Wonder Women of Los Angeles, saluting leaders in the media and entertainment industry, happening on Tuesday, June 18, has announced four event hosts to present the awards program at The Ebell of Los Angeles.

In alphabetical order, they are: Liana Brackett, on-camera host, TheGrio; Kelley L. Carter, senior entertainment reporter, Andscape, and entertainment contributor, ABC News; Jessica Holmes, anchor, KTLA Morning News, and Sheba Turk, CBS Los Angeles/KCAL anchor.

Wonder Women of Los Angeles is honoring 15 female leaders selected by the editors of Multichannel News. In addition, the event will honor MCN-selected 2024 Woman of Influence Award recipient Janene Drafs, VP and general manager of Nexstar’s broadcast and digital operations at KTLA in Los Angeles, and The WICT Network of Southern California’s Catalyst Award recipient, LaKendra Davis Moxie, VP, Fulfillment Operations, for Cox Communications. 

To learn more about the awards and to register for the gala breakfast, visit mcnwonderwomen.com. 

Below are condensed biographies (with more on the event website) of the four Wonder Women of L.A. event hosts:

Liana Brackett started her career in the federal government as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service before making the jump into broadcast television. She received a Bachelor of Science in Atmospheric Science from University of California - Davis. Since her jump into the TV world, she has worked as an On-Camera Meteorologist for Fox 12 in Portland, Oregon; The Weather Channel and Fox 11 in Los Angeles. She believes in challenging yourself and taking risks in life. So in 2021, she left her weather comfort zone and joined Allen Media Group as an On-Camera Host, being utilized across all of Byron Allen’s broadcast channels to host entertainment, lifestyle, sports and more. She lives in Dana Point, California with her husband, David, her two year old son, Rafael, and their rescue dog, Dasher.

Award-winning entertainment and pop-culture journalist Kelley L. Carter joined ESPN in January 2016 as a senior entertainment writer for The Undefeated, now Andscape, a Black media platform dedicated to creating, highlighting, and uplifting the diverse stories of Black identity. Based in Los Angeles, Carter covers film, television, and music for the platform. She is one of the renowned journalists who came on board for the launch of the content initiative in May 2016. Carter began hosting The Undefeated digital series “Another Act with Kelley Carter” in March 2020, where she gives viewers direct access to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. She also interviewed creators and stars of the filmed version of the original Broadway production of Hamilton in a special program titled Hamilton In-Depth with Kelley Carter, exclusive to Disney+ and The Undefeated on July 3. Since joining The Undefeated, Carter has served as a special commentator on Oscars Countdown: The Red Carpet LIVE! on ABC since 2019. 

Jessica Holmes is co-anchor of KTLA’s Emmy Award-winning signature broadcast, L.A.’s No. 1-rated KTLA Morning News. She has reported from London for the Royal Wedding, interviewed Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in Paris, spent a day cooking with Martha Stewart and interviewed Jermaine Jackson about the death of his brother, Michael. She is on the red carpet for all the major Hollywood events, including the Oscars and the Emmys, and co-hosts KTLA’s Emmy Award-winning Rose Parade coverage. She also frequently forecasts the weather and has covered breaking news both in the field and in the studio, such as wildfires, floods and the earthquake in Japan. She has won three Golden Mike Awards. Holmes joined KTLA in November 2005 as weathercaster for the station’s Prime News, after winning The Audition, a reality show-style competition held on the KTLA Morning News. She began her television career in 1999. 

Sheba Turk is an anchor on CBS Los Angeles (KCAL). Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Turk has a strong background in journalism, beginning her career at WWL (CBS New Orleans), where she held various roles. She started in the news business straight out of college, initially working behind the scenes as an associate producer before transitioning to her first on-air role as a traffic reporter. Subsequently, she advanced to become a reporter for WWL’s morning show, ultimately securing a position on the anchor desk. While at WWL, she also gained experience hosting the local entertainment show The 504 for five years. She began her college studies at NYU and ultimately earned an English degree from the University of New Orleans. 

To learn more about the awards and to register for the gala breakfast, visit mcnwonderwomen.com. 

The 21st Annual Hispanic Television Summit, programmed by Schramm Marketing Group during NYC TV Week, features a morning keynote interview with Beau Ferrari, chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, parent of the Telemundo network. He will focus on the Hispanic market’s unparalleled potential as an economic growth catalyst and the force of this consumer group in today’s multicultural landscape. 

The summit is the premier event for those in the business of television for Hispanic audiences worldwide. It takes place Wednesday, September 13, at 360 Madison Ave. in New York. The summit explores ways that global and local distribution of culturally accurate TV programming is engaging Hispanic viewers and advertisers across platforms — from streaming to broadcast to traditional pay TV (satellite and cable).

The morning sessions focus on revenue from advertising and subscription, opening with a “state of the Hispanic media market” by the new chair of the Hispanic Marketing Council (HMC), Isabella Sanchez of Zubi Advertising Services.

The morning continues with a panel discussion among leading media buyers from some of the Hispanic market’s highest-spending agencies, including Horizon Media, d’exposito & Partners and Omnicom Media’s Elevate. Up next is a fireside chat with an executive from T-Mobile, a leading consumer brand, about the cultural narrative in its ad creative, and another fireside chat with Comcast Cable’s multicultural marketing leader, Jose Velez Silva, and JP Rodriguez of Gallegos, the brand’s agency. The morning closes with the chairman’s keynote interview with NBCU Telemundo Enterprises’s Ferrari, on tapping into the economic power of Hispanics.

The midday program celebrates the accomplishments of the business’s pioneers and leaders with the presentation of the Annual Hispanic Television Awards (see sidebar).  The ceremony is followed by a celebratory lunch of traditional Caribbean and Mexican cuisines.

The afternoon opens with the Local Broadcaster’s keynote interview conversation with Jesus Lara, President of TelevisaUnivision Local Media. He will demonstrate the value of reaching Hispanics locally. The balance of the afternoon focuses on the business of programming for Hispanic TV audiences. One session spotlights different programming genres and another highlights program origination, featuring a popular series star, a producer and a streaming executive from Prime Video.  A session on viewer demand with Oswald Mendez from Canela Media and Javier Saralegui of Danger TV promises to spark energetic reactions.  

The final session is about distribution on linear and streaming platforms and is followed by a closing reception. 

Future’s B+C, Multichannel News and Next TV, producers of the upcoming L.A. TV Week events June 20-21 at the Sofitel Los Angeles, have named the 2023 “40 Under 40” class to be celebrated the evening of Wednesday, June 21.

Representing a range of companies and responsibilities, these men and women below a certain age are helping to lead media in new directions, wherever the viewers are. 

For more than a decade, Multichannel News has been helping to shine a light on rising executives under age 40, and along with B+C and Next TV, expanded the search last year to the West Coast and L.A. TV Week. 

Also: Meet the 2023 Wonder Women of Los Angeles 

For more information about the 2023 honorees and the event on June 21, please visit https://www.latvweekevents.com/. Honorees were chosen after a nomination and internal judging process.

Meet the 2023 “40 Under 40” in Los Angeles. 

Fanny Baudry, Managing Director, Wheelhouse DNA (a Wheelhouse Company).

Adam Bergman, Group Vice President, Advertising & Data Sales, Vizio.

Evan Bregman, General Manager, Streaming, Tastemade.

Michelle Byars, Senior Vice President, Development, ITV Entertainment.

Kimberly Caraig, Account Executive, Fox Corporation.

Colin Davis, Head of Scripted Originals, The Roku Channel, Roku.

Alessandra Donadelli, Vice President, Business Development, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Rebecca Evans, Executive Vice President, Nonfiction Content, Campfire Studios.

Daniel Farkas, Vice President, Distribution Strategy and Content Planning, Sony Pictures Television.

Falon Fatemi, CEO and Co-Founder, Fireside.

Mike Fazzino, Principal, Content Acquisition - WW Major Studio Licensing Strategy, Amazon.

Laura Foster, Vice President, Product Marketing, Innovid.

Katherine Gallagher, Programming Manager, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Nick Garvin, Chief Operating Officer & Managing Partner, Mobile TV Group.

Samuel Harowitz, Vice President, Content Acquisitions & Partnerships, Tubi.

Stephen Hodge, CEO, OTTera.

Kate Hoenigsberg, Senior Vice President, Drama Development, Universal Television.

Fernando Hurtado, Manager, Digital Video, NBCUniversal Local.

RJ Larese, Vice President of Talent and Development + Brand Partnerships, Paramount.

Christian Linke, Co-Creator, Showrunner and Executive Producer, Arcane, Riot Games.

Betsy Lippitt, Vice President, U.S. TV Distribution, Sony Pictures Television.

Teresa Lopez, Vice President Content Partnerships, rlaxx TV GmbH.

Helen Lum, Executive Vice President, App Science, A Sabio Holdings Company.

Ronny Lutzi, CEO, Foxxum.

Andrew Matero, Vice President, Platform, Ampersand.

Kelly Miller, Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships, BBC Studios.

Paul O'Malley, Executive Producer, Independent, Formerly of 3 Ball Media.

Trixie Pacis, Director of Acquisitions & Original Programming Development, ChimeTV.

Joy Phillips, Senior Vice President, Publicity, AMC Networks.

Michael Rycyzyn, Director, Digital Licensing, A+E Networks.

Shaheen Sayani, Head of Content Partnerships, Samsung TV Plus, Samsung Electronics America.

Ahmadou Seck, Vice President, Scripted TV, MACRO.

Matt Shanfield, Executive Vice President, Development, The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC), a part of Sony Pictures Television.

Kyle Simon, Partner, Perkins Coie LLP.

Evan Statton, Senior Principal Architect, Media and Entertainment, Amazon Web Services.

Adam Sussman, Vice President of Development, Furry Prawn Productions (NBCU).

Brian Tannenbaum, Head of Alternative Originals, The Roku Channel, Roku.

Brendon Thomas, Senior Vice President, Distribution and Business Development, Paramount Streaming.

Kim Wendt, Senior Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Alex Yee, Co-Creator, Writer and Executive Producer, Arcane, Riot Games. ■

On March 23, Multichannel News again honored an exceptional group of 15 women executives in Media and Entertainment at the annual Wonder Women of New York luncheon at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City. 

The Wonder Women awards, a key fixture on the media calendar since 1999, honor excellence among women leaders in media businesses including programming and operations, streaming, marketing, advertising and technology. Once again, MCN’s partner for the luncheon event is the New York chapter of the WICT Network. 

Also Read: Meet the 2023 Wonder Women of Los Angeles

In addition to our 15 executive nominees, the luncheon recognized Margaret Brennan, moderator of CBS’s Face the Nation and chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, as the 2023 Woman of Influence, honored both for her distinguished reporting career and her industry leadership. 

Also Read: Full Coverage of Wonder Women of NY 2023

Hosts for the event are Kimberley A. Martin, NFL reporter for ESPN; Natasha Verma, co-anchor of The 5 O'Clock News and The 10'O Clock News for Fox station WNYW New York; and Cheryl Wills, anchor for Spectrum News NY1.

For more on the Wonder Women of New York event, visit mcnwonderwomen.com. 

For more on this year’s honorees, click through to the profiles linked below:

2023 Wonder Women of New York 

• Samira Bakhtiar, Director, Global Media and Entertainment, Amazon Web Services
• Karen Barroeta, Executive VP, Production and Development, Telemundo Global Studios
• Marnie Black, Executive VP, Public Relations, AMC Networks 
• Amy Campbell, Chief Marketing Officer, MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks
• Pola Changnon, General Manager, Turner Classic Movies
• Sonia Coleman, Senior VP, Human Resources, Disney General Entertaiment and ESPN
• Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, U.S, Networks Group, Warner Bros Discovery
• Annie Howell, Chief Communications Officer, Hallmark Media
• Kate O’Brian, President, Scripps News
• Rori Peters, Senior VP, Content Distribution and Sales Strategy, TV One and Cleo TV
• Sharon Peters, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer, Charter Communications
• Melody Smalls, Executive VP, Global Human Resources, Allen Media Group
• Michelle Strong, Senior VP, Distribution, A+E Networks
• Suzanne Sullivan, Executive VP Ad Sales, Fox Entertainment, Fox Corp. 
• Monica Williams, Senior VP, Digital Products and Operations, NBCUniversal 

2023 Woman of Influence

• Margaret Brennan, ‘Face the Nation’ Moderator and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, CBS News

Producers of the 20th annual Hispanic Television Summit have named five winners of the Hispanic Television Awards, to be given on Wednesday, September 14, at the in-person conference. The awards ceremony, midway through the daylong event at ETC Venues, 360 Madison Avenue in New York, is hosted by Ana Jurka, Telemundo commentator for November’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar. 

Sunny Hostin, co-host of ABC’s The View, will receive the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television. Past honorees include on-air personalities Don Francisco, Cristina Saralegui, Lili Estefan, Raúl De Molina, Jorge Ramos, María Elena Salinas, José Diaz-Balart and María Celeste Arrarás. Boxer Oscar De La Hoya and soccer announcer Andrés Cantor also are past honorees.

The 2022 Hispanic Television Award for Executive Leadership in Marketing will be presented to José Velez Silva, VP of multicultural IMC brand marketing at Comcast, while the Hispanic Television Award for Executive Leadership in Content Programming will be presented to Juanjo Duran, head of entertainment & multicultural at Google.

Cornerstone Companies Are Honored

Two more awards are given to companies that are pioneers who have long played a role in the business of television for Hispanics, and continue to make a significant contribution. The Rafael Eli Award for Pioneer in Hispanic Television in the agency category will be presented to Orci, which has long been a multicultural agency creating culturally-relevant advertising campaigns, including television, for leading brands. The award will be accepted by Marina Filippelli, the Orci CEO. Produ, a publication that for more than 30 years has reported on the latest programming deals in the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic TV industry, will receive the other award, accepted by publication owner and president Richard Izarra.

The annual award recipients are selected by a committee inclusive of industry leaders, members of the edit­orial team at Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News as well as the producers of the event. 

“This year’s recipients are a true reflection of our theme of Embracing Our Culture,” Joe Schramm, the summit’s producer and president of Schramm Marketing Group, said. “I know that each recipient is proud of their heritage. They are an excellent voice for Hispanic television audiences. Yet, I am most inspired by how personally proud each is to be receiving the award. They truly deserve this acknowledgement.”

The summit features a state of Hispanic media address by Gonzalo Del Fa, president of GroupM Multicultural, and an opening keynote with Gio Benitez, transportation correspondent for ABC News. For more information about the program or to review the agenda, please see NYCTVWeek.com. The Advanced Advertising Summit and Next TV Summit are also happening at NYC TV Week 2022, as is the award ceremony for the latest “40 Under 40” class. ▪️

ABC News correspondent Gio Benitez’s fascination with television news began during Hurricane Andrew.

“I remember I was 7 years old and I saw Hurricane Andrew moving through the community and I was hiding under the table because I was so scared,” Benitez, who grew up in Miami, said. “But I was realizing right away that everyone was so reliant on television news for information.”

Thirty years later, Benitez now works for ABC News as transportation correspondent, contributing stories to all ABC News platforms and programs, which include Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20, ABC News Radio and streaming network ABC News Live. He joined ABC in 2013, working as a general assignment correspondent before taking on transportation in 2020.

Benitez will deliver the opening keynote at September 14’s 20th anniversary Hispanic Television Summit, a one-day conference exploring how the industry is embracing Hispanic culture. It’s part of NYC Television Week, sponsored by B+C Multichannel News parent Future. The keynote, “How Network News Embraces Hispanic Culture,” will be moderated by Joe Schramm.

Benitez got his start at CBS station WFOR Miami. He was an Emma L. Bowen Foundation scholar with the work-study fellowship running from his senior year of high school to his graduation from Florida International University. WFOR hired him as an investigative producer out of college.

He fell into reporting at WFOR because he lost his iPhone while on vacation. While picking up the iPhone 3GS, Benitez’s boss Adrienne Roark (now president of CBS Stations) suggested he shoot a story on it.

“I go back to the station, I produce the story, I edit the story, and it gets on in our 5:30 news desk and it just goes absolutely crazy all over the internet,” Benitez said. “They were writing about us in China, South America, because we inadvertently had produced the very first piece for television, shot entirely with a phone.”

Benitez has been on-air ever since, winning three national and two regional Emmy Awards so far. He also recently had the chance to guest co-host GMA.

“It truly feels like a dream and an honor to be able to sit in that chair and have this conversation with America in the morning,” said Benitez, who has long been a fan of morning news, calling it “appointment viewing” for him growing up.

Benitez, whose parents came to the United States from Cuba when they were young, realized how important growing up in Miami was while covering the story of Arizona mom Yanira Maldonado for ABC News. Maldonado was being held in a Mexican jail accused of trafficking drugs and Benitez was able to go to Mexico and look at the evidence, which ultimately did not support the accusation against Maldonado.

“I reported that on TV, and I then was able to go on with one of our partners, Univision, and I was able to, in Spanish, report that same news and what I had seen on Noticiero Univision,” he said. “And that’s when I really saw the impact of growing up in a community like Miami. And that’s obviously something I didn’t realize while I was there. But afterwards I just thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, what an incredible lesson and opportunity that was to grow up there.’”

‘Oh, My Gosh’ Moments

Benitez has had other “oh, my gosh” moments throughout his career. Early on at ABC, he appeared on-screen with Diane Sawyer when she was still anchoring World News. “It was just mind-blowing for me as a young correspondent,” he said.

Broadcast legends Sawyer, David Muir and Robin Roberts were some of the reasons he was “obsessed with ABC News” in college. “I thought that they just did such incredible work telling these stories with heart and compassion,” he said.

Benitez attributes his success to that same compassion he saw in Sawyer, Muir and Roberts. “I do not treat interviews like interviews,” he said. “I try to treat them, interview subjects, as human beings, always, first and foremost. And I’ve done that since I was in local news all the way through now.”

Benitez, who now splits his time between New York and Washington, D.C., said he hopes Hispanic TV Summit attendees will see his story as part of their story.

“I hope that people realize that there is so much that we have done,” he said. “There’s so much that we can continue to do. But I hope that they are also inspired to keep going on whatever their journey is.” ▪️

The editors of Multichannel News are pleased to announce the 2022 Wonder Women of Los Angeles, whose accomplishments will be celebrated at a breakfast event on Monday, June 6, at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.

“After the successful return of Wonder Women of New York in March, we are excited about getting back together in Los Angeles to honor this diverse, dynamic group of women leading in so many realms of the media business,” MCN content director Kent Gibbons said. “This will get our LA TV Week events off to a great start.”

Also: Wonder Women of New York Profiles 

To learn more about Wonder Women of Los Angeles, visit mcnwonderwomen/LA. To learn more about LA TV Week, visit latvweekevents.com. LA TV Week also includes Advanced Advertising, the Next TV Summit, TV Tech Summit and 40 Under 40. The Wonder Women of Los Angeles will be profiled in the June edition of B+C Multichannel News.

In alphabetical order here are the 2022 Wonder Women of Los Angeles:

Sylvia Bugg, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming, PBS.

Lisa Hamilton Daly, Executive Vice President of Programming, Crown Media Family Networks.

Ayo Davis, President, Disney Branded Television, Walt Disney Co.

Tara DeVeaux, Chief Marketing Officer, Wild Card Creative Group; Managing Director, 3AM & Insights@Wild Card.

Tara Duncan, president of Freeform and Onyx Collective, Disney General Entertainment.

Michele Edelman, Head of Growth, Premiere Digital.

Lisa Knutson, President, Scripps Networks, The EW Scripps Co.

Nikki Love, Senior Vice President, Development & Production, ALLBLK, AMC Networks.

Wendy McMahon, President and Co-Head, CBS News and Television Stations.

Tricia Melton, Chief Marketing Officer, Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics.

Katherine Pope, Senior Vice President, Head of Original Content, Charter Communications.

Julie Rapaport, Head of Movies, Amazon Studios.

