John Leguizamo took the stage at the Hispanic Television Summit, as the session “Reflections on The Making of American Historia” went down. The three-part series premieres on PBS September 27 and airs on consecutive Fridays. 

Leguizamo said the project began because his son was being bullied at school for being Latino, and Leguizamo recalled the same thing happening when he grew up in Queens. “To me, violence is the lowest form of communication,” he said, so he decided to share with his son the contributions Latinos have made to the world. 

“In my research, I found a plethora of contributions to the world, and to America, that was mind-blowing,” said the actor and producer. “I couldn’t believe how much we’d contributed to the world.”

Cynthia Lopez, CEO, New York Women in Film & Television, moderated the panel. She called American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos “cinematically beautiful to watch and historically accurate.” The series sees Leguizamo in the U.S. and Mexico, unearthing Latino history. 

Ben DeJesus, co-founder of NGL Studios with Leguizamo, was also on the panel, along with Luis Ortiz, managing director, Latino Public Broadcasting.

DeJesus shared how he and Leguizamo were at work on the Broadway show Latin History for Morons and ended up with a lot of good material they could not use in the live production. DeJesus said, “There’s something here — what if we took all these stories that did not make the Broadway stage?”

Their projects often begin with a call to Latino Public Broadcasting. Ortiz said he likes to be “the starting point” for such projects. 

“Latino voices are not being told enough, and we want to [share] those stories,” he said. 

Asked what he learned in putting the project together, Leguizamo said “a lot of beautiful surprises” rose to the surface of his research. “We wanted the top-most experts in Latino history in our show to validate our contributions,” he said, adding, “People think we just got here. But we’ve always been here.”

DeJesus said the production aimed for a “more premiere” production than one might expect from a docuseries on broadcast TV. 

The Hispanic TV Summit is part of NYC TV Week, hosted by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.

Leguizamo said he hopes all children, not just those from the Hispanic community, learn from American Historia. “They matter, they’re important, they can do anything they choose to do with their lives,” he said. “That’s what I want to [pass on].”

DeJesus spoke of promoting “a better sense of understanding for our community. I would love for audiences to come out and be like, wow, I didn’t know that!”

Ortiz credited Leguizamo and DeJesus for touching upon a wide variety of Latino cultures in the project, and for focusing on women. 

“Latina women are the powerhouse of Latino culture,” Leguizamo said. “It wasn’t hard to put them in there because they put themselves there.”

As the regional sports network business continues to evolve, pro teams are looking to maximize local TV revenue by making a play to offer fans live game content across multiple platforms, according to executives speaking at the “TV Sports: Checking In on the Post-RSN Revolution” panel at the Next TV Summit on Tuesday.

As viewers continue to migrate from cable TV bundles to digital platforms, panelists said more teams are extending their reach beyond the traditional regional sports networks by moving to a hybrid of broadcast TV and direct-to-consumer services.

“We don’t think the RSN part of the ecosystem is dead; it is simply going through enormous changes,” ViewLift co-founder and CEO Rick Allen said at the summit, part of NYC TV Week. He pointed to successful RSNs like YES Network that are bucking the trend of the otherwise-struggling business, led by the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group, operator of the troubled Bally Sports RSNs.

ViewLift, which provides a direct-to-consumer offering for live, local games from such NHL teams as the Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights and Washington Capitals,  has been able to create partnerships with the teams that includes distribution on local-market broadcast stations and the digital platform, he added.

“It’s a very powerful model which brings in an enormous amount of data that allows teams to know who their specific individual viewers are and how best to move them through a 360-degree relationship with the team and monetize in a whole range of ways,” he said.

The latest DTC service to market is  A Parent Media Co. Inc.-owned Victory Plus, which launches this week with digital distribution of Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks NHL games alongside local broadcast channels, as well as ancillary content from the teams on a national digital platform, according to Victory Sports chief strategy officer Narendra Nag. 

Distributors and teams must work together to generate revenue across various platforms, Kiswe co-founder and chief marketing officer Wim Sweldens said. “What sets us apart is that we think of ourselves as the partner of the sports team,” said Sweldens, whose company has built DTC streaming platforms for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz, among other pro-sports franchises.

“To win you have to maximize the revenue from your content by reaching as many people as possible, “ he said. “You want to create a destination.”

As for the future, LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media president and CEO Lee Berke said teams will have to work with distributors across multiple platforms to effectively reach both hard-core fans as well as young, potential fans coming up. 

