 97, the animated series. “Its retro style is something that’s really appealed to her generation,” Bowen said. 

Her younger daughter lets her know what’s happening on social media and TikTok. “She’s the one who keeps me in touch with what the kids are talking about,” she said.

One of her daughters was born in London, the other in New York. “They were quite accomplished little world travelers until COVID hit,” Bowen said. A trip to Italy is planned this summer. “It’s the first time we’ve been out of the country together as a family since COVID, so we’re really looking forward to that.”

Beatrice Springborn grew up thinking she would be a journalist: More specifically, a foreign correspondent for a prestigious newspaper. But in 2001 she landed a job at Pixar as a development executive.

At Pixar, Springborn quickly realized she had found her calling in production. Two decades later, in 2020, Springborn became the president of UCP and was named head of Universal International Studios in 2022. Across both studios, she oversees more than 40 active TV series.

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“Most of the projects that I get behind have a commercial sensibility but tied up with something extra,” she said. “There is a meaning that is deeper, but hopefully given to audiences in a way that is digestible and doesn’t feel like medicine. Projects that you come away feeling like you’ve experienced something that speaks to larger thematics.”

Making Major Projects

In the last six months, several high-profile projects that Springborn developed and produced were released, including three Peacock series: Ted, Dr. Death season two and Apples Never Fall.

A prequel to Seth MacFarlane’s Ted movies, Peacock’s eponymous seven-episode series debuted in January and was, per Nielsen, the No. 1 original streaming comedy in the U.S. for two consecutive months. 

To bring the series to life, she worked alongside MacFarlane, its showrunner, executive producer, writer and director.

“Beatrice is very hands-on and very creative,” MacFarlane said. “She is somebody who really inspires enthusiasm and the desire to go the extra mile. You know that she has seen every one of your shows and that she’s absorbed all the nuance and detail and has processed it all in a really intelligent, creative way.”

When Dr. Death creator Patrick Macmanus began working with Springborn in 2020, the first season of the series was midway through production.

“It would have been very easy and understandable for an executive of her level and of her experience and intellect to come in and want to change what Dr. Death was before she got there,” he said. “Instead, she came in purely to ensure that we were able to execute it as well as we possibly could. Beatrice was there when I both wanted and needed her at every single turn. She fought for our show every step of the way.”

Springborn also fought for Apples Never Fall. In 2021 she helped secure the rights to the Liane Moriarty novel (with David Heyman of Heyday Films) in a highly competitive sale and landed a straight-to-series order at Peacock.
In its first week, Apples Never Fall debuted as the sixth most-watched original series across streaming, per Nielsen.

That kind of success isn’t foreign to Springborn. Prior to her tenure at UCP, she was head of originals at Hulu, where she was responsible for acquiring hit series including The Handmaid’s Tale, Little Fires Everywhere and Normal People. 

“I don’t think I could have done this studio job without having been a buyer,” Springborn said. “Mostly because as much as buyers will explain and articulate their mandate to you, it’s usually not what is successful. Having been a buyer, I know that the mandate is never what usually ends up popping. So [at Universal] we dedicate a percentage of our slate to the types of shows that [distributors] are looking for, but also, we dedicate a huge part of our slate to taking risks and doing things that might feel out of the box, which are done at the highest level of quality. ”

‘She’s a Deep Diver’

Universal Studio Group chairman Pearlena Igbokwe has known Springborn for years and was eager to bring her aboard. “One of the things I love about Beatrice is her curiosity,” Igbokwe said. “I also appreciate that she’s candid about what she knows and what she doesn’t know. She is very forthright about what she wants to learn and she’s a great student. She’s a deep diver and I think that’s the mark of a leader.”

Springborn credits her journalism background for keeping an open mind. 

“The skill set of a journalist is exactly what works in this business, which is curiosity and a point of view, or at least not always knowing the answers,” she said. “When you are developing shows, you think it’s one thing and that evolves as you make it. Having the openness to it being something else is part of the journey and what makes things good.” 