Shannon Ryan, President, Content Marketing, Hulu & Disney General Entertainment.

Jennifer Turner, Executive Vice President, TriStar Television, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Sarah Weidman, Head of Programming, Development and Multiplatform Content, AXS-TV.

Follow news about Wonder Women on Twitter at @MCNWonderWomen and the #MCNWW2022 hashtag. ■

Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV have named the 2022 L.A. TV Week 40 Under 40. The honorees will be feted June 7 at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. Part of Future's L.A. TV Week, the 40 Under 40 program recognizes industry pioneers who are pushing the boundaries of innovation. Recipients will be recognized in the May issue of B+C Multichannel News.

The complete list of 40 Under 40 is below in alphabetical order:

Nicole Baio, Partnerships, VIZIO

Eli Baldrige, Senior VP of Development, A. Smith & Co. Productions

Michael Bucklin, Senior VP, Digital Content, FOX Sports

Jennifer Cavrikas, Director, Partner Marketing, FOX Corporation

Tal Chalozin, CTO and Co-Founder, INNOVID

Stephanie Cobian, VP of Media Services and Talent Relations, TVGuestpert

Jonny Cogut, VP, Development, Jeff Jenkins Productions

Kelle Coleman, Senior VP, Global Content and Experiences, Nielsen

Derek Crocker, VP, Collegiate Sports, FOX Sports

Angela Dallas, Scripted Television Agent, CAA

Aileen Del Cid, Head of Marketing, Samsung TV Plus, Samsung

Ross Dinerstein, CEO, Campfire Studios

Lindsey Emerson, VP of Product Management, HBO Max

Maura Feerick, VP, Drama Original Series, HBO Max at WarnerMedia

Joey Femia, VP, Current Programming, Universal Television Alternative Studio

Laura Forti, Senior VP, Business Operations HBO, HBO Max, TNT, tbs and truTV, WarnerMedia

Carrie Gillogly, Senior VP, Scripted Programming & Co-Head of AMC Scripted Series, AMC Networks

Lindsey Green, Senior VP, Content Sales, Disney Platform Distribution

Will Gurman, VP, Global Partnerships & Content Strategy, Pluto TV

Rachel Koehler, VP, Original Content, Tubi

Prachi Kohli, Legal Affairs, National Diversity Coalition (NDC)

Megan Macmillan, VP, Comedy Development, Universal Television

Patrick McCarthy, VP, Series Publicity & Talent Relations, Universal Studio Group

Maryam Mehrtash, VP, Integrated Marketing, CBS Entertainment & Paramount+, Paramount

Emma Miller, Senior VP, Scripted Development, AMC Networks

Jordan Neyer, Senior VP, Corporate Strategy, Crown Media Family Networks

Sarah Pilla, Multimedia Journalist, Spectrum News 1

Anastasia Puglisi, Senior VP, Wolf Entertainment

Si Rajadhyax, Multi-Platform Producer, Cox Media Group

Jenny Ramirez, Senior VP, Unscripted Programming, Warnermedia (TBS, TNT, truTV)

Lynzie Riebling, VP, Insights, REVOLT TV

Christina Rieger, Director of Sales, National, Ampersand

Kimberly Rosenblum, Senior VP, ITV Studios America

Andrew Schotz, Head of Development, Anvil 1893 Entertainment

Samantha Serigano, National Advanced TV Account Director, Ampersand

Ariana Tejero, Senior Producer, Spectrum News 1

Simon Thomas, President of ITV Entertainment and Head of International Programming, ITV

Kenny Tsai, Senior VP, Current Programming, Universal Content Productions

Thomas Wadsworth, CPO, Struum, Inc.

Mary-Hollis Williams, Senior Director, Talent Relations, FOX Sports

Elliot Wolf, Executive VP of Digital, Wolf Entertainment

Stefanie Zuroff, Director, Business & Development & Content Partnerships - Samsung TV Plus, Samsung. ■

A group of gold-medal worth keynote speakers have been lined up for the Advanced Advertising Summit, which will take place virtually on Tuesday, Nov. 16, during Virtual Fall TV 2021 with no cost to attend.

The opening keynote speaker, Brad Stockton, senior VP, national video innovation at dentsu will provide a buyer’s perspective on new advertising technologies.

Dan Lovinger, executive VP, advertising sales, NBC Sports Group, will look ahead to the Olympics and discuss how advertisers are getting a bigger bang for their buck than ever, thanks to NBC’s portfolio of linear, digital and streaming platforms and enhanced consumer insights.

The closing keynote speakers, Kim Kelleher, president of commercial revenue & partnerships at AMC Networks and Evan Adlman, senior VP, advanced advertising & digital, at AMC Networks, will talk about how advanced advertising and new targeted media opportunities are transforming the traditional upfront market.

Panels will examine the latest trends in addressable advertising, the hot CTV market, and monetizing OTT in local markets. Panelists representing Comscore, Premion, Vevo, Xandr, NBCU, Hearst Television, Madhive, Beachfront, Univision and Dish Media will share their experience and expertise.

“Advanced advertising continues to make strides, so it's important to keep up with developments in the industry,” said B+C Business Editor Jon Lafayette. “The speakers at the Advanced Advertising Summit are at the tops of their game and attendees are sure to get valuable insights.” 

Winners of the inaugural Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards will claim their prizes during the summit for the outstanding campaigns they submitted. Getting awards are Gamut, Vevo, Fox and Pepsi, and Spectrum Reach.

Virtual Fall TV 2021 also includes TV Tech Summit, Next TV Summit and Hispanic Television Summit. Registration is free.

Multichannel News has announced the newest Wonder Women of New York, to be honored at an in-person luncheon on Thursday, March 24, 2022 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.

They will be joined at the gala event by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz, who was previously announced as MCN’s Woman of Influence.

“These 15 women have accomplished much for their companies and blazed trails in both traditional media and new forms of entertainment and communication,” William Gannon, VP and global editor-in-chief of Multichannel News, said. “We are pleased to recognize their accomplishments and to help bring their colleagues together to celebrate them in the best way possible, in person.”

“Wonder Women is an important institution that, for more than 20 years, has highlighted the key roles women have played in the evolution of media,” Kent Gibbons, content director for Multichannel News, added. “This group in particular demonstrates the effectiveness of women leaders and their role in advancing diversity and inclusion in the industry and in the entertainment we all consume and enjoy.”

Here are the 2022 Wonder Women of New York, in alphabetical order with links to their biographies on the Wonder Women home page:

--Karen Bailey, Executive Vice President, Original Programming, Starz.

--Tonya Cornileus, Vice President, Development, Inclusion and Wellness, ESPN.

--Katrina Cukaj, Lead of Ad Sales and Client Partnerships, WarnerMedia.

--Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO, GLAAD.

--Latasha Gillespie, Executive Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Amazon Studios, Prime Video and IMDb.

--Amy Israel, Executive Vice President, Scripted Programming, Showtime.

--Kim Kelleher, President, Ad Sales and Partnerships, AMC Networks.

--Jo Kinsella, President, TVSquared. 

--Mina Lefevre, Head of Development and Programming at Meta.

--Wonya Lucas, President and CEO, Crown Media Family Networks.

--Laura Molen, President, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, NBCUniversal.

--Roxanna Sherwood, Senior Executive Producer, Longform Content, ABC News.

--Courtney White, President, Food Network and Streaming Food Content, Discovery Inc. 

--Dalila Wilson-Scott, Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, Comcast Corp. & President, Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation.

--Joella Wind, Group Vice President, Sales Operations, Spectrum Enterprise.

For more about Wonder Women, please visit mcnwonderwomen.com. Multichannel News, sister publication Broadcasting+Cable and streaming-TV site Next TV are part of Future plc. ■

The Hispanic Marketing Council, pioneering Hispanic ad agency Alma, and Saturday night TV legend Don Francisco were three recipients of the Rafael Eli Awards at the Hispanic Television Summit, presented by Future’s Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV and produced by Schramm Marketing Group. 

Also honored were Pluto TV, the Award for Corporate Leadership in Hispanic Television winner, and actress Ana de la Reguera as winner of the Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television, Talent. Estrella TV talent competition show Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento was honored with the Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television, TV Program or Series.

Now in its 19th year, the Summit, set for Nov. 18 and part of Future’s virtual Fall TV 2021 (Nov. 15-19) has become the most popular event of its kind. It’s a place where producers, programmers, researchers, marketers, brands, media buyers and investors meet with content providers from every platform.

A highlight of the Summit, this year a virtual event due to health and safety protocols, is the Hispanic Television & Video Awards. The program was expanded in 2020 to add the Rafael Eli Awards, three additional honors for organizations and individuals who are pioneers of Hispanic TV and named for Eli, one of the Summit’s two co-producers, who died in 2020 from COVID-19 complications. The event has been made available on-demand. 

The 19th annual Hispanic Television Summit also included keynote interviews, presentations and panel discussions with leading executives. Topics included media and ad sales, audience metrics, brand marketing, programming (with a focus on election coverage and news), audience promotion, subscription marketing and content distribution. 

Here‘s more on the 2021 Hispanic TV Summit Awards winners: 

Rafael Eli Award for Pioneer in Hispanic TV, Media and Publicity: HMC (Hispanic Marketing Council)

For the past 25 years, the Hispanic Marketing Council (HMC) has championed the Hispanic market in corporate boardrooms and advocated for increased investment in Hispanic marketing strategies — all while ensuring that experts with trusted Hispanic market expertise are at the forefront of the discussion. Through its collective thought leadership initiatives and groundbreaking research, it has helped marketers gain understanding of Hispanic consumers, and its member firms have helped them achieve market share, increase revenue and grow profits by reaching and connecting with them. The association has grown to represent more than 25,000 marketing, creative, research and media executives who have trusted and proven Hispanic marketing expertise.

HMC chair Gonzalo Del Fa will accept the award. Del Fa is also president of GroupM Multicultural, which handles $1 billion in billing from clients across all of the GroupM agencies: Mediacom, Wavemaker, Mindshare, Essence and mSix.  

Rafael Eli Award for Pioneer in Hispanic Television, Creative Agency: Alma

Alma’s team hails from 31 different nationalities, and together they have fueled exceptional business growth with creativity that has earned them 23 Cannes Lions and 7 Effie Awards, as well as numerous One Show, Clio, ANA, and New York Festival awards. Alma has been named to Ad Age’s prestigious A-List six times this decade and has earned “Agency of the Year” titles from El Ojo, El Sol, FIAP and USH Ideas, all while nurturing a culture of optimism, curiosity and collaboration from its offices in Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Tallahassee.

“Diversity and inclusion, without addressing the marketplace from a more multicultural standpoint, may not be enough,” said Alma co-president and chief operating officer Isaac Mizrahi, whose agency works with the likes of Pepsi, McDonald’s and Netflix. “Conversely, multicultural marketing without diversity and inclusion may not happen as effectively as it could with a more diverse organization. The two go hand in hand, but they're not the same effort.”

Alma creative chairman and CEO Luis Miguel Messianu will accept the agency’s award.

Rafael Eli Award for Pioneer in Hispanic Television, Talent: Mario Kreutzberger, aka “Don Francisco,” Presenter, CNN en Español

Mario Kreutzberger, also known as Don Francisco, was born in Talca, Chile. He is the creator and star of Sabado Gigante, which ran from 1962 to 2015, airing on Univision in the U.S., and holds the Guinness World Record for being the longest-running TV variety program. 

Kreutzberger is widely recognized for his extensive travels around the world and his use of humor and wit to unify cultures through his entertainment platform. 

During his tenure at Canal 13 in Chile and both the Univision and Telemundo networks in the United States, he developed and hosted numerous fundraisers benefiting victims of natural disasters. Since 1978, his annual “TELETON” in Chile has funded 14 rehabilitation centers throughout the country and brought the needs of some 100,000 disabled children to the forefront. He is a UNICEF ambassador, a “Champion of Health” for the Pan-American Health Organization and a VP of the U.S. Muscular Dystrophy Association, which inspired him to create the Chile TELETON. 

Kreutzberger’s career has led to many honors, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Papal Benemenrenti medal from Pope John Paul II, membership in the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame in the U.S. and several honors in his native Chile. 

He’ll return to TV this year with Don Francisco: Reflections 2021 on CNN en Español, highlights from which can be seen here.

Award for Corporate Leadership in Hispanic Television, Platform or Provider: Pluto TV 

The Hispanic Television Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement is presented to individuals, programs or organizations in recognition of their career achievements that have raised the worldwide perception of, and respect for, the business of Hispanic Television. 

This year’s recipient, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV, chose Cinco de Mayo to unveil an expanded and rebranded category of Spanish-language offerings tailored to U.S. Hispanics. The new Pluto TV en Español is a rebrand of Pluto TV Latino and now totals more than 45 Spanish-language channels, both linear and on-demand, across a variety of genres. "Our goal with Pluto TV en Español is to bring an authentic and artisan approach to the market," said Pluto TV en Español senior programming manager Cosette Molina, who noted that the specially-curated channels are "designed to reflect the rich tapestry that exists within the U.S. Hispanic community.”

Accepting the award will be Tom Ryan, president and CEO of streaming at ViacomCBS and cofounder and CEO of Pluto TV.

Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television, Talent: Ana de la Reguera

Award-winning actress Ana de la Reguera is one of the most influential artists of this time. She most recently starred opposite Dave Bautista and Omari Hardwich in Zach Snyder’s blockbuster Netflix film, Army of the Dead, and led the cast of Universal’s The Forever Purge, the final installment of The Purge for franchise set on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

In 2019, she became a multi-hyphenate, creating and starring in her own series, Ana, one of only a handful of Latin actresses before her to have done so. The half-hour series, now in production on its second and third seasons, streams on Pantaya in the U.S. and runs on Amazon Prime Video and Comedy Central in Latin America. De la Reguera was named one of People en Español’s “25 Most Powerful Women of 2020.” 

Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television, TV Program or Series: ‘Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento,’ Estrella TV

EstrellaTV’s flagship talent competition series, Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento, kicked off its 25th season on Sept. 20. Mexican regional music superstar El Fantasma joined the panel of judges, which includes artist Ana Bárbara, producer and radio programmer Pepe Garza and radio host Don Cheto. Hosting the show is regional Mexican music artist Luis Coronel, with Christy Garza, a disc jockey from Estrella Media’s radio station La Raza in Houston, serving as the show’s DJ. Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento is the longest-running talent competition in U.S. Spanish-language television history and originates from EstrellaTV’s Burbank, California, studios. Thousands of contestants from the U.S. and Mexico audition for the series, ranging from musical artists to dancers, magicians, comedians and even ax throwers, all in the quest to be named the best new Latin entertainment star. Contestants receive special coaching sessions with some of Latin music’s hottest recording artists in the U.S. and Mexico. ■

In the mid-90s Ana de la Reguera’s acting career began in Spanish-language telenovelas. Over two decades later the Mexican actress has made a name for herself in Hollywood, most recently starring in Zach Snyder’s Army of the Dead for Netflix. Her credits also include leading roles in the final installment of the Purge franchise, The Forever Purge, for Universal; Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens; Netflix series Narcos and HBO’s Eastbound & Down. She also plays Los Angeles politician Marisol Silva alongside Billy Bob Thornton in the Amazon Prime drama series Goliath.

In 2019, de la Reguera created, produced and starred in Ana, a semi-autobiographical half-hour comedy. This fall she began production on the second and third season of the series, which is available on the streaming platform Pantaya in the United States and internationally via Amazon Prime Video. 

In addition to her acting credits, de la Reguera has served as a brand ambassador for CoverGirl, Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Mexico. She recently became the brand ambassador for Colgate in the U.S. Latinx community, and she partnered with DoorDash on a campaign in support of restaurant workers during the pandemic.

NextTV contributor Addie Morfoot caught up with de la Reguera ahead of her receiving the Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television at the 19th Hispanic Television Summit, taking place virtually on Thursday, Nov. 18 as part of Virtual Fall TV 2021.

Next TV: Your acting credits cover all genres. When choosing to take on a role is there criteria that each character you play must meet?

Ana de la Reguera: In the beginning of my career, I was literally taking every single opportunity I could. So, I've got to play many different types of characters throughout my career, which has been fun. But at this point in my career, I like to take parts that I haven't played before, so I would say that’s a criteria. But sometimes I (take a role) because I want to work with a certain actor or a certain director. Or I take a part because it's just a great story. 

NTV: You created, wrote, produced and star in the semi-autobiographical series Ana about a Latina actress living in Hollywood. What made you want to make a series based on your life experiences? 

AR: It was not so much about putting my life out there, but instead putting my biggest fears, my thoughts and curiosities out there. I just wanted to talk about those subjects via me, so the easiest way for me to do that was putting it (in the context) of my life. So, while not everything on the show has happened to me, the series is a way for me to explore issues, talk and share with the audience.

NTV: Ana marks your debut as a writer and producer. You are also the series’ showrunner. What has it been like to take on all these different creative roles?  

AR: Doing Ana has been incredible for me because I've grown up a lot as an artist. Developing, showrunning, writing and producing the show made me become a better actress because now I understand everyone else’s job on set. So, I think, I make people's life easier now because now I understand those other jobs and I’m thinking of the entire process of the project, not just my role as an actress.

NTV: Is the plan to continue to write and produce after season two and three of Ana?

AR: I'll do the second and third season and then I’m going to jump into other stories that I'm interested in telling. I know it is going to be an easier [experience] for me because with Ana I have to micromanage every single thing. Since it’s semiautobiographical I’ll be like – ‘No! My mom wouldn’t wear that.’ Or ‘My sister would never say that.’  

NTV: What do you consider the key to longevity in Hollywood?

AR: You have got to just keep working and reinventing yourself, and you also have to have a lot of passion. The industry is changing constantly so you have to adapt, be open and be aware of what's going on around you.

Broadcasting+Cable and Future plc are looking for great data-driven, multichannel and technology-focused advertising campaigns for the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards.

More advertisers are using data and technology to home in on consumers and create campaigns that are more effective and efficient. We’ll be shining a spotlight on outstanding examples at the Advanced Advertising Summit, occurring on Tuesday, Nov. 16, as part of Virtual Fall TV 2021.

Entries are welcomed in four categories:

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Data in Advertising. Let us know how data was used in a campaign to target the best audiences while minimizing waste, and ensuring creative messages resonate with consumers.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Multiple Platforms. We’re looking for examples of campaigns in which TV builds awareness while digital media are used to broaden reach or increase message recall, intent to purchase and ultimately drive purchases.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Use of Branded Content. How telling great stories to receptive consumers delivered a brand message and generated business results.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award: Best Campaign of the Year. How a campaign used TV and targeted media and achieved a strong return on advertising spending while meeting the client’s key goals, including sales.

In nominating, please share as much information about the campaign’s goals, the data used for targeting, the media that were employed and the results that were achieved.

The deadline for entries is Thursday, Oct. 7.

The awards will be given out at the Advanced Advertising Summit (Nov. 16) during Virtual Fall TV 2021, which also includes the TV Tech Summit (Nov. 15), Next TV Summit (Nov. 17) and Hispanic TV Summit (Nov. 18). For more, see FallTVEvents.com.

If you have questions, please contact Jon Lafayette, Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards coordinator.

The T. Howard Foundation will hold its Diversity Awards as a virtual event on Nov. 30, two months after postponing its original in-person banquet. 

Talk show personality Tamron Hall will host the event, which will honor four industry leaders for their commitment to increasing diversity and inclusion within the media and entertainment industry, according to the diversity organization.

 Journalist Soledad O’Brien will receive T. Howard’s Diversity Advocate Award; Walt Disney World Resort senior VP of operations Rosalyn Durant will receive the Alumna of Distinction Award; Publicis Media’s Lisa Torres will be honored with the Executive Trailblazer Award; and Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier will receive the Executive Leadership Award, according to T. Howard.

Earlier this month the foundation postponed its Sept. 28 in-person dinner banquet in New York City over increased concerns over the COVID-19 virus and its delta variant.