“The opportunity is not necessarily to abandon pay TV, but ultimately working to reach your next generation of fans across platforms,” he said. “If your signage can only be seen by only three out of 10 homes and fans are not exposed to your brand at an early age, then ultimately the value of your franchise suffers.”

The opening keynote at the Next TV Summit featured Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research, Wedbush Securities, interviewed by Jeffrey Cole, founder and director, Center for the Digital Future, discussing “Streaming Subscriptions: Winners and Losers.” 

The conversation began with Netflix, and Pachter touched on how broadcast and cable networks used to be a little quicker to license their hit shows to the streaming giant. 

“Netflix pulled the wool over the eyes of the media companies,” Pachter said. “They’re so far ahead now.”

Leslie Moonves, former CBS chief, offered that network’s programs to Netflix soon as their season ended, Pachter said, while Richard Plepler, former HBO chief, did not. HBO has proven adept at making a hit show last for months, keeping audience churn down. 

“You never quit,” said Pachter. “That’s the right model.” 

Pachter believes Netflix does not charge consumers enough. “Netflix broke the model,” he said. “They gave us too much content for too little money.”

Among that content, Netflix movies are not working, he added, because top Hollywood talent is reluctant to partner with the streamer as those films do not get full-blown awards consideration. “That’s a persistent problem for Netflix,” Pachter said. 

The conversation moved on to the more traditional networks launching their own costly streaming products. “Media companies stupidly followed Netflix into the crevasse,” said Pachter, who singled out Paramount Plus, which he said “doesn’t have enough content–they can’t compete.”

On the cable front, Pachter sees that side of the industry coming back, at least to a degree. “Old people aren't cutting the cord — they’re just dying,” he said, and young consumers just have too many viewing options to consider signing up for cable. 

But the cable bundle does continue to be a draw for part of the population. “You do need the bundle, you just don’t know you need the bundle,” Pachter said. 

Smart cable operators will make Netflix, Prime Video and other streaming players part of the bundle they offer subscribers, Pachter believes. 

The convo moved on to broadcast, and how much longer those networks can afford major sports rights. “The sports leagues are going for the dollars and not thinking about the long-term consequences,” Pachter shared. “The leagues hurt themselves if they make it hard for the fan to find content.”

The Next TV Summit is part of NYC TV Week, hosted by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV. The Advanced Advertising Summit happened September 9, Next TV Summit takes place September 10, Hispanic TV Summit is September 11 and 40 Under 40 happens September 12. The first three events are at etc.venues in midtown Manhattan, and 40 Under 40 is at 230 Fifth. 

Michael Bologna, chief accelerator at BrightLine, delivered the closing keynote at the Advanced Advertising Summit. Under the title “What’s Working Now, and a Look into the Future,” Bologna spoke about how ad agencies, media companies and marketing brands must work closer together to ensure better advertising results. 

“When those three constituents work together, I do think advertisers are well served,” he said. “They’re not when one or more of those parties fall back.”

B+C senior content producer Jon Lafayette interviewed Bologna, who described BrightLine as “the standard for interactive advertising within connected television.”

Asked about Irwin Gotlieb’s assessment of the ad industry earlier in the day, which saw Gotlieb say, “Are these the best of times? Hell, no,” Bologna agreed with a lot of what his former boss shared, including the industry’s reluctance to work together on common issues. 

“I do think every last one of us had plenty of time to prepare for where we are today,” he added. “We brought it upon ourselves when we chose not to act.”

The ad industry is “very good about pointing out what’s wrong, what’s broken, what needs to be fixed, what we don’t like,” he added. “We’re not so good at making hard decisions about what we need to fix those.”

The Advanced Advertising Summit is part of NYC TV Week, hosted by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV. Advanced Ads happens September 9, Next TV Summit takes place September 10, Hispanic TV Summit is September 11 and 40 Under 40 happens September 12. The first three events take place at etc.venues in midtown Manhattan, and 40 Under 40 is at 230 5th. 

The discussion turned to streaming, and Bologna said there could, and should, be more consistency in terms of ad formats among those players. “Google, Netflix, Amazon, the user experience is fantastic,” he said. “But they all have different models when it comes to commercials, they all have different models when it comes to ad formats.”

“They’re not doing us a great service,” Bologna added. 