Joy. Positive intent. Optimism. How many people would use those terms to describe their current role? Carolyn Bernstein, executive VP of scripted and documentary films at National Geographic, brims with excitement when discussing her current role, colleagues and accomplished career.

“I’m a very optimistic person,” she said. “I think that has helped me weather the ups and downs of this business.”

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She said this infectious optimism is a quality shared by many of her Nat Geo colleagues. It creates a collegial and cohesive working environment.

“At Nat Geo, we always talk about assuming positive intent as we move through our day,” Bernstein said. “It’s because we get to work with this brand, which has so much meaning and history. It doesn’t just entertain but it inspires.”

Overseeing a Packed Slate

Bernstein oversees the award-winning National Geographic Documentary Films banner and the network’s fact-based scripted content. Under her leadership, Nat Geo has garnered critical success with award-winning documentaries like E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s Oscar- and BAFTA Award-winning Free Solo, Feras Fayyad’s Oscar-nominated The Cave and Sara Dosa’s Oscar-nominated Fire of Love and Bobi Wine: The People’s President, following the Ugandan opposition leader and musician during his 2021 presidential campaign. She said telling Wine’s story was a career highlight. 

Bernstein also spearheaded a robust scripted slate. Under her tenure, the 20-time Emmy-nominated Genius franchise enjoyed four seasons. 

She joined Nat Geo in 2016 from Endemol Shine Studios and Shine America, where she was executive VP of scripted television and executive producer of FX series The Bridge. 

Prior to Shine America, Bernstein was executive VP of drama development at The WB. She said she enjoyed telling coming-of-age stories and developed Gilmore Girls, Smallville, One Tree Hill and Supernatural.

Many parents panic when they hear their children want to be English or literature majors. But Bernstein, a comparative literature major, believes it’s a great career path. At Brown University, she said, she read numerous influential books and performed critical analyses of what she read. 

After graduating, the native New Yorker moved to Los Angeles to embark on a career in entertainment, starting at CAA in the motion picture literary department.

“I was honing my critical thinking and analytical skills around literature, so it was a hop, skip and a jump to reading screenplays, working on pilots and working with storytellers,” she said. “I was looking at the same things — character, tone and theme.”

Bernstein said one of the best aspects of her current role is figuring out what support the artists need to tell the stories they want to tell. 

“I always describe it as removing obstacles,” she said. “As an executive, you never want to create obstacles. You want to remove obstacles so artists can do their best work, and that’s been a huge privilege and a joy for me.”

Others at Nat Geo agree. “Carolyn possesses the rare combination of brilliant creative instincts, strong business acumen, and excellent leadership skills,” Nat Geo president Courteney Monroe said. “She builds tremendous relationships with talent, fostering an environment that enables them to do their very best work.”

Spreading Joy

Life outside the entertainment world is just as joyous for Bernstein. Her husband is FX Entertainment president Nick Grad. They met while working as development executives in the mid-1990s. They have a daughter, Georgia, in high school and a son, Lucas, in college. 

She makes it a point to mentor young people. Bernstein participated in The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Mentorship Program, which is aligned with the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles. This program pairs high-ranking women entertainment executives with high school junior girls from underserved communities, helping prepare them for college and beyond. Bernstein’s mentee graduated from Loyola Marymount University last year.

And she regularly assists undergrads and those early in their careers seeking her advice. Bernstein is paying it forward, honoring those who helped her along the way. 

 Janene Drafs runs a truly extraordinary content-production outfit. KTLA Los Angeles, part of Nexstar Media Group, cranks out a staggering 112 hours a week of local programming, among the highest levels in the nation. It is local from 4 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. weekdays. After The CW primetime, it’s another 90 minutes of local news. 

Drafs was named KTLA GM in 2020, succeeding the retiring Don Orsini, who was something of an L.A. television legend. She previously was VP and general manager at KOMO-KUNS Seattle, where she began her career as an account executive in 1992.