The Pride TV Awards for Leadership and Courage were presented by B+C and Multichannel News June 23 at the first-ever Pride TV Summit. 

The conference, hosted by Luis Sandoval, correspondent for Univision’s Despierta América, focused on the business of television programming featuring LGBTQ+ topics, storylines, characters or performers. 

Eight honorees were recognized during the awards ceremony, hosted by DailyMailTV’s Thomas Roberts, which was the final session of the conference. Each session will be available for viewing through late July at pridetvsummit.com.    

Among the recipients were four organizations: Comcast, The CW, RAPP Worldwide Agency and SKYY Vodka. Four individual awards were presented to Gio Benitez, transportation correspondent for ABC News; Jonathan Capehart, host of The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC; Ilene Chaiken, showrunner and executive producer of NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime; and Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD. 

COMCAST, THE CW CITED: The award in the category for Membership or Employee Association was presented to Comcast in recognition of its fostering of an LGBTQ+ friendly culture both within the company and in the communities it serves. The award was accepted by Jan Hofmeyr, executive VP and chief network officer, Comcast NBCUniversal.

The CW was honored in the Television Network category for its ongoing commitment to scripted programming featuring LGBTQ+ characters (see page 16). Fans are likely familiar with the network’s numerous superhero programs featuring characters identified as LGBTQ+. The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz accepted on behalf of the network. 

HITTING THE SKYY: SKYY Vodka was honored in the Brand Advertiser category. SKYY has long been positioned in advertising targeted to LGBTQ+ consumers through crossplatform media promotions and the sponsorship of LGBTQ+ community events. Over time, the brand’s blue bottle has  an iconic and highly recognized image in LGBTQ+ media. The award was accepted by Bernadette Knight, senior category marketing director at the Campari Group.

RAPP ON MEDIA BUYER: In the Media Buying Agency category, the award was presented to RAPP Worldwide, which was recognized for its commitment to aid leading brands in reaching out to LGBTQ+ consumers through multiplatform media, including TV and video tactics. Accepting was Devin O’Loughlin, global chief diversity, equity and inclusion and communications officer, global chairperson/Omnicom OPEN Pride, RAPP Worldwide. The agency also was acknowledged for a creative approach to openness and authenticity about those who identify as LGBTQ+.

SALUTE TO GIO: One award in particular acknowledged an on-screen talent in the category of professionalism and authenticity, both on and off camera, and at work and in his personal life. It was presented to ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez, a familiar face to Good Morning America viewers, for his on-screen professionalism and his authenticity as an out and proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. 

CAPE-ING UP: Jonathan Capehart, host of MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, was recognized for Political News Journalism. Capehart is an accomplished and outspoken journalist covering many political topics, including those that reflect equality for members of the LGBTQ+ community.  In addition to his role on MSNBC, he also appears as part of “Brooks and Capehart” on the PBS NewsHour; and is an opinion writer for The Washington Post, serving on the newspaper’s prestigious editorial board and hosting its Cape Up podcast.

ILENE CHAIKEN, CREATOR: The award in the category of Television Program Creator was presented to Ilene Chaiken in recognition of her authentic depiction of LGBTQ+ characters in television dramas. Known for her work with the iconic series L Word and Empire, Chaiken is currently the showrunner and executive producer of NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime. The program is the newest addition to the popular and long-running, crime-drama franchise created by Dick Wolf. As with her past works, Chaiken has introduced a strong, leading LGBTQ+ character. This time, the character is a lesbian of color, Sgt. Ayanna Bell, played by Danielle Moné Truitt.

GLAAD ADVOCACY: The final Pride TV Award was presented in the category of Advocacy to Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD. Ellis has worked through entertainment, news, and digital media to shift public attitudes and accelerate the acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. Under her direction, GLAAD has made many recent advances, like driving rapid response to news incidents involving LGBTQ+ people, as well as expanded coverage of stories reflecting LGBTQ+ communities in Spanish-language and Latinx media.  

The awards were just one session within the daylong program that included 47 individuals as speakers, panelists, moderators, hosts and honorees. The conference was programmed by Schramm Marketing Group on behalf of B+C and Multichannel News.  

As the LGBTQ+ community continues the fight to get Congress to pass key legislation, it also looks to continue to build influence and support for its social rights movement, according to Black News Channel (BNC) host Aisha Mills. 

Mills, who will host a not-yet-named daily primetime political news show for the African-American-targeted news channel that launched in February 2020, said the community is closely watching developments surrounding the The Equality Act, which will make sexual orientation and gender identity protected classes in America. The legislation, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit and jury service, has passed the Democratic-controlled House but continues to languish in the Republican-held Senate.

“We have to guilt them all,” Mills said in a Pride TV Summit interview with Multichannel News senior content producer, programming R. Thomas Umstead. “It’s so much politics. … but what we can do on the outside is continue to put pressure and just guilt the handful of Republican politicians who don’t want it to move forward. The vast majority of people in America support LGBTQ equality fundamentally as it relates to basic dignity and rights.” 

Outside of Congress, Mills — who served as the first African-American woman president of the Victory Fund LGBTQ+ political action group — said she is encouraged by the inroads the LGBTQ+ rights movement continues to make throughout society. In particular, she said people of color have played and continue to play a major role in leading the fight for LGBTQ+ equity and representation. 

“It was actually Black, Latinx, trans-identified, nonbinary people who were the ones on the front lines, literally putting our bodies in harm’s way that sparked the movement,” she said. “Today, when we look at how far we’ve come, it is Black and Latinx people in storylines all throughout Hollywood, be it Moonlight or Pose or Laverne Cox in Orange Is the New Black that are the trendsetters, the culture makers and conversation creators.” 

She also dismissed criticism of the expanding acronyms such as LGBTQIA+ used to describe or define the community. 

“We don’t need to  try to distill down and create some singular uniformity in order to be a community and to reflect people,” she said. “Let’s name it all and claim it all because at the end of the day we identify ourselves for ourselves by ourselves and be respected in how we want to be acknowledged and addressed.” 

BNC Strikes Verizon Deal

Mills’s appearance at the Pride TV Summit came as Black News Channel reached a carriage agreement with Verizon Communications’s Fios TV. The deal puts BNC, which launched in February 2020, in some 3.7 million more homes, extending its reach to nearly 60 million linear cable subscribers.

Verizon joins Comcast, DirecTV, Charter Communications and Dish Network as a distributor, according to the channel. 

“Linear and digital platforms are seeing increasing value in BNC’s unprecedented coverage of the experiences unfolding in Black and Brown communities as well as perspectives, viewpoints and stories that are not presented anywhere else,” BNC president and CEO Princell Hair said. 

Once upon a time, LGBTQ+ representation on television came only sporadically, by way of series like comedies Ellen, Friends and Will & Grace, and dramas like L.A. Law and Queer as Folk. More recently, TV has made huge strides in representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, both in scripted and nonscripted fare, courtesy of a wider array of entries, including dramas Orange is the New Black, Pose, Star Trek: Discovery, Supergirl and Batwoman, and nonscripted RuPaul’s Drag Race and Big Brother. 

But the casting of LGBTQ roles in today’s market is still a sensitive and potentially controversial issue, which was the focus of the Pride TV Summit’s Casting Conversation, moderated by casting director Michael Donovan. 

When is someone’s sexual orientation relevant to playing a gay role? What about gay actors who play straight roles and vice versa? Is there a mandate within the broadcasters and/or via the public for more LGBTQ storylines? More importantly, is the culture changing?

More Openness, Inclusion

“One hundred percent, things are changing in the industry,” said Caroline Dries, showrunner for The CW drama Batwoman. “There is a search for inclusion, and way more openness. And there is an excitement for these roles and a need for representation due to the raised awareness in social media. 

“For me, as the creator and the storyteller, the No. 1 most important thing is that the character is authentic and a good representation of the community,” Dries added.

Debuting in October 2019, gay actress Ruby Rose as Kate Kane (aka Batwoman) made television history as the first openly lesbian superhero on television. After an unexpected exit in season one, bisexual actress Javicia Leslie was cast as Ryan Wilder, the new Batwoman.

“When we were casting Batwoman originally, we ultimately went with an out actor,” noted Dries. “In hindsight, thank God we did cast someone from the LGBTQ community, because of the amount of questions and conversations you are talking about on this subject. If we had cast a straight girl, it would have been a bit clumsy and awkward and probably would have felt inauthentic.

“I was also criticized because the character of Kate Kane was Jewish in the comic books and I did not cast a Jewish actress,” Dries added. “Basically, you just have to choose your battles.”

“Naturally, we cannot ask anyone about their sexuality when we cast a role,” Karen Barroeta, executive VP at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, observed. “Only if the actor or actress is open about it, then you know it. For us, it is very important not to discriminate based on sexuality or in any way.”

Citing straight actors Eric McCormack in Will & Grace, Darren Criss in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia and Sean Penn in Milk as “performances we would have missed had we not had straight actors in the roles,” Donovan also offered a quick clarification. “That’s not to say a gay actor would not have been as good in those roles also,” he said.

Casting Without Limits

For transgender actress Nicole Maines, who portrays Nia Nal (Dreamer), a transgender superhero, on Supergirl, only auditioning for trans character roles would mean far fewer opportunities. “Trans women are women and we can play women of all types, reinforcing a positive message,” Maines said. “There is an idea of what trans looks like, and when we are able to portray ourselves and tell our own stories you can actually see it. But we should not just be limited to trans roles.”

“The most important thing is getting the stories out and telling the stories well because I think that, above all, changes hearts and minds,” casting director Margery Simkin said during the panel session. “And I hope the goal, in the end, is that anybody can play anything. That’s what acting is. It’s not about being who you are. It’s about who you are able to be through your craft and your ability.”

“Inclusivity is going to continue to grow,” Barroeta predicted. “And there will be a moment when it is all going to become normal and we are never going to have to say inclusive again." 

The CW has pulled off a tricky act across the last several years — airing programming that appeals to a wide audience, as befits a broadcast network, while also serving the LBGTQ+ community with a range of relevant, colorful characters. Fully 80% of the network’s scripted shows in 2021-2022 feature characters representing the LGBTQ+ community. 

It’s a mission The CW takes very seriously. “As a network, The CW is in the business of inclusive storytelling, which begins with acknowledging that our audience and society-at-large is diverse and filled with a wide range of lifestyles and cultural values,” The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said. 

The mission goes back at least a decade for The CW. The network had the first transgender superhero, in Nia Nal/Dreamer from Supergirl, portrayed by Nicole Maines; the first Black lesbian superhero in Anissa Pierce/Thunder from Black Lightning, played by Nafessa Williams; and the first lesbian superhero to headline a series, as was the case with Kate Kane of Batwoman, who was played by Ruby Rose. 

After Rose departed the series, Javicia Leslie was cast as Ryan Wilder, a skilled-but-undisciplined fighter who becomes the new Batwoman after finding the Batsuit in an airplane crash. Wilder gave The CW its first Black lesbian superhero to headline her own show. 

In April, The CW launched the My CW Story campaign, which celebrates viewers who have been empowered by CW characters to live their true lives. As part of Pride Month, The CW rolled out the stories of James, a transgender man inspired by Supergirl’s Nia Nal, and Julia, a bisexual woman inspired by Riverdale’s Cheryl Blossom (played by Madelaine Petsch). 

Gaye Hirsch heads development for The CW, Michael Roberts oversees programming, and Dana Theodoratos heads up casting. Network executives have said that showcasing characters who represent a diverse America helps combat ignorance and injustice, and inspires positive change in the nation and beyond. Diverse characters also make for more authentic storytelling.

“On every level at The CW and in partnership with our incredibly passionate creative talent on both sides of the camera, we continue to work to ensure the LGBTQ community is seen and heard,” Pedowitz said, “as we continue to focus on telling genuine and credible stories that not only reflect the world we live in, but also the world we all want it to be.”

The CW’s efforts to better represent LGBTQ+ viewers were recognized at June 23’s Pride Leadership Awards, as B+C, Multichannel News and Next TV honored the network for for outstanding leadership or extraordinary courage displayed in the efforts to present LGBTQ+-themed tele­vision content. To view the ceremony, visit pridetvsummit.com.

The CW has pulled off a tricky act across the last several years — airing programming that appeals to a wide audience, as befits a broadcast network, while also serving the LBGTQ+ community with a range of relevant, colorful characters. Fully 80% of the network’s scripted shows in 2021-2022 feature characters representing the LGBTQ+ community. 

It’s a mission The CW takes very seriously. “As a network, The CW is in the business of inclusive storytelling which begins with acknowledging that our audience and society-at-large is diverse and filled with a wide range of lifestyles and cultural values,” said Mark Pedowitz, chairman and CEO, The CW. 

The mission goes back at least a decade for The CW. The network had the first transgender superhero, in Nia Nal/Dreamer from Supergirl, portrayed by Nicole Maines; the first Black lesbian superhero in Anissa Pierce/Thunder from Black Lightning, played by Nafessa Williams; and the first lesbian superhero to headline a series, as was the case with Kate Kane of Batwoman, who was played by Ruby Rose. 

After Rose departed the series, Javicia Leslie was cast as Ryan Wilder, a skilled-but-undisciplined fighter who becomes the new Batwoman after finding the Batsuit in an airplane crash. Wilder gave The CW its first Black lesbian superhero to headline her own show. 

In April, The CW launched the My CW Story campaign, which celebrates viewers who have been empowered by CW characters to live their true lives. As part of Pride Month, The CW rolled out the stories of James, a transgender man inspired by Supergirl’s Nia Nal, and Julia, a bisexual woman inspired by Riverdale’s Cheryl Blossom (played by Madelaine Petsch). 

Gaye Hirsch heads development for The CW, Michael Roberts oversees programming, and Dana Theodoratos heads up casting. Network executives have said that showcasing characters who represent a diverse America helps combat ignorance and injustice, and inspires positive change in the nation and beyond. Diverse characters also make for more authentic storytelling.

“On every level at The CW and in partnership with our incredibly passionate creative talent on both sides of the camera, we continue to work to ensure the LGBTQ community is seen and heard,” Pedowitz said, “as we continue to focus on telling genuine and credible stories that not only reflect the world we live in, but also the world we all want it to be.”

The CW’s efforts to represent the LGBTQ+ community will be recognized on Wednesday, July 23, at The Pride Leadership Awards, a virtual event from B+C, Multichannel News and Next TV for outstanding leadership or extraordinary courage displayed in the efforts to present LGBTQ+-themed television content. To watch the Pride TV Leadership Awards, register for the Pride TV Summit at pridetvsummit.com. 

Media veteran Sarah Kate Ellis has been leading the advocacy organization GLAAD for more than seven years, focusing its efforts on building and fostering greater media acceptance of the growing LGBTQ+ community. Ellis, who will be honored at the June 23 B+C and Multichannel News Pride TV Summit, talked about the relevance and importance of this year’s Pride Month celebration, as well as the state of LGBTQ+ representation on television in an interview, an edited version of which appears below.

More on the Pride TV Summit: Pride TV Summit Hones in on the Business of Inclusion

B+C: Does this year’s Pride Month celebration take on greater significance given the cultural climate change the country has experienced over the past year? 

Sarah Kate Ellis: Absolutely. Two things are at play here. One is that for the LGBTQ community as a whole, community is a really important part of our identities, especially because for so long, we lived in the shadows. Our coming together in person was sorely missed last year, especially because so many of our youth live in unaccepting households. From a policy and political perspective, there have been over 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year in state legislatures across the United States — most of those are targeting trans and non-binary people. This year, we've seen 27 murders of transgender, non-binary people who are mostly Black and Latina, and we’re pacing to be the deadliest year yet for the community. With the Equality Act, which is the largest piece of legislation for our community ever, passed in the House but stalled in the Senate, I think it’s really important for us to use this month to build awareness and education about the Act and what it does to help protect our community. 

B+C: What role can the entertainment industry play in educating the public about the issues you’ve mentioned? 

SKE: TV and streaming content are empathy and education machines for our community. For instance, only 16% of Americans report knowing somebody who is transgender, so the rest of the country is learning about transgender people through media. Our annual report, Where We Are on TV, came out in January 2021, and we found that there was greater diversity of LGBTQ characters, but less characters overall. I'm really hopeful that [the decline] is likely due to COVID because a lot of productions were stopped, but a great example of how important content is for the community is FX’s Pose. This was a revolutionary show that focused on trans people of color for the most part and told their stories, but it also focused on HIV and AIDS in the ’80s. When this show shuts down this month, we will lose a significant number of trans characters on television, and we will then have zero characters living with HIV on scripted TV. 

That’s a lot of weight for one show to carry in terms of creating culture, education and empathy for our community. We need to see that spread out among other shows.

B+C How does the industry go about developing more shows like Pose that depict authentic LGTBQ+ characters and storylines on screen? 

SKE: Hollywood likes success — look at all the awards that Pose has received. Hulu’s Happiest Season is an LGTBQ holiday movie that broke all of their records for new subscribers during its first weekend viewing. So if you put the content out there, the audience will come and they will flock to it as long as it’s fair and accurate. I think that’s a big motivator to create programming that’s going to attract audiences and bring in new fan bases. I think the industry is moving in the right direction because it is showing more diverse characters. For so long, shows and films were scared to include LGBTQ characters mainly out of fear of backlash, and we’re way past that. If you look at the latest Gallup poll, 16% of 18 to 24 year olds in America identify as LGBT. So they want to see themselves and their lives reflected back to them. As content creators look to attract younger audiences, they're going to have to include LGBTQ people.

B+C: What is GLAAD doing to increase LGBTQ+ representation on screen? 

SKE: We approach it really from three different places. One is that we do our annual reports on the TV and streaming content providers and their content. We do the studio responsibility index on films and theaters. So we measure those. We have the GLAAD Media Institute where we work with these creators. We just launched a new project with Procter & Gamble called The Visibility Project. We know how important media representation is and, just like in television and film, advertising is pervasive. We know that if we can be in more ads that will grow acceptance for our community.

What we look to do is provide some measurements so that they have a benchmark that they could move forward from, as well as to hold them accountable, but also offer all our support and services to make sure that they are successful.

With Pride Month celebrations in full swing, Broadcasting+Cable and Multichannel News are gearing up for the first-ever Pride TV Summit virtual conference June 23, focused on the business of television featuring LGBTQ+ characters and storylines. 

Unlike other Pride events that focus on entertainment value and performances, the Pride TV Summit is a business conference that puts the spotlight on relevant LGBTQ+ issues and challenges within the TV and streaming industry. It also honors individuals and companies who are committed to creating strong and more meaningful representation across distribution platforms.

“We have gathered leading creatives, brands, and executives to participate in our program at the Pride TV Summit,” said event producer Joe Schramm. “This event proves that targeting TV and video programming to LGBTQ+ audiences, and about the LGBTQ+ community is simple, good business. Whether you identify as LGBTQ+ or not, this event is worth your time.”

More on the Pride TV Summit: Register | GLAAD's Sarah Kate Ellis Primes TV's 'Empathy Machine'

A Sense of Where Things Are

With the number of LGBTQ+ characters on scripted broadcast, cable and streaming shows declining during the pandemic-challenged 2020-21 television season according to GLAAD’s annual Where We Are on TV report released earlier this year, the conference will examine the importance and impact of representation, how LGBTQ+ characters and storylines have evolved and the overall acceptance of LGBTQ+ characters and storylines.

“We continue to see that the industry and audiences are extremely engaged and interested in the growing landscape of LGBTQ+ content across media today,” GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said. “As we aim to grow authentic LGBTQ+ representation and inclusion, the Pride TV Summit and events like it help give best practices and guidance to ensure impactful content that will also be well-received."

Among the highlights of the event is a panel discussion featuring programming executives discussing the sensitive and controversial nuances of casting LGBTQ roles in today’s market. The panel will feature actor Nicole Maines, who plays the first first transgender superhero on television in CW’s Supergirl, as well Star Trek: Discovery casting director Margery Simkin, NBC Telemundo Enterprises executive producer Karen Barroetta and Batwoman writer/producer/showrunner Caroline Dries. 