Bologna added that the streamers are a bit behind the curve in terms of addressable formats in advertising. If Disney and NBC can agree to use a common format, he noted, the big streamers, be it Amazon or Netflix, can too. 

As the keynote wrapped, he again urged agencies, media companies and advertising brands to work better with one other. 

“Everybody can’t win all the time,” Bologna said. “There has to be a bit of give and take.”

Irwin Gotlieb, former chairman and CEO of GroupM, offered the opening keynote at the Advanced Advertising Summit. Interviewed by B+C senior content producer Jon Lafayette, Gotlieb stressed that the TV advertising world faces serious challenges. 

“Are these the best of times? Hell, no,” he said. 

With the streaming players joining linear networks in the advertising forum, Gotlieb spoke about the immense amount of content, driven by the streamers, facing consumers. “The stuff that is produced is not readily discoverable — the streamers don’t run the promo schedules that the linear [networks] do,” he said. “How do you get to the point of knowing what you want to watch?”

He also noted the challenge of different measurement systems on linear and non-linear. “If you don’t have proper measurement you don’t have the basis for doing transactions,” he said. 

Gotlieb assessed the state of the streamers, including Paramount Plus, Max and Hulu, but suggested taking Netflix and Prime Video out of the equation. “How many of them are making serious money?” he asked, noting how they are more likely to report finally stopping “hemorrhaging capital.”

Gotlieb mentioned GroupM gearing up for addressable ads back around 2008 to illustrate the in-fighting that’s long been part of the industry. “We literally faced resistance everywhere,” he said, amidst a prevailing sense of, “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”

“Here we are in 2024,” Gotlieb added, “ill-prepared.”

The Advanced Advertising Summit is part of NYC TV Week, hosted by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV. Advanced Ads happens September 9, Next TV Summit takes place September 10, Hispanic TV Summit is September 11 and 40 Under 40 happens September 12. The first three events take place at etc.venues in midtown Manhattan, and 40 Under 40 is at 230 5th. 

Gotlieb was not entirely pessimistic about the industry. “Television is the most efficient and effective marketing tool that has ever been developed,” he said. Streaming, for its part, “should be the overall answer to the long-term health of the business but for the fact that the industry isn’t prepared for it.”

Gotlieb said the TV players have to focus on raising the tide so all entrants gain, more than stealing a viewer or two from the competition. “If the ecosystem isn’t healthy, nobody in the ecosystem will do particularly well,” he said. 

The technology is out there to fix the issues, he said, but the fix is complicated. 

“It’s not the technology that’s missing,” Gotlieb said. “It’s the industry cooperation.”

A data-driven campaign created by Samsung Ads and Davis Elen Advertising for the Southern California Toyota Dealers Association won the best overall trophy at the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards.

The awards, for campaigns that take advantage of data and technology to produce outstanding results, will be presented at the Advanced Advertising Summit in New York on September 9, part of the NYC TV Week slate of events sponsored by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.

In addition to Best Overall Campaign, Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards were given for the Best Use of Data, Best Definition of a Target Audience, Best Use of Multiple Platforms and Best Use of Branded Content. 

Here are the winners and a description of the excellent campaigns.

TelevisaUnivision and Indeed

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Data goes to TelevisaUnivision, which worked with media agency EssenceMediacom on a campaign for job site Indeed.

The campaign used the TelevisaUnivision Clean Room (powered by Snowflake) to find Spanish-language audiences and provide precise incremental lift measurement for new job seeker account creation without exposing personally identifiable information. 

Indeed targeted two groups: job seekers in the adult 18-49 demographic and small and medium-sized businesses, with existing Indeed customers filtered out.

The user population for both audiences exceeded 10 million households once matching was complete, providing a sizable audience pool to determine campaign impact.

By creating test and control groups, Indeed ensured reliable incrementality measurement and a clear determination of the campaign’s causal effect on conversions, directly linked to ad exposure.

To measure Indeed’s audiences in collaboration with TelevisaUnivision Household Graph, Indeed customer email addresses were safely and securely matched within TelevisaUnivision Clean Room to verify ad exposure. 

The campaign both achieved its objectives and set a new standard for reaching and engaging multicultural audiences — driving an incremental lift of 8% in job-seeker accounts and  33% in small- and midsized business accounts.

Due to the campaign’s success, Indeed has committed to running an additional SMB campaign with TelevisaUnivision, with conversations ongoing to extend the arrangement.