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Drafs, who is the B+C Multichannel News 2024 Los Angeles-based Woman of Influence, spoke about being the first female GM at KTLA, the loss of beloved colleague Sam Rubin and how she helps young women in television work toward leadership roles. An edited transcript follows. 

B+C MCN: Can KTLA’s 112 weekly hours of local possibly go up, or is that the magic number?

Janene Drafs: I think for now it’s the magic number, but [OTT product] KTLA Plus is such an amazing opportunity for us. That’s where we have been developing more programs. 

B+C: The station recently lost a beloved colleague in [entertainment anchor] Sam Rubin. Tell me what he was like. 

JD: While Sam loved entertaining and loved Hollywood, he was really a journalist. It’s what endeared him to his colleagues who are also journalists. He was a fantastic writer. He had an incredible wit. I think he was the class clown, but in the very best way. To be funny, you have to be really, really, really smart. And Sam was really, really, really smart.

B+C: When you took this job in 2020, you became the first female GM in KTLA history. What was the feeling when you were coming on board? Excitement? Anxiety?

JD: I knew that there had been other female general managers in the market, and I came from a market that also had one other female general manager. So I wasn’t intimidated. On my first day I said, ‘I can’t be Don Corsini. I’m never going to be the person who was here before me because I lean in a different way. We’ll get to know one another and you’ll figure out how that works for you.’ Don was definitely an iconic person, but I just needed to make sure everyone knew that I wasn’t going to try and be the same person. 

B+C: Who’s been a mentor for you in your career?

JD: Colleen Brown, who was the CEO of Fisher Broadcasting before [KOMO-KUNS was] purchased by Sinclair. [Former Graham Media Group president and CEO] Emily Barr and I met at an industry conference and right away we hit it off. She would be the person that I would call with strategic things, when I was struggling with something, when I had some ideas and needed someone to bounce them off of.

In the GM role, it’s really hard to find colleagues. You can’t have those kinds of conversations with your employees. So we all have to have those people that we reach out to. 

BC: How do you help a young woman who might someday want to be a GM?

JD: Representation is so important. When I was growing up, I played guitar, and I never thought that I could play an electric guitar. Then I saw Heart, Ann and Nancy Wilson, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Women?’ I don’t know why I didn’t think I could do it, but it was all about representation.

Seeing females in leadership roles is the very first step, because that means females can envision themselves in leadership.

The second thing is to have that board of directors for yourself. Who is that person who’s going to call you on your BS, call you when you’re not being real? That might be a really good friend that you’ve grown up with who knows you well, it might be a sister or a brother. It’s going to be someone who knows you well, who doesn’t mince words, who knows you’re not going to take it personally. 

That’s what I encourage young women to do — find people who will be your advocate. Find people who tell you what you don’t want to tell yourself. When people who are too close to you are telling you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear, have that other person who is just your 100% go-to for solv-i­ng prob­­lems. 

Being an anchor in the rocky waters of the entertainment business is just one of the traits that helped propel Stephanie Jackson forward in her career. This senior VP of Western region integrated ad sales, overseeing the Warner Bros. Discovery brands, is known as a constant, steadying force. She’s someone who can be counted on to get things accomplished. 

It’s a trait she was proud to say she got from her single mother.

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“My mom was always my mentor,” Jackson said. “She never complained and she knew how to get things done.”

Today, Jackson leads WBD’s Los Angeles sales office and oversees its strategic national sales initiatives across linear and digital platforms. Additionally, she develops strategic marketing partnerships to meet her clients’ needs. 

Drives Revenue Growth

Throughout her career, Jackson has been responsible for driving organizational revenue growth and improving sales performance within an evolving marketplace. She has a stellar record of negotiating renewals with agency and advertiser clients, in addition to a proven ability to manage change that includes mergers and acquisitions, including the April 2022 Warner Bros. Discovery merger. 