The Summit will also feature key interviews with content creators such as three-time Emmy nominee Randy Rainbow as well as a session featuring TV critics who review top programs to watch for the Pride season.

Opening the conference will be a focus on the state of the current marketplace and the impact of LGBTQ+ programming from Hollywood to the TV screen. Luis Sandoval from Univision’s Despierta America will host the opening festivities. 

The event will also feature a series of presentations, case studies and candid conversations from advertisers and sponsors targeting LGBTQ+ audiences, including representatives from such companies as P&G and Getty Images.

Honoring the Leaders

A main highlight of the Pride TV Summit is The Pride TV Leadership and Courage Awards Ceremony which will showcase industry leaders advocating for the LGBTQ+ community on television. The Membership or Employee Association award will be presented to Comcast, while The CW will receive the Television Network award. The Media Agency award will go to the RAPP marketing agency. 

GLAAD’s Ellis will receive the Advocacy award, while on-screen talent awards will go to ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez and MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart host Jonathan Capehart. 

Producer Ilene Chaiken will receive the Pride TV Awards’ Leadership and Courage award for her groundbreaking work as executive producer of such shows as Showtime’s The L Word, Fox’s Empire and more recently, NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Participants of the TV + Sports Summit June 10 will hear insights from industry thought leaders across TV, video and sports.

The virtual event will feature a keynote from Rita Ferro, president of advertising sales for Disney Media & Entertainment. Ferro will address the value of live sports on TV in a chat with Broadcasting + Cable business editor Jon Lafayette from ESPN studios in New York City.

Also on tap are panels that will explore all aspects of sports on TV, including production, distribution, monetization, audience measurement, and user experience. Attendees will see participants from industry leaders, such as Fox Sports, Turner Sports, Bally Sports, fuboTV, FloSports, comScore, and TVision, among others. 

On June 9, TV + Sports Summit will incorporate a live event version of the B+C and Multichannel News annual editorial feature Women in the Game. The 2021 roster of sports TV world executives and talent comes from the ranks of CAA Sports, CBS Sports, World Tennis Association, Golf Channel, Whistle Studios and Fubo Sports Network. Read all about them in the upcoming B+C/Multichannel News June issue.

The summit, presented by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News, TV Tech and NextTV, is part of Future’s Summer TV 2021, which includes the TV Data & Measurement Summit.

Counting audiences and gauging the effectiveness of advertising will be on the agenda at Future’s TV Data & Measurement Summit on Wednesday, June 9.

Keynote speakers for the summit include the Media Rating Council’s George Ivie and Comscore’s Bill Livek.

Ivie, who is CEO of the Media Rating Council, will participate in the opening keynote, where he will address the challenges the industry is facing and how the MRC is addressing them. MRC has been in the news lately for its role in umpiring the controversy over claims by programmers that Nielsen under-reported viewing during the pandemic. 

Comscore CEO Livek will close out the event, speaking about Comscore's audience-based measurement approach and the company’s plans to jump to the forefront of video measurement. Comscore, after a major refinancing, is looking to be more assertive in using big data to measure video advertising across platforms.

Also featured during the event is a one-on-one with Kelly Abcarian, who recently joined NBCUniveral as executive VP, measurement and impact, advertising and partnerships. She will talk about NBCU’s role in setting standards for measurement, generating data-driven insights and using technology to deliver more effective advertising.

The summit will additionally feature panels on the best ways to use first-party data and the need for panels in a sea of big data.

Panelists come from companies including The Walt Disney Co., Havas Media, TVision Insights and WarnerMedia.

The TV Data & Measurement Summit is part of Future’s Summer TV 2021, which takes place June 9-10 and includes the TV + Sports Summit.

Emmy Award winning TV journalist Deborah Norville, anchor of top-rated daily newsmagazine Inside Edition, will be honored with the Woman of Influence award from Multichannel News at the 2021 Wonder Women Los Angeles virtual event on June 7. 

As Woman of Influence, Norville will headline the event honoring a group of 15 high-performing women executives in TV, streaming, advertising and more. Previous Women of Influence have included Lesley Stahl, Connie Chung, Debra L. Lee and Hannah Storm. The virtual event will be hosted by Giselle Fernandez, anchor at Spectrum News 1 in Los Angeles, and Yarel Ramos, news anchor at Univision 34 Los Angeles's Edición Digital California.

"With a career spanning over 40 years, Deborah Norville truly embodies everything that this award represents," Bill Gannon, VP of Content and Global Editor-in-Chief of Future plc's Media and Entertainment brands, including Multichannel News, Broadcasting+Cable and NextTV. "Deborah's storied broadcast journalism has paved the way for countless women in media, and her work for the Broadcasters Foundation of America and other organizations has been inspirational and impacted countless lives. We are proud to recognize her as a Woman of Influence."

Norville joined Inside Edition in 1995 from CBS News, where she was anchor and correspondent. Prior to joining CBS News she was a co-host of NBC’s Today and, before that, anchor of NBC News at Sunrise. During her career she also has hosted the primetime Deborah Norville Tonight on MSNBC, the national Deborah Norville Show on the ABC Talk Radio Network and been an anchor and reporter for WMAQ-TV in Chicago. She began her reporting career at WAGA-TV in Atlanta while still a student at the University of Georgia, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude, First Honor Graduate with a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Inside Edition is among the top TV shows in first-run syndication and reaches a daily audience of approximately 5 million viewers. While at Inside Edition, her coverage has included broadcasting from the scene of some of the biggest news stories, including Washington, D.C., on Sept 11, 2001; the funerals of President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul the Second; the inauguration of President Barack Obama and the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton. 

Norville also is a best-selling author and lecturer. She serves on the board of the Broadcasters Foundation of America. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women Corporate Directors and the New York Women’s Forum. She is a past board member of the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York and the Rita Hayworth (Alzheimer’s) Steering Committee. She is married and the mother of three. 

Multichannel News is pleased to announce 15 Wonder Women of Los Angeles, who will be celebrated at a virtual event on Monday, June 7.

A diverse group of successful executives in a range of fields at companies involved with programming, streaming technology, advertising and consulting. This is MCN’s third L.A.-based extension of its Wonder Women program. Look for announcements (on mcnwonderwomen.com) coming soon about the 2021 New York Wonder Women, to be celebrated in September, and for a new Wonder Women program centered around San Francisco.

Wonder Women of Los Angeles on June 7 will kick off a packed month of Future events, continuing with the Summer TV Events slate of the TV Data+Measurement Summit on Wednesday, June 9, and TV+Sports Summit on Thursday, June 10, and closing with the Pride TV Summit on Wednesday, June 23.

“These 15 leaders in both traditional and emerging categories of the TV industry are true Wonder Women, whose stories we’re proud to share with our readers and guests at the event on June 7,” Bill Gannon, VP and global editor-in-chief of Multichannel News, Broadcasting+Cable and Next TV, said. “Their wit and wisdom will be a great beginning to our Summer TV Events season.”

Also read: Celebrating Women on Video's Cutting Edge 

In alphabetical order, with links to their bios, these are the 2021 Wonder Women of Los Angeles.

Lauren Anderson, Co-Head of Content and Programming, IMDb TV.

Andrea Clarke-Hall, Head of Global Business Development, Head of Global Business Development, Tubi.

Angela Courtin, Vice President of Brand Marketing, YouTube.

Jackie Donaldson, Vice President of Global Product Strategy, Disney Streaming.

Dee Harris-Lawrence, Showrunner, Executive Producer, David Makes Man, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

Jaya Kolhatkar, Executive Vice President, Data, Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International.

Amy Kuessner, Senior Vice President of Content Strategy and Global Partnership, Pluto TV.

Audrey Lee, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Starz.

Alison Levin, Vice President of Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions, Roku.

Susan Levison, Senior Vice President and Head of WWE Studios, WWE.

Pooja Midha, Chief Growth Officer, Comcast Advertising.

Cathy Oh, Vice President and Global Head of Marketing and Analytics, Samsung Ads.

Duan Peng, Senior Vice President of Data & Artificial Intelligence, WarnerMedia.

Romina Rosado, Executive Vice President, Entertainment and Content Strategy, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

Michelle Wroan, Managing Partner, Los Angeles, KPMG LLP.

Future’s Spring TV 2021 returns April 26-30 as a virtual event featuring a trio of  summits that takes on the latest developments in three crucial industry segments: the Advanced Advertising Summit, the over-the-top-focused Next TV Summit and a new entry tackling the emerging Free, Ad-Supported Streaming Television category, the FAST TV Summit. The event is sponsored and programmed by Broadcasting + Cable/Multichannel News, Next TV and TV Tech. 

Spring TV will bring together innovators and thought leaders to share insights on the latest trends and developments. This virtual series is designed to help industry professionals gain new perspectives, delivering clear and actionable insights intended to advance careers and companies. 

Here’s a listing of what’s on tap for Spring TV 2021 as of deadline. Not all speakers are listed and panelists are subject to change. For a more up-to-the-minute agenda or to register for free, go to springtvevents.com. 

FAST Summit: Attracting Audiences for Free Streaming Content

The growth in the Free, Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) space has been phenomenal and is showing no signs of slowing down, as more services enter the ring and audiences accumulate. The FAST Summit provides a timely opportunity to assess the intensifying competition and current landscape, explore where platforms are achieving success in attracting audiences and look to the trends on the immediate horizon.

Monday, April 26
Morning Sessions: Marketing FAST

10:30 a.m - 10:35 a.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

10:35 a.m.-11 a.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote:
The State of FAST in 2021
This leading executive from a streaming service provider shares an insider’s perspective on the current state of this fast-growing, free, ad-supported segment of the connected tv industry, and identifies some of the special characteristics and advantages of FAST. The executive also offers suggestions for programmers and media buyers to leverage relationships with FAST providers.

11 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (ET)
What Advertisers Want
FAST offers advertisers and media buyers affordable opportunities to hyper-target consumers. Hear from a panel of media buyers and ad-sales executives as they discuss the unique advantages that advertising on FAST can offer now.

11:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (ET)
What FAST Audiences Want
This data presentation offers recent findings on audience segments and how they consume free streamed content, and makes comparisons to current viewership of SVOD and traditional television programming.

11:45 a.m.-Noon (ET)
Attracting FAST Audience Segments
A panel of promotions and marketing executives from networks, programmers and FAST providers discusses the special challenges of attracting diverse audience segments to FAST services, driving awareness of programming and content viewership among these segments.

Noon-12:30 p.m. (ET)
Partnering with Manufacturers
FAST brings along a set of special challenges. For example, some services work with some smart devices while others require a different smart device to function. Explore the unique relationship between manufacturers and services providers in this fascinating fireside chat with a leading smart-device manufacturer and a top FAST provider.

12:30 p.m.-1 p.m. (ET)
Securing Carriage on FAST
This panel of programming distributors and content executives at FAST service providers discuss the distinct facets of their mutual relationship in delivering free, ad-supported streaming content directly to the consumer. Discover how FAST viewer consumption is redefining the content distribution business model.

1 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Acknowledgements & Lunch Break
Afternoon Sessions: Marketing FAST to Hispanics

1:30 p.m.-1:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:35 p.m.- 2 p.m. (ET)
FAST for Hispanics

2 p.m.-2:30 p.m. (ET)
How Advertisers Are Targeting Hispanics with DAR
FAST offers advertisers and media buyers seeking to target Hispanic consumers with affordable and highly effective media alternatives. This panel of media buyers and ad-sales executives will discuss the advantages that media placed on FAST can offer for reaching Hispanics in today’s competitive market.
Moderator: Court Stroud, founder/managing director,
The Cledor Group
Panelists: Karina Dobarro, EVP/managing partner,
Horizon Media; Chris Pizzuro, SVP, Global Sales & Marketing, Canoe Ventures

2:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m. (ET)
What Hispanic Audiences Want from FAST
Be among the first to get these recent findings about Hispanic audience segments and their consumption of free streamed content. This presentation will share data for FAST and compare current Hispanic viewer consumption to subscription and traditional linear television programming.

2:45 p.m.-3:15 p.m. (ET)
Attracting Hispanic Audience Segments to FAST
Increasingly, Hispanics are attracted to watching free ad-supported streamed video content. This panel of promotions and marketing executives from networks, programmers and FAST providers explores how they are each attracting various audience segments among Hispanic viewers and driving awareness for select streaming brands and programming.
Panelist: Adriana Waterston, SVP, Insights & Strategy, Horowitz Research

3:15 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. (ET)
Hispanics as Smart Tech Consumers
Hispanics are tech-savvy especially, when it comes to smart devices. This is where the manufacturer of smart devices plays a significant role in the growth of the FAST business in this market. Explore the unique relationship between manufacturers and streaming services who are targeting Hispanic consumers.

3:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. (ET)
Securing Carriage for FAST Hispanic Content
This panel of Hispanic programmers, distributors and FAST content service providers share differing perspectives on how the dynamics of their mutual business relationship is changing as the demand for FAST delivered content grows among Hispanic consumers.

4 p.m.-4:05 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Advanced Advertising Summit: Create the Next Generation of Advertising Experiences

The combination of COVID-19 and the recession it caused accelerated the shift to a more digital economy and pushed marketers to be more effective, efficient, targeted and accountable — all attributes promised by advanced advertising. If you are a marketer, in media, work with technology or invest in ad tech, you can’t miss this event.

Tuesday, April 27
12:30 p.m.-12:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

12:40 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote Speaker: John Nitti, Chief Media Officer, Verizon
A top marketer in the competitive telecom category talks about how he uses technology from his own company and from media partners to engage customers and boost sales. As a former top media buyer, Nitti has unique and valuable insights to share.

1:15 p.m.-1:50 p.m. (ET)
Making A Better Supply Chain
With more money and data being managed on automated systems, how can the industry maintain brand safety and avoid fraud while getting a better return on ad spending?

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p.m. (EDT)
Keynote Speaker: Matt Sweeney, Chief Investment Officer, GroupM
A top ad buyer at one of the world’s largest agencies talks about ensuring that clients get the impressions they’re guaranteed in a changing media environment. Sweeney will address what needs to happen to speed the shift of budgets from linear to more targetable video formats, the growth of CTV and the spread of automation.

3:05 p.m.-3:10 p.m. (EDT)
Closing Remarks

Wednesday, April 28
12:30 p.m-12:35 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

12:40 p.m.-1:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote: Marianne Gambelli, President, Fox Advertising Sales
Gambelli is integrating Fox’s broadcast, digital and streaming inventory into a single platform. She will talk about how that move will enable Fox to offer clients more relevant inventory, next-generation advertising products and the ability to reach bigger target audiences as the upfront market approaches.

1:15 p.m.-1:50 p.m. (ET)
How Local Media Profits from Advanced Advertising
Station groups and MVPDs are finding new ways to target their linear advertising and offer complimentary digital inventory in order to drive sales for both national and local clients. Top executives will share best practices for attracting incremental revenues and more effective campaigns.
Speaker: Daniel Church, Head of Advanced TV Product, Beachfront Media

2 p.m.-2:30 p.m. (ET)
Addressing Addressable Advertising
With expanding scale across providers and platforms, additional data sources and emerging identity solutions for a post-cookie environment, addressable advertising is in the spotlight. This panel will look at the technology that’s available, what clients are seeking and what targeted campaigns can deliver.

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p.m. (ET)

Keynote: TBA
A top platform ad sales exec talks about how they are using data to help advertising reach target audiences at scale.

3:05 p.m.- 3:10 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Next TV Summit: The Business of Streaming Video

 The Next TV Summit is the professional video industry’s authoritative benchmark for assessing the progress and debating the future of television’s digitally driven streaming transformation. Hear current thinking from some of the industry’s leading executives as they discuss the most pressing economic, operational and technological issues facing the “business” of video.

Thursday, April 29

1 p.m.-1:05 p.m, (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:05 p.m.-1:25 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Presentation: Jill Rosengard Hill, EVP, Global Media & Entertainment, Magid

1:30 p.m.-1:55 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Conversation
TBA

2 p.m.-2:35 p.m. (ET)
OTT vs. CTV: The Battle for TV’s New Operating System
As traditional broadcast and MVPD television delivery mechanisms give way to an avalanche of direct-to-consumer streaming options, the competition to control the gateway between content, advertising and the viewer is becoming intense. We discuss what’s ahead in the world of devices like pucks, sticks and especially smart TVs themselves.

2:40 p.m.-3:05 p..m (ET)
Keynote Conversation
Interviewer: Tim Hanlon, Founder/CEO, The Vertere Group Panelist: Josh Reader, President, Distribution, AMC Networks

3:10 p.m.-3:45 p.m, (ET)
57 (Thousand) Channels & Nothing On?
With a blizzard of streaming content choices available to even the most basic of U.S. media households, consumers risk being overwhelmed by even the simplest of viewing decisions; we discuss how programmers and consumers can each benefit by coming improvements in content guidance, navigation, recommendation, and search.
Panelists: Ben Maughan, SVP/GM, Consumer & Stream Platform, Xperi; Rose Adkins Hulse, CEO, ScreenHits TV; Eli Chamberlin, Head of Product & Design, Reelgood; Trent Wheeler SVP, Product, Video, Gracenote/Nielsen

3:50 p.m.- 4:25 p.m. (ET)
Skinny Bundles & the Legacy of ‘Linear’
Despite repeated proclamations to the contrary, the “death” of the linear television channel appears premature in the streaming age. The surprising durability of classic channel grids, familiar programmer brands and even a new breed of linear FAST/streaming TV-like channels pose a bevy of opportunities and challenges, which we’ll discuss.
Panelists: Karl Meyer Head of Sales, Media and Entertainment, Samsung Ads; Kristina Shepard, National Brand Team Lead, Roku; Raghu Kodige, Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder, LG Ads

4:25 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

Friday, April 30

1 p.m.- 1:05 p.m. (ET)
Welcoming Remarks

1:05 p.m.- 1:25 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Presentation: Brian Fiori, SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen

1:30 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. (ET)
Opening Keynote Conversation: TBA

2 p.m.-2:35 p.m. (ET)
SVOD’s ‘Mid-Majors’
While industry pundits obsess over a supposed zero-sum game of streaming TV dominance between leviathans like Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max, we explore a myriad of other premium and specialty content services angling for consumer attention and subscription share-of-wallet.
Panelists: Alden Mitchell Budill, Head of Global Partnerships & Content Strategy, Crunchyroll; Devin Emery, Chief Product Officer & EVP of Content Strategy, CuriosityStream; Erick Opeka, President, Cinedigm Networks; Tara Maitra, Chief Commercial Officer, BBC Studios, Americas

2:40 p.m.- 3:05 p.m. (ET)
Keynote Conversation
Interviewer: Tim Hanlon, Founder/CEO, The Vertere Group
Panelist: Michael Bishara, SVP & GM, OTT & Digital Syndication,
Discovery Networks

3:10 p.m.- 3:45 p.m. (ET)
Broadcast TV in the Age of Streaming
Traditional broadcast television sits precariously between heritage linear OTA and MVPD distribution models and a burgeoning streaming TV ecosystem; we discuss how networks, affiliated stations and groups, and consumer-driven tech intermediaries are helping modernize “broadcast” for the realities of modern-day streaming.
Panelists: Jim Long, Founder & CEO, Local BTV/Didja; Jonathan Barzilay, Chief Operating Officer, PBS; Kevin Dunaway, VP, Affiliate Relations, VUit/Syncbak; Adam Wiener, EVP & GM, CBS Local Digital Media

3:50 p.m.-4:25 p.m. (ET)
Who, What, When & How: Streaming TV Audience Measurement & Analytics
The “mainstreaming” of on-demand TV threatens to upend a fragile ecosystem of audience measurement, already challenged by traditional paradigm changes like cord-cutting, DVR recording and device-based viewing. How can programmers, advertisers and streaming TV operating systems accurately judge “success” in the years ahead?
Panelists: Marty Roberts, CEO, Wicket Labs; Alejandro Rojas, Director of Applied Analytics, Parrot Analytics; Traci Will, VP of Analytics, Gamut; Michael Bologna, President & CRO, HyphaMetrics

4:25 p.m.- 4:30 p.m. (ET)
Closing Remarks

The entertainment industry is examining its diversity and inclusion efforts as it continues to make inroads in recognizing the business rationale for greater representation on-air, behind the camera and in the C-suites. Future’s CultureX Conversations on Tuesday, March 16, will build on the dialogue through a series of keynotes, fireside chats, panels and awards that celebrate the industry’s inclusion efforts while searching for ways to improve both the mindset and the impact of decision makers to foster a more inclusive industry.

Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios founder, chairman and CEO Byron Allen will serve as opening keynote speaker of the virtual conference, leading a roster of top industry executives, chief diversity officers, on-air talent and showrunners set to discuss the need for more diversity within all aspects of the industry, while revealing the strategies behind building a successful, diverse workforce. The conference is produced in partnership with The Walter Kaitz Foundation.

Stage 13/Warner Bros. Digital Networks senior VP and general manager Diana Mogollón will headline a panel on the impact of diverse casts on programming acquisition and distribution, while WarnerMedia senior VPs of enterprise inclusion Karen Horne and Samata Narra will share some internal research and insights on implementing the inclusion process within a “merging” corporate culture.

Walter Kaitz Foundation executive director Michelle Ray will host a panel featuring diversity officers such as AMC Networks chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer Aisha Thomas-Petit and Ann Carlsen, founder and CEO of executive search firm Carlsen Resources, discussing their experiences and tips for ensuring equitable results in recruitment practices and hiring procedures.

Regarding on-screen diversity, GLAAD chief communications officer Rich Ferraro will release the organization’s latest report on LGBT characters and storylines on TV (see Viewpoint, page 30), while AARP VP of multicultural leadership Yvette Pena will discuss the impact of content targeting the maturing multicultural audience. 

A highlight of the conference is the CultureX Awards, given to individuals, organizations and programs for their outstanding commitment to inspiring cultural inclusion within the television industry. The ceremony is hosted by 2020’s CultureX award recipient, Julio Vaqueiro, the anchor of Noticias Telemundo Edicion Especial. 

This year’s award recipients are: Juanjo Duran, head of entertainment & multicultural, Google; Juan Williams, Fox News political analyst and co-host of Fox News Channel’s The Five; Access Hollywood, the entertainment news program known for its diverse cast and coverage of inclusion issues in the industry, with Scott Evans accepting; and Starz, for diverse casts and storylines in series such as Power, P-Valley and Outlander, plus upcoming series Run The World, Blindspotting, Black Mafia Family, Shining Vale, Serpent Queen and Power Book II: Ghost. Starz’s award will be accepted by president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch.

For more information or to register, go to culturexevents.com. 

Spring TV runs from April 26-30 and features three summits, Advanced Advertising Summit, Next TV Summit, and the FAST Summit. This virtual series will bring together innovators and thought-leaders to share insights on the trends and developments taking place in the fast-paced television industry.

For more, click HERE.

The entertainment industry is examining its diversity and inclusion efforts as it continues to make inroads in recognizing the business rationale for greater representation on-air, behind the camera and in the C-suites. Future’s CultureX Conversations on Tuesday, March 16, will build on the dialogue through a series of keynotes, fireside chats, panels and awards that celebrate the industry’s inclusion efforts while searching for ways to improve both the mindset and the impact of decision makers to foster a more inclusive industry.

Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios chairman and CEO Byron Allen will serve as opening keynote speaker of the virtual conference, leading a roster of top industry executives, chief diversity officers, on-air talent and showrunners set to discuss the need for more diversity within all aspects of the industry, while revealing the strategies behind building a successful, diverse workforce. The conference is produced in partnership with The Walter Kaitz Foundation.

Warner Bros. Digital Networks SVP and general manager Diana Mogollon will headline a panel on the impact of diverse shows casts on programming acquisition and distribution, while WarnerMedia Inclusion SVPs Karen Horne and Samata Narra share some internal research and insights on implementing the inclusion process within a “merging” corporate culture.

Also Read: Michelle Ray Keeps Inclusion Efforts Top of Mind

Walter Kaitz Foundation CEO Michelle Ray will host a panel featuring diversity officers such as AMC Networks chief diversity officer Aisha Thomas-Petit and executive search executive Ann Carlsen of Carlsen Resources discussing their experiences and tips for ensuring equitable results in recruitment practices and hiring procedures.

Regarding on-screen diversity, GLAAD chief communications officer Rich Ferraro will release the organization’s latest report on LGBT characters and storylines on TV, while AARP VP of multicultural marketing Yvette Pena will discuss the impact of content targeting the multicultural maturing audience. 

A highlight of the conference is the CultureX Awards, given to individuals, organizations and programs for their outstanding commitment to inspiring cultural inclusion within the television industry. The ceremony is hosted by 2020’s CultureX award recipient, Julio Vaqueiro, the anchor of Noticias Telemundo Edicion Especial. This year’s award recipients include: Juanjo Duran, Head of Entertainment & Multicultural, Google; Juan Williams, Fox News Political analyst, co-host of Fox News Channel’s The Five; and Starz, for commitment to ensuring diversity and inclusion in the cast and storyline of many of its most popular series including Power, P-Valley and Outlander, plus upcoming series including Run The World, Blindspotting, Black Mafia Family, Shining Vale, Serpent Queen and the sequel to Power, Power Book II: Ghost. The award will be accepted by Starz president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch.

For more information, or to register, visit the CultureX Conversations website.

CultureX Conversations offers a unique breakthrough conference for television industry and media leaders who are engaged in diversifying their workplace and ensuring that the service and content they provide to customers is inclusive of those who identify by their ethnicity, nationality, language, special needs, or sexual orientation.

For more, click HERE

The Tech Leadership Series is a virtual experience that brings together the foremost industry experts with executives and technologists to share insights on how our industry is transforming, the techniques applied by organizations who are leading from the front and a look at what's on the horizon.

For more, click HERE.

The ATSC 3.0 Summit, part of the Tech Leadership Series, is a virtual event that takes place from March 25-26 and features ATSC 3.0 leaders behind the development of the NextGen TV standard and those deploying it in the field.

For more, click HERE.

Tuesday’s keynote interview guest at the 18th annual Hispanic Television Summit was Marla Skiko, the U.S. and global head of media for the Ford Motor Company.  She was interviewed by Court Stroud, a media specialist who is a co-host of a podcast and a contributing writer on the topic. Hispanic television media and advertising was the focus of Tuesday’s virtual sessions, at this summit presented by Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News. 

In her interview, Skiko shared that in-house and outsourced consumer data was a key to Ford’s quick ability to pivot its messaging during the initial stages of the pandemic shutdown. She continued by stressing that the reliance on data was especially helpful in multicultural markets, including Hispanics. 

The shutdown stopped Ford’s auto manufacturing worldwide, for the first time since World War II, and switched the company’s focus to the manufacture of PPP materials like ventilators, protective gear and more. She explained that the messaging to consumers and its employees needed “to pivot from one of making and selling automotive products to one where Ford was being helpful and useful” to our communities across the country and around the world. Skiko said that in some areas of the world, where COVID is now subsiding, Ford is “pivoting again from a recovery message to one that responds to the consumers’ urge to get out and about again.”

Ford uses data for designing the message, customizing the creative to specific tactics, and targeting its consumer messaging. “We use data as the base for us to tell the story. Data allows us to create relevant video content that will attract our target. It is especially useful for our messaging to Hispanics. They are often frontline workers, providing necessary services that keep our hospitals, communities, and retail stores functioning. We needed to reflect that we were there to lend a hand to those who needed a hand” she said. Skiko went on to explain that her prior career background in Hispanic media offered her the opportunity to bring Ford the insights they wanted for reaching this growing segment. She stressed that in crafting the story for advertising, one size does not fit all, and recommended that advertisers it is worthwhile to keep that in mind when determining where the video spot will be placed, and who they are targeting. She added, for example, “optimize and design for mobile and its users, just don’t adapt a spot to make it fit.”         

In closing, she offered this advice to Hispanic marketers, “Data is a commodity that can offer a competitive advantage as long as you don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of data, you know which information matters most, and you learn which information is simply not worth measuring.” 

The interview is available on demand to those who register for free to the Hispanic Television Summit at www.Falltvevents.com.

The annual Hispanic Television Summit kicked off Monday with the Hispanic TV and Video Awards. The legacy award is for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television, presented by Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News. This year’s recipient was Diego Luna, an actor, director and producer for theater, film, and television. Since 2018, he has starred as drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo in the wildly popular Netflix hit TV series, Narcos: Mexico. The Mexican born Luna is also known to audiences for his major film roles including that of Cassian Andor in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  

Each year, this award acknowledges one individual or series for their contribution to the growth of the Hispanic television industry, including driving the employment of Latino talent in front and behind the camera. Luna was recognized for his remarkable career as a television actor, director and producer.  

Luna started his career as a child actor in telenovelas with the encouragement of his father. He first came to the attention of U.S. and international audiences in 2001 with his role in the hit Spanish-language sex farce dramedy film Y tu mamá también.  He has appeared in over thirty films since including Vampires: Los Muertos which also starred rocker, Jon Bon Jovi, and the Oscar-winning Frida, as well as The Terminal, Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2, and the critically acclaimed Milk to name a few.

Most recently, Luna and his production company introduced a new series, currently available on Amazon Prime Video entitled Pan and Circo. The series offers insightful group conversations over a meal, including scientists, innovators, activists, and artists. The conversations are led by Luna himself, that focus on current or controversial topics and social problems from violence, to immigration to abortion to racism to COVID. 

“I am thrilled to receive this honor, especially in times like these,” said Luna. He added, “I am eager to continue to introduce many new important projects which will create positive change in society.” Luna joins a list of distinguished prior recipients of this award including the “golden boy” champion boxer Oscar De La Hoya, soccer sportscaster Andres Cantor, news anchors Jose Diaz Balart, Maria Celeste Arraras, Jorge Ramos, and Maria Elena Salinas, show hosts Don Francisco, Cristina Saralegui, Lili Estefan, and Raul De Molina, telenovela stars Lucero and Rafael Amaya and the cast of TUDN’s Republica Deportiva, among others.

The award was presented to him Monday, on behalf of Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News, by his close creative associate, Isaac Lee, the Chairman of Exile Content during the Annual Hispanic Television and Video Awards Ceremony. The awards ceremony was virtual and can now be seen online for free. The awards ceremony is just one of four daily virtual segments of the 18th Annual Hispanic Television Summit. The daily programs are between 60 and 90 minutes daily. The remaining days are Tuesday, Sept. 22 through Thursday, Sept. 24. 

For more information and to register for free, please go www.falltvevents.com/2020/HispanicTV. 

The 18th Annual Hispanic Television Summit kicked off Monday with a virtual ceremony celebrating the leadership within the Hispanic television industry.

The Hispanic TV and Video Awards ceremony was hosted by Univision’s Pamela Silva, host of Primer Impacto and Luis Sandoval, the West Coast correspondent for Despierta America.

The CultureX Leadership Award was the first award presented and it went to Mexican-born Julio Vaqueiro, the anchor of Noticias Telemundo Edición Especial. The experienced Emmy-winning journalist recently shared that he credits his youthful appearance for his first job in television. 

“The station was looking for someone young, and thought I was much younger than I was,” said Vaqueiro. “Lucky for me I still don’t look my real age.”  

Vaquiero was recognized with the award for his leadership in covering major breaking stories of importance to Latino audiences, like the on-going strife at the U.S.-Mexico border, and for his many exclusive one-on-one interviews with many U.S. candidates, and world leaders. When asked who was on his wish list, he added, “I would still like to interview the Pope.”

Two businesses were recognized with the corporate leadership award. Charter was recognized for their ongoing commitment to serving Hispanic customers, and Castalia was honored for over 20 years of distributing a variety of Spanish language programming services to Latino audiences and especially for the creation of Mexicanal, the channel they created for serving the special interests of Mexican viewers in the U.S.

Tom Montemagno, the executive VP of programming acquisition for Charter, accepted the award on behalf of his colleagues. Charter provides its services in 20 of the top 25 U.S. Hispanic markets making its programming and internet available to 10 million Hispanic households. The award recognized the company for their efforts to continue to provide information and entertainment to their Latino customers, as noted by the recent addition to their line-up of five new channels targeting Latinos.

In his comments, Montemagno mentioned that the company takes serving diverse customers seriously as reflected by 47% of their workforce. He closed by acknowledging Charter’s Multicultural Marketing division for “helping the entire company to better understand our Hispanic communities.”

Catalia’s award was accepted by their founder and president, Luis-Torres Bohl. The company, which negotiates the distribution of networks targeting Hispanics and Native Americans, was recognized for their many years of service to cable and satellite, and now connected TV providers. One of the networks, Mexicanal, was started 15 years ago by Torres-Bohl, specifically to fill the gap of providing traditional Mexican television content to the many Mexican residents in the U.S.  

Bohl mentioned, “I founded the business to make a difference in the lives of the many Latinos in the U.S. who crave something familiar.” He stressed the importance of television to Latinos and to each other is key to better understanding of diversity in our country.

Two additional awards recognized executive leadership. Karina Dobarro of Horizon Media was honored for her outstanding career and commitment to media investments within Hispanic television. She mentioned that she assures her clients that they are well-served to consider investing in programming specifically targeted to Latino audiences.

A second executive recognized for his many years of leadership in Hispanic television was Juan Carlos Rodriguez, president of Univision Sports. He was lauded for leading the dynamic team of sports reporting at Univision and for positioning the sports brand, TUDN, as the home of soccer in the U.S. through the acquisition of exclusive Spanish-language media rights to many of the most popular teams and properties. Under his leadership, TUDN has become the country’s most-watched Spanish-language sports network. 

The Rafael Eli Pioneer in Hispanic Television Award was introduced by a tribute video narrated by talk show legend, Cristina Saralegui which honored the life of the late Rafael Eli, a co-producer of the Hispanic Television Summit. The first class of this award was presented in three categories: media, creative and talent, and were presented to Gene Bryan of Hispanic Media Sales, the creative team at agency d’exposito and Partners, and Andres Cantor, Telemundo’s voice of soccer.    

The Award for Outstanding Achievement closed the ceremony and was presented by Isaac Lee, founder of Exile Content to his business associate Diego Luna. Luna is the popular actor, director, producer who most recently starred in Netflix’s popular series, Narcos: Mexico. 

The Hispanic Television Summit continues through Thursday.

 The honorees in the first Rafael Eli Pioneer in Hispanic TV Awards class recently shared their thoughts about what the honor means to them personally, and reflected on the man for whom the award is named.  

Rafael Eli was the co-producer of the annual Hispanic Television Summit
and a partner at Schramm Marketing Group. He lost his battle with COVID-19 on April 16. He will be remembered on Sept. 21 during the Hispanic Television and Video Awards ceremony, which kicks off with a memorial video about Eli’s career narrated by Cristina Saralegui, the Spanish-language talk show legend. 

The Rafael Eli awards are presented in three different categories — media, creativity and talent — by Multichannel News and B+C in recognition of individuals who are pioneers in the Hispanic TV industry. The recipients this year knew Eli personally. They are: Andres Cantor, sports commentator for Telemundo Deportes (talent); Gene Bryan, publisher of HispanicAd.com and CEO of Hispanic Media (media); and the team of executives at d expósito & Partners (creativity), including Daisy Expósito-Ulla, chairman and CEO; Jorge Ulla, partner, chief ideation officer; Gloria Constanza, partner, chief contact strategist; Fernando Fernandez, partner, chief client officer; John Ross, partner, chief financial officer; Louis Maldonado, partner, managing director; and Paco Olavarrieta, chief creative officer.     

Andrés Cantor: ‘Voice of Soccer’

Andrés Cantor is Telemundo’s Emmy Award-winning voice of soccer, and a veteran television sportscaster, widely known to U.S. fans in both Spanish and English. Originally from Argentina, Cantor got his start while still in high school as a U.S.-based contributing reporter for what was then Argentina’s most popular sports magazine. In the 1980s, at his first television audition, he was required to conduct a live sportscast. The station owner was so impressed with his soccer knowledge and his enthusiastic play by play that he was hired on the spot. 

Cantor’s recognizable, long-winded “gooool” made its TV debut shortly there­after. Today, Andrés Cantor is the most recognized voice of soccer in the country and has been featured on multiple TV shows, including a recurring role as himself on The Simpsons.  

“I was introduced to Rafael Eli when he was at AT&T and involved with their sponsorship of Major League Soccer,” Cantor said. “Later, I worked directly with him when he was at Schramm, and promoting international soccer matches. I am honored to get this award named for Rafael. It seems appropriate. He was a pioneer in soccer marketing, and I am being recognized as a pioneer of soccer television.”

Gene Bryan: Ad Maven

Gene Bryan had already had a long career in Hispanic radio and TV media sales when, in 1998, he founded HispanicAd.com, a leading digital publication serving executives in the Hispanic brand advertising and media business. “Rafael and I both attended high school in Puerto Rico,” Bryan said. “We had that in common, and our relationship grew from there.” 

Bryan has had a 20-plus year commitment to the growth of Hispanic media. He and HispanicAd.com have been strong supporters of the Hispanic Television Summit since the Summit’s first year.  “Rafael es mi hermano; he’s like my brother,” Bryan said. “He would always call to get my suggestions for speakers and the next set of award recipients at the Summit. I am humbled.”  

Agency Pioneers   

The team at  d expósito & Partners  had worked with Eli starting in 1994 when he first joined AT&T in the Hispanic marketing division. They were then AT&T’s Hispanic agency as part of Y&R’s Bravo Group. “Rafael made us all better — at what we do, and how we work as a team,” Daisy Expósito-Ulla said. “He was someone who respected and nurtured creative ideas, and he was a heck of a lot of fun to work with.”  

Partner Gloria Constanza mentioned that Rafael was always focused on innovations in television programming for Hispanics, whether it was the launch of Major League Soccer or championship boxing. He “was passionate and committed to the Hispanic fan and often spoke about VOD way back” before it was widely available, she said. 

The group of seven recipients from
d expósito & Partners are unique. They have worked together for more than 20 years and have earned a reputation as an award-winning team that serves some of the leading brands in the Hispanic market, including AARP, McDonald’s and the U.S. Army.

The Hispanic Television and Video Awards ceremony, which includes the presentation of The Rafael Eli awards, is hosted by two leading on-air personalities, Pamela Silva, anchor of Univision’s Primer Impacto, and Luis Sandoval, West Coast correspondent for Univision’s ¡Despierta América! The ceremony is scheduled to start at noon ET on Day 1 of the four-day “virtual” presentation of the 18th annual Hispanic Television Summit.  

This year’s Summit is being offered free of charge for the first time.  To learn more, go to FallTVevents.com.

Joe Schramm is president of Schramm Marketing Group and producer of the annual Hispanic Television Summit.

As news organizations work to cover one of the most unusual and highly anticipated elections in the history of television, this year’s News Technology Summit, produced by Multichannel News, B+C and TV Technology (Sept. 8-11), will be paying particular attention to strategies for streaming news content and the deployment of newer technologies that can improve news operations in a digital world.

As part of the summit, representatives from major news organizations, digital operations, researchers and technology providers will speak, including executives from Axios, ABC Owned Television Stations, ABC News, the Associated Press, the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN), CBS News, CNN, Fox Television Stations, Gray Television, HBO, Meredith, NBC Owned Television Stations, News-Press & Gazette, Newsy, PBS, E.W. Scripps, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tegna, TikTok, Vice and Vizrt.