LG Ad Solutions and Wells Fargo

A campaign for Wells Fargo created by OMD and LG Ad Solutions won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Definition of a Target Audience.

Wells Fargo was looking to promote its credit cards and turned to LG Ad Solutions to provide unduplicated reach at optimal frequency and maximize return on advertising spending.

A highlight of the campaign was Wells Fargo becoming the first bank to advertise on the LG TV Home Screen.

For financial services brands seeking to captivate a highly relevant audience of credit card users in a competitive landscape, precise targeting and personalized advertising experiences that seamlessly integrate into the viewing experience are key.  Wells Fargo targeted different audience groups for separate credit card products.

The Autograph No-Fee Credit Card campaign focused on capturing affluent consumers with a propensity for credit card usage. The Active Cash Credit Card campaign focused on engaging credit-savvy consumers who meet a specific spending threshold, encompassing both credit card revolvers and transactors in hopes of driving ad recall and brand perception. 

To complement its in-market linear buy, Wells Fargo tapped into LG Ad Solutions’ Smart TV audience, leveraging its LG CTV Content Network across LG Channels O&O and premium partner inventory to extend reach and maintain frequency. Innovative ad formats, such as LG Home Screen Native Ads featuring QR codes, Carousel Ads with benefit information and limited-time offers, and LG Native Home Screen Roadblocks were employed.

The campaigns had impressive results.

The Active Cash Credit Card campaign achieved a 17.2% incremental unique household reach rate with CTV over linear TV, maintaining a monthly average frequency of 5.65 times and a 3.1 percentage-point increase in aided awareness. 

The Autograph No-Fee Credit Card campaign reached 4.9 million unique households and achieved a 3.4 percentage-point increase in aided awareness, as well as a 2.8 percentage-point increase in brand favorability, measured in partnership with Dynata.

Spectrum Reach and the N.C. 911 Board

A campaign submitted by Spectrum Reach for the North Carolina 911 Board won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for best use of multiple platforms.

The board faced a shortage of qualified 911 operators and worked with Spectrum Reach to develop a statewide multiplatform advertising strategy aimed at recruiting qualified candidates for open positions.

Spectrum Reach helped the client define qualified and interested 911 operator candidates based on profile information from Zippia Careers and Scarborough USA+. Prospects were identified as 25-to-49-year-old woman with a household income between $20,000 and $75,000 with a high-school diploma or some college education. That unique target was processed through Audience App, a Spectrum Reach Proprietary AI-based targeting tool to recommend the networks that would specifically appeal to this multi-layered target.

Spectrum Reach’s campaign made use of TV, streaming online video, display, search and social media to drive awareness of job opportunities and convince qualified applicants to apply.

TV, streaming TV and social media built awareness. Display and online video influenced prospects who researched the career opportunity. Finally, search reached consumers when they were ready to commit by driving customers to the 911 website.

This multiplatform campaign was highly successful, generating a 32% increase in overall site traffic and a 45% jump in time spent on the site. There were 32% new users and 20 times more visits to the 911 Telecommunicator careers page, which rose to 37,000 from just 1,800 the prior year.

In recognition of the campaign's innovative strategies and significant impact in 911 operator recruitment, North Carolina 911 was invited to present at the National Conference of all the 911 Centers across the United States, where they shared experiences, insights, and best practices with counterparts from every state.

“What’s important to the North Carolina 911 Board is that our multiscreen media campaign drives outcomes,” said L.V. Pokey Harris, executive director, North Carolina 911 Board. “The campaign exceeded expectations on every KPI.”

EssenceMediacom and Ally

The Side Hustlers Season 1 campaign created by EssenceMediacom for Ally took the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Branded Content.

Side Hustlers is a long-form original series created for Ally and EssenceMediacom in collaboration with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Roku to build brand trust and interest in account signups. Side Hustlers was the No.1 title on The Roku Channel during its opening weekend for both reach and engagement.

The show also received high marks for its presentation of women and the way it showcased how companies can integrate social impact and financial education into their marketing strategies, promoting inclusivity and empowerment.

Premiering in March 2024, the competition series focused on women entrepreneurs and addresses the financial challenges they face when starting businesses. The show was hosted by Emma Grede and Ashley Graham and featured Ally’s Jack Howard, who provided financial coaching to the contestants.

The goal was to increase favorability and consideration of Ally services. The show’s strong viewership generated increases in brand metrics including awareness, favorability and intent that topped Ally’s campaign norms.