Jackson’s client list includes major ad agencies and automotive brands, Fortune 500 companies on the West Coast, as well as financial and tech companies. She said her clients trust her and she truly enjoys working with them.

Jackson was promoted to her current role in September 2023, making her the first senior VP to be a direct report of WBD chief ad sales officer Jon Steinlauf, overseeing scripted, sports and streaming genres in the expanded WBD portfolio.

Working with vice presidents, a 15-member ad sales team and additional sales support, she credits her dedicated colleagues as being smart and savvy.

Jackson has enjoyed a 20-plus-year career. Prior to joining Warner Bros. Discovery, she worked in radio advertising sales for ABC Radio Networks under the Radio Disney brand. 

Yet she’s that rare executive who started in the entertainment business while still in high school. She participated in an internship program for minority students and was placed at Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, the distribution arm of the three Warner Communications-owned music labels at that time. Jackson also worked in the Warner Music Publishing division, receiving valuable exposure that revealed the scope of career possibilities in entertainment. 

She majored in business administration at Pepperdine University and began her career as a sales assistant for KTTV Los Angeles’s local sales division. Watching co-workers develop strategy and interact with clients was especially appealing. It was here that she learned the foundation of the advertising business. 

One of Jackson’s favorite parts of her current role, she said, is mentoring others. She said she’s now in pay-it-forward mode.

“It’s about being able to give back because I had really great, impactful mentors over my career,” Jackson said. “I’m at a point where I can take a step back and offer guidance.”

That guidance comes in all forms. It can be brainstorming, listening when someone needs to vent or advising those interested in a career in advertising.

“Stephanie prioritizes the evolving needs of the people she works with and manages through change with humility,” executive VP of ad sales Marybeth Strobel said. “Her inclusive nature to educate her team as she educates herself creates a unique spirit of motivation and purpose.”

Fan of Sports Lessons

Jackson said her skill set was sharpened when she played basketball and volleyball in high school. Jackson noted that she loves seeing sports programs on young people’s resumes. It shows they really understand what it takes to work together.

“My coaches were also mentors,” Jackson said. “They taught me teamwork, healthy competition and discipline. There was everything in sports that translated to what I do today.”

Jackson is married and has an 11-year-old daughter. Jackson said she is passionate about travel, skiing and her puppies. “They are my therapy,” the animal lover said. The pups are certainly helping Jackson as she helps others. 

Connie Orlando has always danced to her own beat while navigating an evolving entertainment business, a field in which she has grown from a young entrepreneur producing music programming into overseeing some of the industry’s most iconic content franchises. 

It’s quite an accomplishment for the Queens, New York, native who, growing up, wasn’t focused on entertainment. “I was the first in my family to go to college, and back then you went to college to be a doctor, lawyer or accountant,” she said. “That’s it — there was no other anything.” 

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Orlando, who earned a finance degree at Syracuse University, was an analyst at JPMorgan Chase in the early 1990s. “I was in the school of business because I’m excellent with numbers,” she said. “But I did not like working at a bank — it was very monotonous.”

Making Music a Job

On weekends, Orlando teamed up with a college roommate and aspiring director who enlisted all of her college friends to help with her music projects. “It opened up another world for me and showed me a lot about the art of production,” she said. “That’s how I was kind of ushered into the business.” 

In 1995, Orlando launched CMO Productions while working as an executive producer at Big Dog Films, headed by Hype Williams. At CMO, she spearheaded projects such as Jay-Z’s 1998 soundtrack for Streets Is Watching.

CMO was one of the few female-led companies in an industry dominated by men, and Orlando was determined to see it take flight. “The beautiful thing was that the business was growing at such a quick pace that I was able to learn and get in at a time where it was needed,” she said. 

In the early 2000s, BET knocked on Orlando’s door to develop several music specials before hiring her as VP of development. In 2015, she was named senior VP of specials, music and news. 