In the opening keynote, Christy Tanner, executive VP and general manager of CBS News Digital, will discuss how the streaming service CBSN has boosted the CBS audience by creating localized versions and focusing on fact-based reporting, social justice issues and longer-form investigative stories.

The streaming service has also been expanding internationally to take advantage of the enormous interest in the upcoming U.S. elections, Tanner noted. “About a month ago, we announced that our CBSN app is live on various platforms in 89 countries,” she said. “We know that the global audience is watching the U.S. election and we will be able to deliver in-depth coverage to them.”

Susie Banikarim, executive VP and global head of newsgathering at Vice News, sees similar opportunities. “At a time when other news organizations have been cutting back on international coverage, we have really been leaning into it with a new initiative Vice World News,” said Banikarim, who will speak on an election-focused panel at the summit. “There is a lot of interest in what is happening in the U.S. among global audiences and a lot of interest in what is happening around the world from U.S. audiences.”

The agenda will also feature Axios CEO Jim VandeHei, Axios political reporter Alexi McCammond and Axios on HBO directors and producers Matthew O’Neil and Perri Peltz discussing their successful move from digital to TV.

New Habits, New Media

The move towards streaming has highlighted the growing importance of platforms and apps in aggregating news content. In the opening panel, Ryan Kadro, head of news, daily programming at Quibi, will discuss some of the original news content the platform is putting together from networks like BBC News, CBS, NBC and Telemundo, and explore some successful strategies for attracting younger audiences on mobile devices.

A separate research panel will present original data on how Americans are getting their news and information, with presentations designed to help news organizations craft successful strategies for delivering such content.

In addition to changing consumer habits, the summit will focus on how COVID-19 is changing the way news organizations operate. Patrick McCreery, president of Meredith Local Media Group, who will be speaking about election tech in the COVID-19 era, noted that the pandemic has significantly changed the way they produce news in ways that could have a long-term impact on the business.

One major trend has been the move to cloud and IP-based technologies, which provide more flexibility and make it easier to quickly spin up or down new services. CNN Washington, D.C., bureau chief Sam Feist noted that the network’s recent push to deploy newer cloud and IP-infrastructures allowed it to have people running control room operations from home when the pandemic hit.

“It’s been a monumental undertaking by engineering and operations teams that has allowed production teams to work from home, but that has been how we’ve been producing our coverage since the end of March,” he said.

Feist will be speaking on the opening panel, “News Tech Under Fire” with senior executives from ABC News, the Associated Press and Quibi, discussing some of the major trends in the news business that are prompting a reexamination of the traditional technologies used to produce the news.

News You Can Use

The summit will also feature case studies designed to offer practical discussions of newer technologies and some of the opportunities these technologies offer news operations.

Nick Evansky, VP of technology and operations at NBC’s WCAU/WWSI Philadelphia, noted that the October 2018 completion of a new facility based on an internet protocol network has given the NBC and Telemundo stations a leg up in covering this year’s election. “Having things on a network with an IP address gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of configuring things differently or quickly adding new technologies or services,” he noted.

During the summit, executives and engineers at the NBCU Boston Media Center, which opened in January 2020, will discuss the new facility and explain how the deployment of an IP infrastructure and other new technologies are improving their operations.

The summit will also offer practical advice on coping with some of the problems created by digital media. For example, Hari Sreenivasan, anchor of PBS NewsHour Weekend and host of public television’s YouTube series Take on Fake, will offer practical tips and ideas for journalists trying to fact check information on social media and the web.

“We have a polluted information ecosystem where disinformation and misinformation were algorithmically elevated by social media platforms,” Sreenivasan said. “So we wanted to create some smart content [with the Take on Fake series] that can give people some tools to grapple with this information overload.”

“Where Latino voices matter most” is becoming a common phrase applied to Hispanic television and video today. This timely phrase has been adopted as the theme for the upcoming 18th Annual Hispanic Television Summit. The summit, presented as part of Fall TV 2020 by Multichannel News, B+C and Next TV, is the premier annual event for those in the business of TV and video for Hispanic audiences worldwide. The one-of-a-kind event attracts hundreds of leading executives from brands, advertising sales, media buying, production, promotion, broadcast, audience research and content distribution to share ideas with content providers from cable and satellite, as well as connected TV.

New This Year: The summit will be offered “virtually” online. Traditionally, this has been a one-day, in-person event. Instead, the summit will be presented over four consecutive days Monday, Sept. 21 through Thursday, Sept. 24, in a series of daily programs, each running 90 minutes to two hours, and starting daily at noon ET. The virtual format makes it easier and more cost-effective to attend. It is expected that more mid-level and senior executives will now find it easier to attend. The convenience and cost savings aside, it is the awards recipients, the program and its speakers that will appeal most to attendees. Here are just some of the highlights of this year’s event.

The Hispanic TV & Video Awards: Monday’s program features the popular Hispanic TV & Video Awards ceremony. Popular actor, director and producer Diego Luna is this year’s recipient of the prestigious Legacy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hispanic Television. Two executives being recognized for Outstanding Leadership in Hispanic Television and Video are Karina Dobarro of Horizon Media (Media category), and Juan Carlos Rodriguez, president of Sports, Univision (Network category). The CultureX Leadership Award for news coverage is to be presented to Julio Vaqueiro, anchor of Noticias Telemundo Edición Especial.

Recognizing the Pioneers of Hispanic TV: This year also sees the introduction of the Rafael Eli Award for Pioneers in Hispanic TV. The series of awards honors pioneers who continue to work in the business. The awards are presented in the name of Rafael Eli, a long-time co-producer of the summit who lost his battle with COVID-19 in April. Recipients include sportscaster Andrés Cantor, the world’s most recognized voice of soccer; Gene Bryan, the publisher of Hispanicad.com; and a distinguished team of seven co-workers from the world of creative advertising and media strategy at d’expósito & partners.

Brands, Media and Ad Sales is the focus of Tuesday’s program. Group M’s Gonzalo Del Fa will open the program portion of the 18th Annual Hispanic Television Summit with an address that focuses on Hispanic TV as the media tactic where Latino voices matter most and a review of the state of the industry from a media perspective. Day 2 features other speakers including a data presentation by VAB’s CEO Sean Cunningham followed by an exciting panel conversation about media buying and sales that includes Steve Mandala of Univision, Glenda Villanueva-Marchetta from Altice’s A4 Media and Sandra Alfaro from 305 Worldwide.

Hispanic Audiences – Data and Promotion: The program on Day 3 looks at attracting, engaging and retaining Hispanic audiences from a perspective of data, marketing and promotion. A keynote interview with Ilia Calderón, co-anchor of Noticiero Univision and co-host of Aquí y Ahora, opens the program. Another of the highlights of Day 3 is a featured keynote with Marisol Martinez, VP, multicultural marketing at Charter Communications.

Creating and Distributing Content: Day 4 spotlights a session about recently launched networks like Discovery U.S. Hispanic’s home and garden channel for Latino audiences, Hogar de HGTV. Attendees will also enjoy a conversation about new productions for Latino audiences with Alejandro Uribe, CEO, EXILE Content. The closing conversation about content distribution always attracts attention. This year’s session features Jorge Fiterre, partner, Condista and Luis Torres-Bohl, president, Castalia Communications.

These are just some of the highlights. For more information and a complete list of sessions, speakers, award recipients, panelists, celebrity hosts, and moderators, or to save $50 off the price of registration with the “early bird’ rate, please refer to the 2020 Fall TV Events website and select Hispanic Television at falltvevents.com/2020.

Joe Schramm is president of Schramm Marketing Group and producer of the Hispanic Television Summit. 

Amid the thickening jungle that has become the over-the-top landscape over the past few years, it can be tough for an upstart streaming service to make a dent. But at Philo, a streaming service that launched back in 2017, head of advertising Reed Barker said success has been driven by three simple tenets -- good customer service, low prices and ease of use.

Philo offers 59 channels for about $20 per month, minus news, sports and local broadcast channels. Philo does not release subscriber figures (some estimates say they had about 50,000 customers in 2018). Barker said Philo grew customers last year at about a 10% monthly clip.

“This year it’s been an even larger explosion,” he said. “We had what we thought were very ambitious goals. Given what’s happened with current events and people streaming more... we’ve seen incredible subscriber growth that we’re hoping to continue with."

Speaking at an opening keynote session at the Future-produced Virtual Next TV Summit Thursday, Barker said strong customer service -- its customer satisfaction scores are in the 90%-plus range -- not charging for features like DVR and Look Back that other larger providers do and making content easy to find have led to success.

“We built a package that has everything included on it,” Barker told session moderator Paige Bilins, VP of product management at Telaria. “We’re not trying to charge extra for having what we think should be just the table stakes.”

Philo also serves as a complement to SVOD services like HBO Max, Disney+ and Peacock, Barker said.

“We don’t carry content from NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia or Disney/ABC,” Barker said. “It’s pretty easy to add a $6 Disney+ subscription to Philo.”

For advertisers, Barker said the Philo approach is similar.

Barker said the key is listening to what its DSP partners and advertisers say they need to make advertising relevant all the way up the chain.

“Addressability doesn’t work if you’re doing something different from everyone or if you’re not trying to lead,” Barker said.

About six months ago Philo started adding genre, rating and runtime in the content signals for targeting, and has been working to build first party data segments based on its customer usage patterns. That allows advertisers to target a consumer who watches a lot of do-it-yourself programming not just on home shows, but in any program they are watching.

“So you’re able to find those targets that are relevant, not only in the context of what they’re watching, but in the context of what they’ve watched in their watch history,” Barker said. “We think that really helps with relevance, making sure you’re seeing an ad that isn’t annoying.” 

The Virtual Next TV Summit, part of Future's Virtual NYC TV Week Spring, concludes May 1.

A reminder to participating companies that the deadline to nominate in the Special Edition "Best of Show" Awards is this Friday, May 1. 

As announced earlier, the new deadline was set to match up with the date of the new virtual version of the NAB Show.

The Special Edition Best of Show Awards program is an initiative of Multichannel News parent company Future to showcase new, innovative products introduced this spring for specialized technology users. 

Companies can nominate products for awards presented by the following publications and sites: TV Technology, TVBEurope, Digital Video, Government Video, Video Edge, Radio World, Pro Sound News, Sound & Video Contractor, B+C and Next TV.

Companies seeking guidance about which brand to enter for can find guidance here.

For more information about the Special Edition Best of Show Awards, visit the official website.

Legacy linear brands bring a sense of credibility and gravitas that will help drive viewers and subscribers to new streaming offerings, a panel of TV executives said at the Future-produced Virtual Next TV Summit event Monday.

“Fundamentally, the value of a legacy brand or a well-known brand is simply trust,” PBS chief operating officer Jonathan Barzilay said during a panel session moderated by B&C contributing editor Paige Albiniak. He added that when the broadcaster started making short-form content for the web, it collectively did so via the PBS Digital Studio name. “By putting the PBS name on all of these independently produced short form series, that conveys something to the audience. ...The trust that people have in the PBS brand and the awareness that people have in the PBS brand, maybe gave us a little head start.”

At The Weather Group, parent of The Weather Channel network, president Tom O’Brien said its streaming offering Local Now benefits from the more established Weather Channel brand.

“The ability, the opportunity, is what you do with that brand. If you use it as an anchor, you use it as a basis of innovation,” O’Brien said.

Local Now is The Weather Group’s local news, weather, sports and traffic streaming service. O’Brien added that the service has added new programming -- a series offering advice and mental health insights during the COVID-19 pandemic called with Canadian author and therapist Dr. Wendy Walsh called Dr. Wendy Walsh Is Here for You, has expanded its American Science Lab science show during the COVID-19 lockdown and is live streaming the May 9 Feeding America Comedy Festival, a fundraiser for charity Feeding America. 

At BritBox, a joint venture between British television icons the BBC and ITV, the focus has been trying to balance those two brands to establish a new digital identity in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

“It’s an interesting balance because we want to build our own brand equity, but do so leveraging that of our parents,” said BritBox SVP and Commercial Head Emily Powers. “The way we do that is, it’s a lot about focusing on a content proposition that is both taking advantage of the vast library of our parents, as well as starting to launch some of our own originals. We convey to our audience, through our marketing materials, a certain tonality and sensibility that is respectful of the parent brands but also reaching a new audience.”

Ampersand SVP Agency Strategy Marion Hargett said legacy brands matter when launching OTT services because it gives potential viewers and customers a base on which to set their expectations.

“Many of the legacy players have a rooted history of delivering news and delivering content with standards to that delivery,” Hargett said. “... I think having a heritage is not a bad thing and I think being able to bring that knowledge to bear in the television ecosystem is really valuable.”

Picking the right distribution strategy also is important when a legacy brand launches a streaming option. At PBS, which is made up of hundreds of individual stations across the country all with a local presence, it made sense for PBS.org and the app to have a geo-location function so when a viewer logged in they were asked to verify their local station, and received information on the offerings on that channel. When PBS launched on YouTubeTV, it used the national feed.

“We do hope to eventually get to a place where that gets geo-targeted or tailored individually, but for right now it’s more important for us to be on the platform with some sort of presence rather than to precisely mirror the local station,” Barzilay said. “We do that wherever we can and whenever we can.”

At BritBox, Powers said that the distribution focus was initially to be on a few key platforms.

At launch, BritBox was available on Apple TV, Roku and also through syndicated channels like Amazon Channels and Apple TV Channels.

“For us it’s important to balance the business between direct-to-consumer and these channels because the channel gets you into every household, but does so in a way that has a much lower barrier to entry.”

Phase 2, she added, includes getting access to smart TV. BritBox has agreements with LG and Samsung, and expects more such deals in the future. 

The Virtual Next TV Summit is part of Future's Virtual NYC TV Week Spring. 

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has driven television and streaming content viewership to new highs, and at the same time is presenting ad buyers and sellers with data that could accelerate the shift from age and demographic-centered measurement to more individualized metrics, according to panelists at the Future-produced Advanced Advertising Virtual Summit Tuesday.

In a keynote discussion with event moderator and B+C senior content producer Jon Lafayette, Hearts & Science CEO Erin Matts said that audiences are shifting not only because they are at home, but also because of the availability of certain content.

Hearts & Science is a unit of Omnicom Media Group, which places about $1 of every $4 spent on sports programming for its clients, Matts said. As live sports has been virtually non-existent during the pandemic, agencies like Hearts & Minds need to seek out where those typical sports audiences are watching now.

Related: Experts See Opportunity for Targeting, AVOD Buys

And viewership is growing. According to Canoe VP of Global Sales Chris Pizzurro, on demand viewing is up 20%, primarily in the kids, drama and movie segments and that TV viewing as a whole is up during the pandemic.

“Consumers are definitely finding comfort in television as a whole,” Pizzurro said, adding that they also seem to be watching commercials as ad impressions seem to be even with last year. “We haven’t seen the dramatic declines other platforms have.”

The same holds true for streaming services, Matts added. While Hearts & Minds, like most agencies were geared up for the so-called streaming wars as new entrants in direct-to-consumer content distribution came on the scene, no one anticipated the huge spike in viewership as more and more Americans were confined to their homes.

Matts said that one of the priorities was to find where consumers were going if they weren’t watching sports. And she said while many are watching new programming on the streaming services, many have gravitated toward “comfort” programming, like old episodes of Friends and Seinfeld and even podcasts and other audio programming.

There is tremendous opportunity, she added in “understanding those audiences, understanding where time goes for them and how they are spending that time and being able to elegantly insert brands in a meaningful way that delivers the right kind of message that is appropriate for this moment in time.”

While some clients are buying ads in the scatter markets to find those wayward viewers, Matts said the pandemic and changing viewing habits could force the industry to take a harder look at how they traditionally sell ads.

“I think this is such an interesting opportunity to almost reframe how we think about the upfronts,” Matt said. “This has been a time honored tradition that we’ve had in this industry for a very long time, it's been extremely successful. But we’ve got clients who are on different timelines, we’ve got clients who have different needs and I think it gives us an opportunity to take a step back. Any sort of refresh to how we think about the industry is a welcome change, and one that honestly all of my clients have been welcoming themselves.”

More Summit Coverage: Experts See Opportunities for Targeting, AVOD; 'Last Dance' Shows Disney's Agility; Strategies For Smart Spending After Crisis

It also appears to be changing how advertisers are looking at their audiences, she said.

“Clients are much more willing to take some risks at this point,” Matts said. “It also brings this idea of audience and people-based approaches much more into focus and allows advertisers to really explore some things they haven’t been able to do before.”

Matts added that when the world and business emerge from the pandemic sometime in the future, the opportunity to focus on people rather than demographics will be more important than ever.

“Operating around audiences instead of the broad approach of demographics helps us to understand people at an individual level, helps us with empathy, helps us understand and better optimize messages and media,” Matts said. “It was important before all of this, but it is even more important right this very moment because we really need to understand what is motivating people and what is motivating them to buy or not buy at this moment, but will help us weather the storm beyond this.”

Addressable advertising is gaining scale, said Spectrum Reach Group VP of Advanced Advertising Sales Kim Norris in a separate panel discussion.

“In 2018 we executed dozens of addressable campaigns. In 2019 it was hundreds. I think that scale is growing,” Norris said, adding that standards and common platforms and approaches are needed to take advantage of that scale.

She added that buyers and sellers are working together to reach that goal.

“There is more collaboration now than I have ever seen,” Norris said. “All of that collaboration between programmers, MVPDs, ad tech companies, data companies have really pushed forward the advances. I think the scale is there for this to now be a viable business -- I think we see it in the activity. And now we need these organizations to coalesce so that we can actually create the standards so that there are use cases and approaches for the advertisers and agency holding companies to really follow. ”

FuboTV VP ad sales Chris Flatley said that while stay-at-home orders have helped drive content viewership “through the roof,” he doesn’t believe the disruption caused by the pandemic will change how advertisers are buying.

“When you look at advertisers, they’re either buying addressable or they’re not buying addressable,” Flatley said. “I don’t think COVID-19 is really going to impact that. What’s really happening is, ‘Are they buying at all right now?’ If they are, they’re buying the way they’ve always been, whether that’s addressable or run of network.”

As an example, he pointed to an addressable client that sells products that sanitizes surfaces, which would appear to be even more widely popular during the pandemic.

“They keep buying addressable,” Flatley said of the client. “I think when you look at how the advertiser thinks, they still know who their buyer is and who the decision maker is. I think the current environment doesn’t change whether someone is buying addressable or not. Whether they’re buying or not is what we’re waiting on as we climb back up the hill.”

But as more and more networks become addressable nationally, there is a need to figure out how addressable fits into their other advertising tactics.

Clypd chief strategy officer Jason Burke said that addressable is really just another tactic for advertisers, and most don’t want to put all their marketing eggs in one basket. One tactic is to use addressable alongside linear ads, using it to tell a story, a second chapter in the message, via addressable ads.

“The media owners are looking to use addressability to do a handful of things,” Burke said. “One is to drive yield across their whole portfolio, potentially using addressability to deliver against audiences that are underperforming in other environments and really deliver to the consumer a great experience, and then its relevant advertising, or advertising that is targeted to them as an individual person, versus the broad demographic in which they reside.”

Measurement giant Nielsen unveiled plans to beta test its linear TV addressable platform in January, and Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising Group general manager Kelly Abcarian said that while some changes had to be made because of COVID-19, the project is going forward.

“Much like everyone else, we’ve had to spend some time to adapt our beta program to the changing times that we see ourselves in,” Abcarian said. “...Though our beta program may not look like what we originally envisioned, we are moving forward with the beta.”

She added that originally, the first phase of the test involved getting into its partners’ facilities on premises and installing two TV sets.

“Obviously given the safety concerns and societal restrictions, we are no longer able to work on the premises,” Abcarian said. “We had to get creative, and what we’ve done is introduce a new virtual experience. That’s going to enable mimicking what they would have done on premises, but doing it via a virtual environment.