Brand trust saw a 105% lift, recommendations rose 116%, and likelihood to open an Ally account jumped 89%.

“Consumers are really smart. It’s not just about integrating your brand, because they’ll see right through it,” said Bridget Sponsky, executive director of brand and sponsorship marketing at Ally. “Delivering that added value, from an authenticity perspective, is absolutely critical.”

“We saw that people wanted to learn more about Ally because of the show, with searches for Ally spiking the highest they’d been in the previous twelve months in the first week after the show’s premiere,” Sponsky said.

Samsung Ads and Southern California Toyota Dealers

Samsung Ads’ campaign for Southern California Toyota used data-driven strategies to optimize audience targeting, enhance viewer engagement and maximize return on investment.

The campaign, designed to build awareness for Toyota’s new line of vehicles, including electric vehicles, aimed to build incremental reach and high video completion rates by integrating linear TV and digital media.

Target audiences included first-time car buyers, lapsed customers and current customers in the Southern California DMA.

The campaign used Samsung Ads ACR technology and leveraged insights into viewer preferences and viewing habits to deliver relevant creative. It also made use of Samsung’s Smart TV home screen, which features the first ad unit viewers see when they turn on their set.

The campaign delivered 108% of its target goal, delivering 42.1 million impressions and a CTV video completion rate of 95.8%--which was 0.8% higher than Toyota’s CTV benchmarks.

Combining linear and streaming ads resulted in 59.7% incremental reach.

“Working with Samsung Ads has given us incredible insights into the ever-changing landscape of Connected TV and how crucial complementary, unduplicated reach is, especially when reaching regional audiences,” said John Papadopoulos, partner and head of media at Davis Elen Advertising. “Our clients rely on us to offer innovative and non-traditional strategies to drive results, and partners like Samsung Ads help us ensure that our own creative strategies are as effective as possible.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Award Winners Honored

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYC TV Week wound down with a party celebrating the 2023 New York-based “40 Under 40” honorees, recognizing a select group of emerging executives who are pushing the boundaries of innovation in the video industry. The event, held Sept. 14 at Manhattan’s 230 Fifth rooftop, was hosted by Bianca Peters, co-host of WNYW’s Good Day New York. For snapshots from the event, click below. 

The daylong Hispanic Television Summit, held September 13 as part of NYC TV Week, featured experts exploring the multiple ways television programming engages Hispanic consumers with video content that is connected across platforms from streaming to broadcast to traditional pay TV. Keynotes, panels and presentations focused on advertising, viewer research, programming, content distribution, subscriber marketing. viewer promotions and content discovery. The event also included the annual Hispanic Television Awards, honoring top executives and on-air personalities in the sector. Click below for an image gallery from the event. 

The Hispanic TV Summit panel Content for Special Audience Segments looked at the best ways of reaching users on multiple platforms and the role AI might play in programming in the very near future. 

The panel saw J.C. Sanchez, CEO and founder of family programming network Family Playland, define the modern TV era as TV 3.0. Broadcast TV was 1.0, and the onset of cable ushered in 2.0. The new era means users want what they want, when they want, on the device they want.  

“We want to be wherever our fans want to consume our content,” Sanchez said. 

Court Stroud, an adjunct faculty member at New York University and Columbia University and a veteran of Univision and Telemundo, among other TV companies, moderated. Chris Knight, Gusto TV president and CEO, echoed Sanchez on reaching users where they choose to be. “We don’t care where you watch us, just as long as you watch us,” he said. 

Knight added that a lot of time is spent thinking and talking about the right “vessels” for content, when more of the focus should be on the quality of the programming. 

Sanchez said there is so much fragmentation in television that it offers content creators a good opportunity to connect with overlooked audiences. “The market is ripe right now to come in and superserve what has been underserved,” he said. 

Oscar Ramos, senior director, digital content at ESPN Deportes, said connection is more than simply speaking users’ or viewers’ language, but serving them “the content that moves them” as well. 

Original content was a theme of the panel. Doris Vogelmann, VP of programming and operations at Spanish-language network Vme Media, said the network “looks for shows that are positive for the community.” Sanchez said Family Playland would love to get into the originals space, but it is not there yet. Food network Gusto TV, for its part, is. “We produce 100% of the content on our channel,” Knight said. 

The panel also touched on AI. Ramos said AI is not yet a major factor in programming. “In the end it’s about being authentic,” he said, “and AI still has a lot of work to do.”