Orlando said BET offered her the opportunity to develop content that represented the network’s target audience. “One of the most important lessons I learned is to get to know your audience and curate things that are original and unique to authentically represent that audience,” she said. 

On Orlando’s watch, BET launched several successful originals, including awards show Black Girls Rock!

In 2017, BET promoted Orlando to head of programming and music strategy, overseeing scripted, nonscripted and documentary programming, and again in 2019 to her current post. She oversees the network’s original shows and tentpole events, including the BET Awards, Soul Train Awards and BET Hip Hop Awards. 

“My goal is to always solidify BET’s status as the leading platform for innovative, authentic and culturally relevant content for the Black community,” she said. “That’s the nucleus of everything I do with all the shows.”

Orlando counts entertainment executive Tracy Edmonds and former BET original programming president Loretha Jones as mentors, and credits former BET chairman Debra Lee for giving her an opportunity to excel. “I believe, if you can see it, you can be it,” Orlando said. “And that speaks to seeing Debra run the company.” 

Said Lee, now co-founder and partner at consultancy The Monarchs Collective: “People in the industry love Connie, and she’s built up a lot of goodwill within the industry. She’s very talented and really creative … she always has her hand on the pulse of the culture, and she’s able to bring all of that together.”

Giving Back

Orlando’s reach goes beyond the television screen. In 1998 she launched a nonprofit foundation, Just the Girls, to empower young women. 

She enrolled in culinary school to further indulge in her love of cooking, which she calls her “therapy.” 

Orlando hopes to continue developing authentic and innovative content. She also encourages young female producers and entrepreneurs to challenge themselves and be open to unique opportunities. 

“I think the scariest part in any career in entertainment is being willing to change, but I am where I am because I was open to trying something new,” she said. “I didn’t know I wanted to be a producer until I did a lot of other things. It’s almost like I narrowed down what I didn’t want to be and then saw what I really loved.” 

After a satisfying career in broadcast journalism, Teri Arvesú looked around during the pandemic and protests over George Floyd’s murder and felt she had hit a plateau.

“I had topped out in terms of the impact I could make and was wondering how I could be a bigger part of transformational work,” Arvesú, who had been the WGBO Chicago news director and was then VP for content for Univision Chicago, recalled. “It came to me that my next job was not about a title — producer, then executive producer, then news director. But I was banging my head because I didn’t know what to do next.”

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Then came a phone call offering her a new role in the company’s Brand and Impact vertical as senior VP of social impact and sustainability for TelevisaUnivision and president of the Univision Foundation.

Both the sense of searching and the new role made perfect sense to those who know Arvesú.

Powerhouse Presence

Jose Tomas, chief administrative officer, TelevisaUnivision, and Edna Uribe, who was director of sales at Univision Chicago when Arvesú was there, both describe her as a “lifelong learner” and a force to be reckoned with.

“Her level of curiosity is genuine and admirable,” Uribe said. Added Tomas, “She absorbs new ideas and then executes on them.”

Tomas also called her “a ball of energy who does not stand still,” although Arvesú said she’s “super-aware” of always going full tilt and admits she tries to modify her passion and energy because “it even drives me crazy. I’m so freaking intense.”

Arvesú, whose parents were Cuban exiles who arrived here as children, grew up in Miami, studied journalism and ran newsrooms in Miami and Chicago. Her passion for journalism is tied to her love of democracy which is part of her heritage, she said, adding that she’s also a “geek about meteorology” and would watch hours of live weather broadcasting, “which made me feel like I was part of a community.”

Under her leadership, WGBO made history in 2014 by becoming the first Spanish-language television station to win a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award for Outstanding Evening Newscast, Larger Markets. She loves Univision because it fits her identity as a “200 percenter, someone who is both 100% American and 100% Hispanic,” she said. “I live both those lives and I have never found in my ‘American’ life
a brand that means what Univision means to our community.”