“...They’ll get access to be able to look at the true ad replacements that are happening, so that they can feel confident before this capability goes out in front of real viewers,” Abcarian continued. “And they can also use our UI so they can create inventory rules much like they do in linear television today whether that’s brand separation or other types of rules and see those rules in action. And make sure that they have the confidence that they know how they are going to unlock this linear inventory as we move ahead toward commercialization.”

NYC TV Week Spring, produced by Multichannel News parent Future plc, will take place March 24-26 with events at Convene at 730 3rd Ave. and with the 22nd annual Wonder Women gala luncheon, which will be held on March 26 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom.

The week kicks off on Tuesday, March 24, with Advanced Advertising at Convene. Keynote speakers include Verizon chief media officer John Nitti and Erin Matts, CEO of Hearts & Science.

On Wednesday (March 25), the day kicks off with CultureX Conversations at Convene. The event, an extension of MCN’s long-established Multicultural TV event franchise, includes a keynote by TV One and Cleo TV general manager Michelle Rice, panels on distribution and marketing topics and the presentation of the CultureX Executive Leadership Award to Telemundo anchor Julio Vaqueiro.

Next on Wednesday is the Next TV Summit, also at Convene, focused on OTT video topics. TiVo CEO Dave Shull and Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi are among the scheduled keynote speakers.

Wonder Women, honoring two dozen high-achieving female executives in media roles, will return to the Ziegfeld Ballroom on Wednesday, March 26.

For the latest news on NYC TV Week Spring, please visit nyctvweek.com.

ABC’s Linsey Davis, ESPN’s Laura Rutledge and Fox’s Angie Goff will host the 22nd annual Wonder Women awards luncheon on Thursday, March 26, at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.

The gala luncheon will celebrate the accomplishments of 12 Wonder Women and 12 Women to Watch. It is a centerpiece event of New York City TV Week Spring. Other events at NYC TV Week Spring are Advanced Advertising (March 24), CultureX Conversations (March 25) and Next TV Summit (March 25). For more about NYC TV Week Spring, visit NYCTVWeek.com.

Linsey Davis joined ABC News in 2007. She is a correspondent filing reports for World News, Good Morning America, 20/20 and Nightline. She also anchors two primetime news hours on streaming channel ABC News Live. In September 2019, she moderated ABC News’ Democratic presidential debate.

Davis got the only interview with comedian Bill Cosby in the wake of dozens of sexual assault allegations. Leading up to the Iowa caucuses, she interviewed the spouses of seven of the presidential candidates as part of a series called “Running Mates.” In 2009, she reported on the miracle on the Hudson and Michael Jackson’s death. That same year, she also made waves with her Nightline report “Single Black Female.” The story, which went viral, examined why African-American women are the least likely of any race or gender to walk down the aisle.

Davis joined ABC News as a New York-based correspondent for ABC NewsOne, the network’s affiliate news service. Before joining the network in June 2007, Davis was anchor of the weekend evening newscasts at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis. Davis has received several honors for her reporting, including two Emmy Awards and a regional Edward R. Murrow Award. Her children's book, “The World is Awake,” became a bestseller in February 2019; and in August 2019, Davis released her second book, “One Big Heart,” which also became a bestseller.

Angie Goff, Anchor and Reporter at WTTG FOX 5 in Washington, D.C., has been reporting the news from the nation's capital for more than a decade. From the caucuses in Iowa to the hurricanes in South Carolina and the Royal Wedding across the pond, she’s covered it all.

Goff has anchored breaking stories for network and local broadcasts including the Charleston church massacre, Pope Francis’ U.S. visit and the Congressional baseball shooting in Alexandria.

A self-proclaimed "people person," Goff loves meeting new friends in the community and staying in touch with them through her social channels. She is the creator and host of "The Oh My Goff Show," a fun quirky podcast that airs weekly on Youtube and Apple Podcasts. Before joining FOX 5, she was an anchor at NBC Washington, where she also contributed to TODAY and filled in as a host for Early TODAY and MSNBC. The George Mason graduate got her start working at Entertainment Tonight in L.A.

Laura Rutledge, Host and Reporter at ESPN and the SEC Network, joined ESPN’s coverage of the Southeastern Conference in 2014 as a reporter on SEC Network and ESPN. She recently signed a multi-year contract extension in fall 2019, becoming a permanent contributor to Get Up.

Rutledge has expanded her portfolio at the network over the past year to include regular stints as a SportsCenter anchor and as a red carpet host at the Home Depot College Football Awards and the ESPYs. Rutledge is in her third year as SEC Nation host and her fourth year with the show overall. She has also contributed to ESPN and SEC Network’s live-event programming for college football, basketball, gymnastics, baseball and softball. She was a mainstay in ESPN’s extensive championship coverage surrounding the College Football Playoff, NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships, and both the Women’s College World Series and College World Series.

Prior to joining ESPN, Rutledge was a sports anchor for CNN’s New Day and Early Start. She also worked on HLN’s Morning Express with Robin Meade, as well as Fox Sports.

For more about Multichannel News Wonder Women, please visit mcnwonderwomen.com

Nominations are now open for Wonder Women in Streaming, the second annual MCN salute to women who are making a significant impact in the burgeoning field of streaming video. More about the event, the awards and the 2019 honorees is available at wonderwomeninstreaming.com.

The event will be in Southern California in June, with the venue and date to be announced soon. Free nominations are now open at this link.

Twelve Wonder Women and 12 Women to Watch in Streaming will be selected by the editors and publishers of Multichannel News. An FAQ about Wonder Women in Streaming is here.

The editors and publishers of Multichannel News have announced the 2020 Women to Watch, who will be celebrated with the 2020 Wonder Women (previously announced) at a gala luncheon Thursday, March 26, at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

The luncheon, co-hosted by the New York chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications, is the centerpiece of NYC TV Week Spring. Other NYC TV Week Spring events include Advanced Advertising, the Next TV Summit and the CultureX breakfast.

Here are the 2020 Women to Watch:

Victoria Bieler, Head of Broadcast and Retrans, Verizon

Johnita Due, SVP and Chief Diversity Officer, WarnerMedia News and Sports, WarnerMedia

Libby Geist, Vice President & Executive Producer, ESPN Films and Original Content, ESPN

Diana Horowitz, Vice President, U.S. Sales East, Telestream

Audrey Lee, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Starz

Danielle Mullin, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Crown Media Family Networks

Lauren Petterson, President, Fox Business Network

Marcella Milliet Sciorra, Vice President, Ad Sales & Product Marketing, Spectrum Reach

Nancy Smith, President and CEO, Analytic Partners

Julie Sterling, Director of Media & Entertainment Partnerships, Google

Randi Stipes, Chief Marketing Officer, IBM Watson Media and Weather

Holly Tang, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Production Operations, Lifestyle Networks, NBCUniversal

As part of the just-ended NYC Television Week events, Multichannel News has named the 2020 Wonder Women, who will be celebrated on March 26 during NYC TV Week Spring.

For more than 20 years, MCN has been saluting select female leaders in media at a gala luncheon in New York City, and in a special issue of the magazine. The 2020 luncheon will be at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, an event co-hosted by the New York chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications.

More than 700 people are expected to attend to hear the honorees share their inspiring stories and network with their peers in the multichannel TV industry. 

“Now in its 22nd year, the Multichannel News Wonder Women event is a celebration of standout female leaders in media,” said Randi Schatz, VP/Market Leader of Media Entertainment at Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News. “We are thrilled to be honoring women in the industry who exemplify leadership, determination, and innovation across many aspects of the business. They are an inspiration to us all.”

Here are the 2020 Wonder Women (alphabetically):

Friday Abernethy, Senior Vice President, Content Distribution, Univision.

Tricia Alcamo, Group Vice President, Human Resources, Spectrum Enterprise.

Lisa Bonnell, Senior Vice President & General Auditor, Comcast Corporation.

Samantha Cooper, Executive Vice President, Partnerships, Distribution & Business Development, Viacom.

Nancy Daniels, Chief Brand Officer, Discovery & Factual, Discovery Channel and Science Channel.

Rosalyn Durant, Senior Vice President, College Networks, ESPN.

Mónica Gil, Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

Georgia Juvelis, Executive Vice President & Co-Head, Corporate Communications, AMC Networks.

Jennifer Koester, Director of Telco and Video Distribution Partnerships, Google.

Jeanine Liburd, Chief Social Impact and Communications Officer, BET Networks.

Tina Perry, President, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

Stephanie Plasse, Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, A+E Networks.

For more information about Wonder Women and the event, including table and ticket purchases, please visit the mcnwonderwomen.com site.

Peter Blacker, executive vice president of revenue strategy and innovation at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, readily admits that getting companies to focus on the burgeoning Hispanic market often requires a lot of creative thinking.

This was particularly apparent in digital media, where he has spent much of his career. After working at StarMedia, which operated the first Spanish- and Portuguese-language portal in the late 1990s, Blacker joined AOL Time Warner to work on AOL’s international businesses.

“While on a flight back from Japan, I suddenly realized we weren’t doing anything for the U.S. Hispanic market,” Blacker recalled. “It was such a big market, but we weren’t doing anything.”

That idea, which led to the launch of the AOL Latino portal to target U.S. Hispanics in 2003, is one of many pioneering efforts by Blacker to build new digital businesses targeted to Latino consumers.

Those efforts, which have earned Blacker the Award for Executive Leadership in Hispanic Television and Video, are particularly important for Telemundo. Blacker joined the broadcast network in 2005 to lead its expansion into digital media and in 2018 was promoted to his current role overseeing revenue strategy and innovation at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

No More Faxes

Much of Blacker’s success grows from a longtime fascination with Spanish-language culture and media. Blacker fondly recalled growing up in a family where both his father and mother worked in media. “My parents actually met working at Time Inc., and a lot of the talk at the dinner table was filled with media chatter,” he recalled.

Like many kids, Blacker didn’t want to follow in his parents’ footsteps, so he studied Spanish at Cornell. “But after doing a year abroad in Spain, I decided I’d use my Spanish in media,” he said. “I still remember going to my first media conference and seeing my dad’s name tag on the registration table. Mine was right next to it, only in Spanish.”

Blacker also recalls the exact moment when he became smitten with digital media. In 1999, while working at the cable network CBS Telenoticias, one of his clients demonstrated how email worked. “I sent back to the office and proclaimed, ‘I’m not using fax anymore,’ ” he laughed.

Work in the late 1990s and early 2000s at StarMedia and AOL led Telemundo to hire him to spearhead its internet charge as vice president of digital media and emerging businesses.

Early on, it was often hard to pry money out of sponsors’ ad budgets, even though Hispanic consumers skew younger and have long been more avid users of mobile and digital media than the general market.

“My second job out of college was in banking as a media analyst, so I’ve always been very focused on numbers,” he said. “While it may have been difficult to get people’s attention, I found that once I started to show the business case and the numbers, they could see the opportunity.”

Another major focus: Find sponsors for new digital offerings that would be tied to Telemundo’s extensive production and programming. “One of the first big things I wanted to do was to get our linear programming to somehow be involved with digital activities,” Blacker said.

In 2008, Blacker brokered a deal with Sprint to sponsor a mobile product that would let viewers decide on the outcome of a primetime show. “I always believed that to do digital well, we had to do it in a partnership with advertisers,” Blacker said.

Blacker also cut pioneering partnerships with a wide variety of digital media companies. “We were one of the first and one of the most successful partnerships at YouTube,” Blacker said. “We have seven different channels that have over 1 million subs with YouTube, which is really unheard of.”

Other innovative ventures include: the launch of the multicultural studio Fluency; the creation of Latinx Now!, which covers the multicultural entertainment scene with both an English and Spanish program; the recent announcement that Telemundo would join top news brands like NBC News and the BBC to produce news programming for the mobile SVOD service Quibi; and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, where Blacker’s team was responsible for the mobile and digital experiences. (Telemundo is the event’s U.S. Spanish-language media rightsholder.)

“Having a flawless technological experience and seeing your app being No. 1 in the App Store every day of the World Cup was very rewarding for me and the phenomenal team I work with,” he said.

Those successes led to his promotion to a nearly created post overseeing strategy for all of Telemundo’s revenue streams. “We are looking at how we can future-proof our business in a world where there is not only a tremendous opportunity within streaming but also incredible lines of new business,” Blacker said.

A big advantage Telemundo has in that regard are the investments parent Comcast has made in the broadcaster’s original programming and facilities, Blacker said.

“We really have a heavy focus on original programing,” Blacker said. “That gives us the ability to move very quickly with digital properties” and joint ventures such as Peacock, the planned SVOD service from NBCUniversal that will include extensive Telemundo programming.

Comcast has also invested heavily in new facilities like the Telemundo Production Center in Florida that play a key role in its digital efforts. “With the facilities we have, we can easily produce multiple versions of shows very quickly and much more efficiently,” he said.

From over-the-top and cross-platform video and new metrics — to big data, digital disruption and economic challenges — the business of developing and delivering content is transforming like never before.

Standing at the forefront of this industry revolution is a special group of creative, imaginative and tech-savvy visionaries offering new perspectives and game-changing ideas. They’re helping to create, market and sell what viewers are watching on both big and small screens. And they’re a diverse group of professionals with one thing in common: They’re all younger than 40 years old.

Meet the 40 individuals who’ll be celebrated on Oct. 30 during an early-evening event in the Empire Penthouse of Manhattan nightclub 230 Fifth as Multichannel News and B&C honor the 2019 group of 40 Under 40. Part of NYC Television Week, the event will feature red carpet arrivals, cocktails and a chance to network with other industry professionals. The evening will be co-hosted by WNYW New York entertainment reporter Ryan Kristafer and Kyle Cooke of Bravo’s Summer House, with special appearances by Summer House co-stars Amanda Batula and Carl Radke.

Daniel Alvarez
Vice President of Product and Design, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations

A product leader with more than 15 years of experience building mobile products, Daniel Alvarez helps teams at NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations navigate the intersection of media and technology. He leads a team of product managers and UX/UI designers that aim to create the best digital experiences for local NBC and Telemundo audiences. By instilling a culture of collaboration, creativity and healthy risk-taking, Alvarez and his team have pioneered new vertical storytelling products helping NBC/Telemundo stations attract and build new audiences in nonlinear platforms. Earlier, he had served as head of product and design at HuffPost. Previously, he held product and engineering roles at AOL, Nextel International, Motorola and Verizon International.

Samira Panah Bakhtiar
Senior Sales Leader, North East Media & Cable, Amazon Web Services

Samira Panah Bakhtiar’s work, leading a team of highly passionate engineers and sales team members at AWS and at Cisco Systems (where she served as managing director for their media operation), has led to strategic alignment and business transformation at some of the world’s largest media conglomerates — focused on introducing innovation and enhancing operational efficiency in the areas of production, contribution, post production and primary and secondary distribution. Her humanitarian work centers on the abolishment of human trafficking and, in 2015, she launched Bridge2Act, a venture aimed at transforming the charitable giving landscape through the use of technology.

Matt Barnes
Senior Director, Programmatic Sales and Strategy, Disney Advertising Sales

Matt Barnes’s job responsibilities include driving all advanced advertising revenue offerings and partnerships across The Walt Disney Co.’s entertainment, news, sports and kids linear and digital TV portfolio, including ABC, Disney Channels Worldwide, ESPN, Freeform, FX Networks and National Geographic Networks, as well as the Disney Digital Network, the company’s online, mobile and social offerings. In addition to his programmatic sales role, Barnes leads strategic audience-based sales initiatives across the company. Barnes and his team define Disney’s programmatic strategy around live events and premium longform video. Prior to Disney, Barnes spent six years at various media agencies focused around roles in strategic planning and digital investment.

Leonardo Bittan
Director of Digital Products, Sales and Distribution, HBO Latin America

Leonardo Bittan has been a key member during the launch and management of various consumer software products for HBO, notably including HBO Go, in Latin America. He builds strategic relationships with HBO partners such as Apple, Google, device manufacturers and pay TV operators in the region. Bittan has driven subscriber growth and revenue through new subscription models, as well as retention marketing, and has been a major contributor in HBO’s customer-focused strategy while leveraging data-driven decision-making. Before joining HBO in 2010, he was a digital marketing strategist for McCann Worldgroup.

Sebastian Burkhardt
Managing Director, Global Content, Keshet International

Sebastian Burkhardt oversees the creative development, production, funding and acquisition of premium high-end dramas aimed at the global market. Tasked with growing Keshet International’s scripted intellectual property catalog, Burkhardt is tapping into new financing models and revenue streams through creative and commercial partnerships. His division works with international and local creators and emerging platforms on a mix of original development, co-producing opportunities and deficit financing models. Burkhardt and his team also actively work with third-party producers on innovative funding models through investments drawn from Keshet’s $65 million Content Fund, which was launched in 2018 in partnership with several of Israel’s largest holding and asset-management companies.

Josh Clark
Senior Vice President of Distribution and Business Development, Viacom

Josh Clark is responsible for negotiating content agreements and managing partnerships across traditional and digital distributors spanning pay TV, subscription video-on-demand, TV everywhere, mobile and others. He was elevated to co-lead Viacom’s Deal Structuring and Planning team, which oversees the strategy and formulation of agreements across all major MVPD accounts. Prior to joining Viacom, he served as VP of programming at Dish Network, helping to launch Sling TV and obtain key distribution renewals for Dish’s satellite-TV service and TV everywhere products. He began his career in General Electric’s Financial Management Program at NBCUniversal, where he later moved to sales and digital distribution roles in the affiliate-sales organization.

Jessica Daigle
Vice President, Sales Intelligence, Tegna Media 

Jessica Daigle is focused on using data to help broadcaster, programmer and publisher Tegna grow revenue. In this role, she is responsible for Tegna’s efforts around TV and OTT attribution, spot TV pricing, digital programmatic revenue and sales analytics. Before joining Tegna, she was senior VP of analytics and consumer marketing for Remedy Health Media, where she was responsible for the measurement and audience development strategy for the company’s network of health information websites. Prior to Remedy, Daigle ran an analytics team at Media Contacts, part of Havas Digital. She graduated from Tufts University with a bachelor of arts.

Yoel Flohr
Executive Vice President of Digital and Franchise Development, AMC Networks and Studios

Yoel Flohr is responsible for the strategy and planning related to maximizing the value of AMC-owned assets and intellectual property, overseeing franchises such as The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Talking Dead, Into the Badlands and The Terror. He also is driving overall digital business for AMC Networks & Studios. Prior to joining AMCN, his background includes co-founding Thirty Labs Inc., a New York-based startup studio focused on the emerging digital video space. He also founded Ventuation, a strategic consulting and digital incubation firm, and was the VP for digital at Shine Group, among other digital media activities.

Abe Geiger
Chief Product Officer, Hudson MX

At Hudson MX, Abe Geiger is helping to level the playing field between media buyers and their digital media peers. He oversees product development and design at the firm. Drawing from his track record as the founder and CEO of Shake, a mobile-first legal tech company acquired by LegalShield in 2015, he is responsible for solving the manual headaches of buying and inspiring teams of engineers, product managers and agency partners to innovate. He also co-founded the NYC Turing Fellows program to bring more engineering talent to New York City startups and serves on the board of InSITE, a graduate student organization focused on entrepreneurship and technology.

Ryan Gould
Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Partnerships, Ad Sales WarnerMedia

Ryan Gould focuses on developing a cohesive sales strategy across CNN’s digital portfolio, which includes premium verticals, mobile products, programmatic and Great Big Story. Based in New York, he reports to Christine Cook, senior vice president and chief revenue officer of CNN Digital. Gould rose to this new leadership position in February 2018 and oversees a team of digital sellers focused on a solutions-led, consultative sales approach. Gould was one of the first sales employees at Bleacher Report, which WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports acquired in 2012. Prior to joining Bleacher Report, Gould spent over four years at Burst Media, where he formed the foundation of his sales experience.