Knight said Gusto TV is “all in” on AI and Sanchez said Family Playland is embracing it, too. He added, “As small programmers, it’s helping us compete.”

Visionaries and leaders from throughout the video industry gathered in New York on September 12 for the Next TV Summit, a daylong event featuring panels and keynotes on the latest trends, challenged predictive models, success stories and insights into the continued navigation of a historically disrupted TV content industry. The event is part of NYC TV Week, a full slate of events that also includes the Advanced Advertising Summit, Hispanic TV Summit and the 40 Under 40 New York gala. Click below to view event photos. 

José Vélez-Silva, VP of multicultural brand marketing for Comcast Cable, read a letter to himself as he will be in five years at the Hispanic TV Summit, helping to kick off a new Hispanic Heritage Month ad campaign that launched on Xfinity Latino's Instagram account today. 

The warmly written note congratulated his future self on achieving career and family goals and encouraged future José to “keep going with the same heart and feeling that you put into everything.” The full room at etc. venues in midtown Manhattan applauded. Velez-Silva encouraged attendees to write their future selves a note, too. “I found it very freeing," he said.

He urged marketers who only think to market to Hispanics during October to not bother if they are not going to be doing so year-round, as Comcast does. He pointed out that the last time Comcast defied the trends and showed positive subscriber growth, the gains were "all because of the Hispanic audiences.”

“We support the Hispanic community every single day of the year,” he said, not just with ads but by designing products inspired by Hispanic households, including the first bilingual voice-activated remote. 

He was joined on stage by José Pablo Rodriguez, managing director of GALLEGOS United, the multicultural marketing agency used by Comcast for more than two decades and the one responsible for executing the new “Querido Futuro” letter-writing campaign. They said a half-dozen celebrities will take part in the campaign, which will expand depending on the social feedback generated. The individuals selected are quite diverse and the LGBTQ community will be represented within them, Rodriguez said.

"I celebrate being Puerto Rican, gay and an American every single day of the year,” Vélez-Silva said.

FAST channels are on the rise, but executives speaking at the “What Makes FAST Go” panel at Tuesday’s Next TV Summit said that the platform’s fast growth has created some business challenges for distributors and content creators.

With more than 1,800 free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels currently in the marketplace and a projected universe of 2,000 by the end of 2023, according to panel moderator and Rasenberger Media president Catherine Rasenberger, it’s becoming more difficult for content to stand out, panelists said. 

“The competition is so fierce that we won’t bring a channel to market with fewer than 1,000 hours of programming,” said Stuart McLean, CEO of FAST Studios, which distributes sports-themed FAST channels targeting NASCAR fans, women’s sports and sports lifestyles. “Now that you see the major media companies rolling out their products, you really have to lean in as much as possible into original programming to make ourselves attractive to distributors.”

Cineverse president and chief strategy officer Erick Opeka added that content originality is vitally essential to distributors and viewers. “We’ve been working on defensible IP [intellectual property], where you use a single brand as a seed to launch a network and build original programming and brand extensions from there,” Opeka said of the streaming platform’s 36 FAST channels.  

While FAST channels are surging into the marketplace, panelists said the advertising revenue model is still a work in progress. McLean said relying on programmatic ad sales for the bulk of a FAST’s revenue is a mistake, given the uncertainty of the market. 

“If you’re relying on programmatic for your business, you don’t have a business,” he said, adding that his channels rely heavily on programming sponsorships to generate revenue. “Our ability to create custom content for brands is really our top strategy right now.” 

Yet for FAST operators like Plex, which doesn’t own or create content, programmatic ad sales are very important to the bottom line, Plex VP of operations Todd Hay said.

“My costs are in the distribution deals and the revenue-sharing deals I have with the content partners,” he said. “Since I don’t own the IP, it's hard for me to package and sell that so we’re 100% programmatic.”

With large media companies like A+E Networks, NBCUniversal, AMC Networks and Warner Bros. Discovery now getting into the FAST business with the launch of dozens of new, branded channels, several executives expressed concern that smaller companies may find it more difficult to get their channels distributed and recognized.

But Cineverse’s Opeka said that it should be technology, rather than a heavy reliance on legacy brands, that should drive the distribution of content to consumers. 

“We’re literally using touchmarks from the past like brands to determine how we’re going to entertain people in the future, and the reality is that the technology is far better than that,” he said. “The whole notion of using brands is a shortcut to help people find what they really want. Instead, let's use technology to help people find what they want.” 