About a decade ago, Arvesú nearly left to teach at the University of Miami and lead the student-run TV station but she stayed, in part, because Univision was creating a women’s leadership council, the first employee resource group. That chance to make a difference “sucked me in again,” she said. Arvesú has a master’s degree in management, and those studies emphasized leadership. She also credits her great-aunt, Carolina Calderin, who was a hospital CEO in Miami and broke through glass ceilings, but who also “gave so much and never turned anyone away.”

Doing More for Latinos

In Chicago, Arvesú launched a fellowship with DePaul University and the McCormick Foundation to prepare high school and college Latinos for careers in the media and she also started the city’s first radio show for bilingual millennials. 

In her new role she feels she can do even more. One recent program helped push the film industry to develop more Latino directors. This year, she is focusing much of her energy on “Vota Conmigo” (Vote With Me), the company’s get-out-the-vote campaign. “That consumes me almost daily,” she said. 

Arvesú said she relishes the ability to work on the philanthropic side through the company’s foundation, while also working to transform TelevisaUnivision itself. “I’m helping journalism build out a new business model,” she said. “I’m part of the board of the Journalism Funding Partners, which gets philanthropic dollars to underwrite reporting, and we’ve put over $2 million back in newsrooms. And while Univision’s brand has always been about community, I now oversee corporate social responsibility and diversity, equity and inclusion while the foundation allows me to create programs that take care of our community on the inside.” 

When Amy Reisenbach was named president of entertainment for CBS in November 2022, she brought two distinctive experience sets to the table.

First, she had spent nearly 20 years in CBS’s current department after being hired from Warner Bros. in 2005. 

“Current is like boot camp,” Reisenbach said. “I think every executive should have worked in current on the creative side; you learn so much about what makes a show work and work on CBS. The current executive assigned to the show is the showrunner’s therapist, their worst enemy, their biggest champion, all the things. Showrunners understand that my passion is always that of a TV fan and I always want to function like that first.” 

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Michelle King, creator and executive producer of Elsbeth, The Good Fight, The Good Wife and Evil, said:  “She has a couple of superpowers. She is smart about story. Her notes are on target. She’s also very honest.”

Long-Term Mindset

The second is that Reisenbach is no stranger to long-term planning, a mindset she first learned from her father, Sandy, who ran marketing at Warner Bros. and led the planning of the studio’s tentpole theatrical rollouts. She’s using that skill to set CBS up for success several years down the road. 

“When I became president of entertainment for CBS, I thought about how we could function a little more like that — thinking two to three years out,” Reisenbach said. “Longer-term planning gives us more time to develop shows differently.”

That strategy is already yielding results. Tracker, starring Justin Hartley, premiered in the plum time slot after the Super Bowl and is now primetime’s most-watched series with 20.4 million viewers tuning in across the live-plus-35-day viewing window. Elsbeth, starring Carrie Preston, is the season’s second-most watched new show (behind Tracker) and has been renewed for a second season. 

Those performances helped lead CBS to its 16th straight year as TV’s most-watched network, averaging 5.6 million viewers per evening across live-plus-seven-day viewing, according to Nielsen. 

That skill set, plus Reisenbach’s overall enthusiasm for and intimate knowledge of the project, convinced CBS president and CEO George Cheeks (now part of parent Paramount’s office of the CEO) that she was right for the job before she even knew she was applying. 

“The first time I actually got to interact with Amy was on a Zoom when she was head of current in April 2020,” Cheeks said. “My first instinct was, ‘She’s the person who should be president of entertainment for CBS.’ She has a genuine passion for our programming and a genuine respect for what we do. The more I’ve gotten to know her, the more I’ve thought she is the perfect partner.” 

CBS Studios president David Stapf and Reisenbach have worked together for more than 20 years, dating back to when she was at Warner Bros. Television. Back in the day, Stapf worked for her father. Stapf used to be her boss; today, she’s his biggest client. 