Ross Habif
Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy A+E Networks

Ross Habif leads and was a founding member of the A+E Networks Corporate Development & Strategy team. In this role, he has successfully completed a variety of investments and divestments in many media verticals, served on multiple boards of directors and also managed A+E’s ongoing investment portfolio. His team is also tasked with generating responses to critical industry trends and cultivating internal opportunities to generate continued corporate growth. Prior to taking on his current responsibilities, Ross held positions with A+E Networks on both its distribution and analytics teams. He began his career in advertising sales with Comcast Spotlight.

Evan Hills
Senior Vice President of Development and Strategy, Dstillery

Evan Hills is passionate about bringing data-driven decisioning to brands and agencies to improve efficacy and minimize waste in marketing and advertising in an increasingly data-driven world. What excites him is increasing the adoption of data-driven methodology to all aspects of the marketing funnel (from market research to performance advertising) to make sure brands are finding and targeting the correct customers. He runs Dstillery’s business development team, focusing on corporate strategy and data partnerships with both data owners and activation platforms. He joined Dstillery in 2014 and has managed partnerships with social platforms LinkedIn, Twitter, TheTradeDesk and AppNexus, to name a few.

Keith P. Hopkins
Senior Vice President, Distribution, Nexstar Media Group

Keith P. Hopkins oversees strategic local content distribution initiatives and affiliate relations for Nexstar’s broadcast and digital operations in 100 markets across the United States. Prior to joining Nexstar, Hopkins served as VP of affiliate sales and marketing for Tribune Media, where he negotiated complex carriage agreements with MVPDs and new emerging platforms for all of Tribune Broadcasting’s owned or operated television stations, as well as WGN America. Before that, he served as senior director, affiliate sales and marketing for Pac-12 Networks. Earlier in his career, Hopkins was a national account sales manager at Comcast NBCUniversal.

Terry Hurlbutt
Vice President and General Manager of Digital, ABC’s Good Morning America

Terry Hurlbutt leads the top-rated (total viewers) morning show’s rapid news and lifestyle-focused digital expansion, including content creation, distribution, opening new revenue streams and identifying opportunities to expand audience reach. In 2018, she led the launch of Good Morning America’s new website, a newsletter and a robust, original slate of video franchises and features. Prior to this role, Hurlbutt was responsible for audience development strategies across the Disney/ABC Television Group brand portfolio, including ABC Entertainment, Freeform and Disney Channel, and led ABC News’s first audience development team. Hurlbutt joined ABC News from Google and YouTube, where she co-led North America partnerships for the launch of YouTube Kids.

Sarah Jensen
Director, Advertising Sales, Crown Media Family Networks

Sarah Jensen is director of ad sales at the home of Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama; streaming service Hallmark Movies Now; and e-book publisher Hallmark Publishing. She is charged with managing the Southeast advertising sales team, setting strategy and developing client relationships with established and prospective clients. Her oversight includes leading the team to achieve established annual sales goals and to capitalize on digital and added value opportunities. As the advertising industry continues to evolve, her commitment to prioritizing client relationships remains at the forefront. She began her advertising sales career at Crown Media as a sales assistant in 2010.

J-T Ladt
Chief Content Officer, Fuse Media

J-T Ladt oversees creative content development and current production of longform and shortform original programming for all of Fuse Media’s content platforms. He also leads the Fuse Digital Content Studio, a division that creates digital native content for all Fuse Media platforms, social channels and other distributors. Under his watch, Fuse was honored with NAMIC, Peabody and Telly awards while also receiving an Emmy nomination. He joined Fuse Media from Red Bull Media House’s Red Bull TV and created and served as executive producer for National Geographic Channel’s true crime series Missing Dial. Before that, he served as VP of programming and development at National Geographic Channel.

Alison Levin
Vice President, U.S. Sales & Strategy Roku

Alison Levin oversees all U.S. ad sales for Roku. As the first ever ad-sales hire, she has pioneered upfront deals with some of the largest ad agencies and holding groups and has been instrumental in growing Roku’s portfolio of clients. She and her team are responsible for driving new products and go-tomarket strategy for the overall advertising business. Prior to Roku, Levin was a senior account executive with YuMe, managing key accounts for its ad tech business. Previously, she held sales positions with IAC and BusinessWeek. She holds a bachelor of arts from Boston University.

Erin Lim
Host, E! News’s The Rundown on Snapchat; Correspondent, E! News E! Entertainment

Erin Lim is the host of E! News’s The Rundown, one of the first fully produced weekly shows for Snapchat. The show has expanded to three days a week after early success on the platform, averaging 13 million viewers. Lim is also a correspondent for E! News and serves as a regular panelist on Live from E!, a fast-paced and popular digital show that E! News developed for the Facebook Live platform. In 2017, Lim’s on-air work helped E! News earn a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Entertainment News Program. She was formerly the host for E! News Asia.

Andrea Lipstein
Senior Vice President of Product Marketing, Global Media, Nielsen

Andrea Lipstein is helping Nielsen to drive client adoption of the company’s planning, activation and audience measurement solutions across its National, Local and Digital businesses. In her role, Lipstein leads internal product education and training, external positioning and messaging, roadmap maintenance/communication and product-centric client forums, including the company’s National Client Meeting. She collaborates closely with Nielsen Commercial and Product leaders to drive sales enablement, go-to-market and lead-generation initiatives.

Lauren Lumsden
Vice President, Video Programming for the Beauty Collection, Head of Content and Creative for Iris Condé Nast Entertainment

Lauren Lumsden serves as executive producer of all digital videos produced for Condé Nast’s beauty collection, which includes Allure and Self. She is also the head of content and creative for Iris, a video- and social-led brand for socially conscious millennial women that was developed from the highly successful original programming on The Scene, Condé Nast’s video aggregation platform. Before joining CNE, Lumsden led Cosmopolitan.com’s video efforts and in less than a year, Lumsden and her team brought the publication’s video views from 9 million to more than 110 million per month. Prior to joining Cosmopolitan, Lumsden spent nearly eight years as an editor at DailyCandy.com.

Katie Maloney
Television Agent, Creative Artists Agency

CAA television agent Katie Maloney has sold every genre of unscripted series in the global television marketplace, from high-end documentaries like CNN Films’ Oscarnominated RBG, for which she represented directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen, to the fan-favorite reality series TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress from client Half Yard, in addition to Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta and Real Housewives of Potomac from client Truly Original; BSTV’s Trish’s Southern Kitchen and USA’s Chrisley Knows Best, produced by client Maverick. She began her career at N.S. Bienstock. She joined CAA in 2011 and is among the senior-most women in the Alternative Television department.

Joseph Markowski
Executive Vice President, DAZN

Joseph Markowski is responsible for DAZN’s North American business revenue, with direct oversight of partnerships, rightsholder activation, marketing, communications and overall market strategy. In 2018, he orchestrated the commercial and operational launch of DAZN in the United States. Helped by one of the biggest boxing upsets in recent history, Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr., DAZN has since become the exclusive home of boxing superstars Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin and Anthony Joshua, as well as Bellator MMA. DAZN has also expanded and diversified by launching ChangeUp, a nightly Major League Baseball whip-around show. Markowski also manages the DAZN Canada business and, earlier, he helped launch the DAZN Japan business.

Osvaldo “Ozzie” Martinez
Senior Vice President of News, Digital and Standards, Telemundo Station Group

Osvaldo “Ozzie” Martinez works with local Telemundo station news directors to enhance stations’ local multiplatform news operations, strategy and talent development. He also manages the station group’s news bureaus located in Miami, Washington and Mexico. The group, part of NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, includes 30 local Telemundo stations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. He managed the launch of “Telemundo Responde” consumer investigative units in 20 newsrooms and Spanish-language investigative teams (I-Teams) in key markets. Earlier in his career he worked for WNBC New York and as an executive producer for WFOR and WSVN in Miami, Florida, where he lives.

Allison Martucci
Broadcast & Media Partnerships Lead, Google

Allison Martucci leads Google’s Global Partnerships with large broadcasters, helping them navigate the complex digital video ecosystem, monetize premium content across numerous platforms and enhance their relationship across various Google divisions. She oversees more than $250 million in revenue, and has driven several first-of-their-kind business development deals for Google across the TV ecosystem. She first joined Google in 2011, growing partnerships with digital pure plays such as Match Media and IAC. She also helped launch the Google Ad Exchange programmatic marketplace in Latin America. Prior to joining Google, Martucci spent five years at The New York Times, overseeing relationships with some of the largest fashion and pharmaceutical advertisers.

Benjamin Maughan
Vice President of New Ventures TiVo

Benjamin Maughan leads business development, product and client services within the data and advertising Viewership Data business group at TiVo. His responsibilities include all business and technology partnerships for TiVo’s advertising technology stack, as well as development and support of TiVo’s core data product, TiVo TV. He has partnered with media technology players across the ad-tech ecosystem, including Altice USA, Cox Communications, Nielsen, Kantar, Experian, Acxiom, LiveRamp, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Adobe, Viacom, Turner and Publicis. Previously, he was at Neustar in corporate strategy, and before that he was the head of business operations for Cisco’s Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group.

Andrew McCollum
CEO, Philo

In 2014, Andrew McCollum became CEO at Philo, an entertainment-focused OTT streaming service that launched nationwide in November 2017. Before assuming the role of CEO, Andrew served on Philo’s board, mentored its co-founders and was one of the company’s first investors. Prior to Philo, McCollum was on the founding team of Facebook, and the social design of products has been a persistent interest. After Facebook, McCollum was an entrepreneur in residence at two of Philo’s investors, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Flybridge Partners. He continues to be an active early-stage angel investor and adviser.

Tom McLoughlin
Vice President, Regional Sales New York Interconnect

Tom McLoughlin is vice president of regional sales for the New York Interconnect, the joint venture among Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast selling ads that reach more than 6.4 million households in the largest U.S. advertising market. He leads the execution of highly successful media strategies, managing the assignments of accounts, agencies and prospects. He is also responsible for maximizing ad revenue across linear TV, addressable TV, VOD, OTT, digital through the execution of data-driven, cross-screen campaigns that consistently deliver results. Before joining the NYI, he held several positions at Cablevision Systems, including sales planner and national sales coordinator.

Roy Meyeringh
Vice President of Business Development and Affiliate Sales beIN Sports

Roy Meyeringh has achieved a deep understanding of the North American general market and Hispanic broadcast industry with extensive experience in multiplatform channel development and distribution. He supervises the digital, marketing and research divisions of beIN Sports and focuses on the identification and execution of strategic business solutions that further organizational performance in the U.S. and Canada. Under his watch, beIN successfully negotiated over 50 affiliate agreements, driving subscriber growth from 7 million to 44 million across all major MVPDs and vMVPDs. Earlier, he held senior roles within global media providers including the MundoFox affiliate WGEN Miami, MGM Networks Latin America, Imagina US, SomosTV and Venevision International.

Stefanie Meyers
Senior Vice President, Distribution Starz

New York-based Stefanie Meyers is responsible for Starz’s digital/OTT distribution business, drawing on her in-depth understanding of the media industry and competitive television landscape to build a strategic vision to maximize Starz’s subscriber and revenue growth. She negotiates and executes Starz’s digital distribution, platform and device deals and oversees Starz’s digital distribution partner marketing. She also supports Starz’s business development initiatives. She joined Starz in 2015 as senior counsel and previously served as VP of business and legal affairs, acquisition and affiliate distribution, where she was responsible for negotiating and drafting Starz’s video distribution, technology integration and marketing agreements. Prior to Starz, Meyers served as associate counsel, programming for Charter, previously Time Warner Cable.

Kimberli O’Meara
Director of Distribution and Consumer Marketing, INSP

Kimberli O’Meara builds and executes strategies on affiliate and consumer campaigns that maximize dollars while delivering value for general-entertainment network INSP and clients. She is the current Women in Cable Telecommunications Carolinas chapter secretary, and she formerly co-chaired the chapter’s “Giving Back” Committee, which raised more than $9,000 in the fight against domestic violence in the Carolinas and was instrumental in raising more than $15,000 for The Rosie Network. She is also a 2017 graduate of the WICT Rising Leaders Program. She is married to her high-school sweetheart, Ryan, and they are the parents of Emma, Jack, Griffin and Dylan and live in Waxhaw, North Carolina.

Kristi Salmon
Senior Director of Marketing, Business Services, Mediacom Communications

With more than 18 years of experience in sales and marketing, Kristi Salmon has served roles for media giants such as Condé Nast Publications, Hearst Publications and World Wrestling Entertainment. Now, as senior director of marketing for Mediacom Business, a division of Mediacom Communications, she is responsible for brand positioning, customer acquisition and retention campaigns, innovative employee sales programs and new product launches, including Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions. She was a Multichannel News “Woman to Watch” in 2016. A graduate of Fordham University’s College of Business Administration, she holds a bachelor’s in marketing along with certificates from Harvard Business School’s Executive Management Program. She currently resides in Monroe, New York, with her daughter, Lia.

Austin Scott
Senior Director, Demand Side Platforms Sales, Freewheel

At Freewheel, a Comcast-owned ad technology company, Austin Scott leads strategy in the integrated demand partnerships business segment and oversees the development of automated demand channels. She is a global strategic partnerships leader with a track record of scaling digital marketing and software-as-a-service businesses in the U.S. and internationally. Originally from Alabama, she moved to New York to attend the New School University and started working at one of the industry’s first demand-side platforms upon graduating. Scott has spent her career at the genesis of programmatic advertising technology and is inspired by the challenge of retrofitting traditional media models with today’s innovations.

Elisa Segovia
Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Brand Strategy, Univision Communications

Elisa Segovia serves as the chief of staff to Univision’s chief marketing officer and oversees the corporate marketing division. She is responsible for owning and managing Univision’s corporate marketing assets and for leading internal and external branding efforts across Univision’s networks as well as any brand extensions, all validated through data and consumer insights. She has helped to spearhead some of the company’s most high-profile, award-winning campaigns, including Univision’s first-ever brand campaign, “Todo Es Posible” (Everything Is Possible), a comprehensive, multiplatform initiative around Hispanic America’s core values, and the recently expanded “Se Habla USA,” an initiative for Latino youth that celebrates Latino culture and contributions in the U.S.

Sandra Smith
Co-Anchor, America’s Newsroom, Fox News Channel

Sandra Smith serves as co-anchor of Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom (9 a.m- Noon ET weekdays), alongside Bill Hemmer. She joined the company in October 2007 as a reporter for Fox Business Network. On America’s Newsroom, Smith and Hemmer are joined by newsmakers and experts to discuss the latest headlines. Smith previously was co-anchor of Outnumbered, alongside Harris Faulkner, a pair of rotating female panelists and “one lucky guy.” She has appeared on a range of FNC and FBN daytime and primetime programs, frequently filling in as guest anchor for The Story with Martha MacCallum. Prior to joining FBN, Smith was an on-air reporter for Bloomberg Television.

Andre Swanston
CEO and Co-Founder, Tru Optik

Andre Swanston is a proven leader and entrepreneur with a wide range of experience in marketing, finance, and starting and growing companies. As CEO and co-founder of Tru Optik, he has led the company’s business development, product innovation and go-to-market strategy. Under his leadership, Tru Optik has become an over-the-top data and technology partner for many of the world’s largest media companies, brands and agencies. Before founding Tru Optik, he served as a VP of investments at JP Morgan Chase and also led the Media and Entertainment division at a boutique investment bank in New York City.

Dana Ucciferri
Global Head of Video Product and Operations, Bloomberg Media

Throughout her 15-year tenure in cross-platform media operations, Dana Ucciferri has continued to push the envelope of video and content practices by balancing operational constraints and business needs to take advantage of technology evolution, delivering the best product possible. She leads Bloomberg’s 24-hour global video operations team servicing internal and external facing linear and digital distributions across platforms. She plays a crucial role within Bloomberg’s network of video products, advising and collaborating with global content creation teams spanning post-production, creative design, media asset management, digital publishing, syndication, distribution and software development.

Lindsay Van Kirk
Vice President of Product Management, Xandr

Lindsay Van Kirk is vice president of product management at Xandr, the advertising sales unit of AT&T. She is responsible for leading end-to-end product management and strategy for supply-side platforms, demand-side platforms and data partners to create a thriving marketplace within the AppNexus exchange. Previously, she was a senior director of product line management, overseeing a team that worked closely with digital publishers to maximize monetization through header bidding. She earlier held other strategy and operations roles, including building out the strategy and operations function for the AppNexus publisher business and the sales operations function. She is an active member of the Run for Autism team, which supports the Organization for Autism Research.

Shawn Witt
Co-President, Leftfield Pictures

Shawn Witt is co-president of ITV America unit Leftfield Pictures, responsible for all development, programming and production across broadcast, cable and digital platforms. In his tenure with the company, previously serving as senior VP of current series and executive producer, Witt developed, launched and oversaw daily production of the hit History series Alone. Witt has also developed, launched and overseen Forged in Fire, Counting Cars, American Restoration, Tiny House Nation, Tackle My Ride, The Adventures of Dr. Buckeye Bottoms and Pawnography. He also executive produced Brain Surgery Live, the first-ever live televised brain surgery, hosted by Bryant Gumbel and broadcast live to 171 countries in 45 languages worldwide, and Billy the Kid: New Evidence, both for Nat Geo Channel. Prior to joining Leftfield, Witt was an executive producer at MTV, specializing in the development and supervision of daily live studio productions, reality series, clip shows and live specials, including Total Request Live, Pranked and Parental Control.

Tristan Zimmerman
Vice President, Digital Marketing Debmar-Mercury

Tristan Zimmerman is vice president of digital marketing, for Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury, the production and distribution company for The Wendy Williams Show, entering its 11th season this fall; Caught In Providence; and two Fox Television Stations tests, Jerry O (a co-production with Funny or Die) and the upcoming collaboration with producer Will Packer on entertainment news magazine Central Ave. He produces a monthly reality web series, The After Show, in which Wendy Williams takes viewers behind the scenes of her program and has integrated social media into the show in a way that adds to the overall experience. He also oversees digital and social media production for Caught in Providence, which now has 5.1 million Facebook followers.

Kate Zuckerman
Director of Special Events CBS News

Kate Zuckerman is responsible for organizing and communicating CBS News’s coverage of breaking news, as well as scheduled major events such as the funeral of Sen. John McCain, the Brett Kavanaugh Senate confirmation hearings, President George H.W. Bush’s funeral and the congressional testimony of special counsel Robert Mueller. Working closely with CBS Entertainment, CBS Sports, CBS Affiliate Relations, Broadcast Distribution and Air Control, she ensures Special Reports on the network are integrated seamlessly with local programming across all time zones. She joined CBS as a member of the page program. She was discovered by the news division and hired as an associate producer for broadcast marketing, beginning her career as a producer and marketer. She lives in New York.

The editors of Multichannel News are proud to introduce the inaugural Wonder Women in Streaming, a group of 12 influential executives set to be honored at a gala breakfast gathering on Thursday, Sept. 5, in Santa Monica, California.

An extension of the magazine’s 22-year tradition of selecting and saluting Wonder Women in the cable and telecommunications industry, the inaugural Wonder Women in Streaming event will highlight women playing important leadership roles in the growing realm of streamed video.

The event will be held at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, ahead of the OTT & Video Distribution Summit that same day.

Also to be honored at the breakfast event are 12 Women to Watch, selected for contributions to the advancement of video streaming that are emblematic of the vital roles they’re likely to play in the content industry’s ongoing transformation.

To read the profiles of this year’s honorees, click on the links below. For much more on the West Coast event, and for registration and sponsorship information, go to wonderwomeninstreaming.com.

PROFILES

Anne Aaron, Netflix
Kelly Abcarian, Nielsen Corp.
Thea Ellis, Sony Interactive/PS Vue
Alison Hoffman, Starz
Lori LeBas, Disney and ESPN Media Networks
Sarah Lyons, WarnerMedia
Julie McNamara, CBS All Access
Heather Moosnick, Hulu
Diana Pessin, HBO
Soumya Sriraman, BritBox
Julia Veale, Showtime Networks
Dina Weisberger, Google

WOMEN TO WATCH