Fuse Media senior vice president of digital strategy and operations Patrick Courtney added that FAST channel content featuring linear TV brands might not play as well with viewers in the FAST space. He added that Fuse’s FAST channels, such as Shades of Black, Latino Vibes and OUTtv Proud, have unique brands for the platform that will not be confused with the Fuse linear brand. 

“What we came to understand is that Fuse is a very strong brand in pay TV, but it is not a FAST brand,” he said. “We put a lot of effort into making sure that those are extremely good, well-curated products that are effectively monetized for our partners for the FAST platform.”

Eric Berger, CEO and co-founder of kids-targeted Common Sense Networks said that big media brands don’t resonate in particular with younger viewers, who are more interested in user-generated and shortform content that showcase people who look like them. “The content we’re pulling for the FAST platform is not library content, but it's current and new and they are important brands to those that are watching because they can see themselves in it, and I think that’s why we’re continuing to gain carriage the way that we are today,” Berger said. 

The Next TV Summit is part of NYC TV Week, which continues Wednesday morning with the Hispanic TV Summit. NYC TV Week is produced by Future plc, parent of Next TV, Broadcasting+Cable and Multichannel News. 

The Sept. 11 Advanced Advertising Summit, part of NYC TV Week, brought together the people and companies leading the charge to make TV advertising more effective and efficient. The day-long event also recognized winners of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards. Click on the gallery below for event photos. (Photos by Mark Reinertson)

Evan Adlman, AMC Networks executive VP of commercial sales and revenue operations, sat for a fireside chat with B+C Multichannel News business editor Jon Lafayete to discuss his company’s FAST and AVOD strategies, and what is working on the newer media. He described the longtime cable programmer’s shift to streaming platforms as “more of an evolution than anything” as viewers’ consumption habits change. 

“It is no longer delivering to one particular endpoint,” he said during a fireside chat at Tuesday's Next TV Summit, part of NYC TV Week. 

Lafayette asked about AMC shows streaming on Max, both a competitor and a partner for AMC. Adlman said the strategy is to have AMC programming reach viewers and users on multiple platforms, so “they can access it on their own terms.” 

“There’s a lot to learn,” Adlman added. 

One perk of building FAST (free, ad-supported TV) channels is the abundance of user data one gets back, Adlman said. 

Asked what he’s seeing in terms of the upfront, Adlman mentioned “a push from the buying community on transparency,” and noted that AMC Networks has “always been 100% transparent.” 

There may be a glut of programming on streaming, but Adlman broke it down between premium content and “long-tail content” on FAST platforms. AMC programming, he added, falls in the premium bucket. 

Adlman mentioned The Walking Dead: Dead City, which premiered earlier this year, debuting on a Sunday night, with the latest episode on FAST channels the next day along with messages about how to watch the next episode on subscription streaming service AMC Plus. That strategy “has been working for us,” he said, in terms of building subscriber numbers and show buzz. 

Ad-supported AMC Plus premieres in October. Adlman said the company is excited about the launch. “We feel it’s another way for viewers to interact with us,” he said. “It allows our advertisers to reach a new set of viewers, and an incremental audience.”

The Advanced Advertising Summit panel Measuring Results looked at the latest ways to measure campaign performance, from counting impressions to determining return on investment. 

Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, moderated. He asked the panelists to define advanced advertising. Leslie Wood, iSpot.tv chief research officer, described it as the tools that were built for digital that are increasingly factoring into TV buys. “Across the board, we are bringing the digital world into TV,” she said.  

Erica Barnes, A+E Networks senior director, audience innovation, spoke about advertiser aims varying from target age and gender, to something more specific like consumers who ride bicycles. “Our industry is evolving so much,” she said, “with brands at different stages of evolution.”

As the conversation progressed, Mohammed Chughtai, global head of advanced TV at MiQ, mentioned the quality of data decreasing, causing a trust issue with the user. “The lack of trust in digital will happen to the addressable TV space,” he said. “The same audience is being recycled.”

Barnes spoke about A+E offering business outcome guarantees to build trust with partners. “We want to move away from general reach impressions,” she said. 

She spoke about a women’s health brand planning to advertise on Lifetime, but A+E research saw that it would pop in a few shows on History. The brand went with the new plan, and Barnes spoke of “unbelievable numbers” for the campaign. 