“The way that we communicate is sort of seamless,” Stapf said. “Amy is so smart and big-picture that it’s been an easy transition for me. She’s always been the sort of person, even before she was the head of current, that I and everybody went to to ask her what she thought and how she would approach things.” 

‘A Creative Collaboration’

Stapf also identified a third skill set that he said is integral to Reisenbach’s success in her current role: “The number one quality you need is empathy and kindness. We are dealing with art and artists, people who are pouring their hearts and souls into their product. We aren’t dealing with people who are just making a widget. You have to recognize that it’s a creative collaboration yet an intimate endeavor.”

More of the same is on tap for CBS later this year and next with Matlock, starring Kathy Bates; Watson, starring Morris Chestnut; and a reboot of game show Hollywood Squares, starring Drew Barrymore, all on the slate. 

“We all believe in what we are trying to do, which is put great shows on the air for a broad audience, and we’re succeeding,” Reisenbach said. “This team has come together during a really tough year, and everyone has stayed positive and had fun doing it. I believe if we have great culture in our halls, then the shows will benefit as well.” 

The editors and publishers of Multichannel News are proud to recognize the 2024 Wonder Women of Los Angeles. 

Profiled on the following pages are 15 women executives in media and entertainment roles who’ve made a lasting impact on their companies and their industry overall. Since 1999, Multichannel News and sister publications B+C and Next TV have saluted women media and entertainment leaders in both Los Angeles and New York.  

In addition to the class of 15 Wonder Women, we’re also honoring our 2024 West Coast Woman of Influence, KTLA Los Angeles VP and general manager Janene Drafs. The first female executive to lead the Nexstar Media Group-owned station, she oversees an operation that lives up to its “L.A.’s Very Own” slogan with an impressive 112 hours per week of local programming. 

Honorees will be celebrated at a gala breakfast event June 18 at The Ebell of Los Angeles. Once again, The WICT Network: Southern California will serve as event partner and will recognize its 2024 Catalyst Award winner, LaKendra Davis Moxie, VP of fulfillment operations at Cox Communications, also at the gala breakfast. The Catalyst Award salutes a WICT Network: Southern California chapter member who’s had a positive impact on the industry through their mentorship, leadership and dedication to female career empowerment through involvement with WICT programs.

The Wonder Women event is part of L.A. TV Week, which also comprises the 40 Under 40 L.A. celebration, both of which will take place June 18 at The Ebell.

For more on the Wonder Women event or to register, go to mcnwonderwomen.com. 

Click through to profiles of this year’s 15 honorees below.

Wonder Women of Los Angeles 2024

• Judy Agay, Senior VP, Human Resources, ESPN, Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology
• Teri Arvesú, Senior VP, Social Impact & Sustainability, TelevisaUnivision
• Carolyn Bernstein, Executive VP, Scripted and Documentary Films, National Geographic
• Alisa Bowen, President, Disney Plus, The Walt Disney Co. 
• Karey Burke, President, 20th Television Studios, a part of Disney Television Studios, Walt Disney Co. 
• Nicole Clemens, President, Paramount Television Studios, Paramount Global
• Jessica Fang, Executive VP, Distribution, Marketing & Strategy, Fox Corp.
• Stephanie Jackson, Senior VP, Ad Sales, Western Region, Warner Bros. Discovery
• Tana Nugent Jamieson, Executive VP and Co-Head, A+E Studios
• Angela Molloy, Senior VP, Development & Original Production, ALLBLK and WE tv, Unscripted, AMC Networks
• Geraldine Moriba, Senior VP and Chief Content Officer, theGrio
• Heather Olander, Head of Unscripted Programming, The CW 
• Connie Orlando, Executive VP of Specials, Music Programming & Music Strategy, BET Media Group
• Amy Reisenbach, President, Entertainment, CBS
• Beatrice Springborn, President, Universal Content Productions and Universal International Studios