Larry Allen, VP and general manager, data & addressable enablement, Comcast Advertising, said there can be pushback from advertisers set in the traditional ways of buying ads. There used to be one way to buy television, he said, and now there are multiple ways. It can be a lot to sort out. 

“Let the data tell you what is logical now,” he said. “Before, we didn’t have the data.”

Cunningham brought up whether AI will emerge as a major factor in the ad game. “Absolutely yes, AI is going to play a part,” said Allen. “But the human has to be the copilot. Or AI has to be the copilot to the human, depending on your perspective.”

Added Barnes, “There’s a lot of nuance that is required for it to be truly effective.”

As VP and head of data science at Comcast-owned FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the TV advertising industry, Bob Bress is focused on the application of advanced analytics to advertising technologies. He has over 20 years of analytics experience across industries including work in hospitality, energy and at GE's Global Research Center. On Tuesday, September 12, Bress will join a panel discussion about artificial-intelligence applications that could have a big impact on the video business — part of the Next TV Summit at NYC TV Week. He answered five questions on industry topics ahead of the event.

Next TV: How is AI reshaping premium video? 

Bob Bress: AI is reshaping premium video content by not only enhancing how content is created but how advertisers operate in the ecosystem. AI will drive the industry’s advertising capabilities in many ways, including through: greater audience segmentation and targeting, cross-channel optimization and yield management and dynamic content targeting with enhanced metadata.

How video content is made and discovered itself will also be impacted.  Some key applications of AI across content include: automated video and music production, enhanced recommendation engines and automated language translation and dubbing. As AI adoption grows, we can expect accelerated improvements in video content development, content discovery, and in video advertising capabilities.

NTV: What are the best applications for AI in CTV? How has FreeWheel been thinking about it? 

BB: FreeWheel is focused on the development of industry-leading technology in support of the video advertising ecosystem. For us, leading applications of AI drive advertising effectiveness not only on CTV but however consumers are watching content. This includes other digital formats as well as traditional broadcast TV.  For us, the best applications happen behind the scenes of what a traditional advertising or publisher might see. These include: audience modeling for ad targeting, viewership and demand forecasting using advanced machine learning concepts and automated metadata generation to allow advertisers to target ads in the most relevant content.

The applications for AI in CTV will grow to automate media workflows, inspire and create new content and advertising, and allow for greater discovery based on a variety of data sources. There won’t necessarily be one "best" application but an expansion of AI across all aspects of how video content is created and consumed. 

NTV: What would you say to those in the industry who are hesitant to explore or adopt AI? 

BB: The great thing about AI today is that you don’t need an advanced degree in it to experiment with it or begin to leverage it in your day-to-day job. Large language models like ChatGPT can easily be used to draft communications, outline presentations, and create technical documentation. APIs are available to explore how these technologies could be used as part of chatbots or in other customer service applications. Software packages and cloud computing platforms are increasingly building AI-based capabilities to allow for custom application development. It has never been easier to get started in this space. There is also motivation for companies to push AI education and training as they risk being left behind. Companies are scrambling to innovate in how they use AI. AI may not take our jobs in the short term but it will dramatically shift the skills and training we need to be competitive in the industry. 

NTV: What’s your favorite place to visit in NYC? 

BB: Madison Square Garden! I am a big fan of the New York Rangers and there’s nothing like watching them play at the Garden. 

A campaign submitted by TelevisaUnivision for the Toyota Tundra won the 2023 Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Branded Content.

The award will be presented at the Advanced Advertising Summit on September 11 in New York. 

Previously, it was announced that a campaign submitted by iSpot for Consumer Cellular won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Multiple Platforms, a campaign submitted by Magnite for Travel Texas won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Definition of a target market and a campaign for Ken Ganley Kia in New Port Richey, Florida, won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Data.

The Toyota campaign marked the start of TelevisaUnivision’s Asi Studios, which worked with Toyota’s Hispanic ad agency Conill to spotlight “unstoppable” U.S. Hispanics making a difference in their communities.

Asi and Conill produced a docufilm on the “Imparable [in English, unstoppable] Ismael Guzman,” a Toyota Tundra owner who distributes soccer equipment in neighborhoods with needs.

The film branded Guzman and Toyota as leaders.

Toyota is the top-selling automotive brand among Hispanics, but the truck category has been dominated by domestic manufacturers. The Tundra, Toyota’s full-size pickup truck, is ranked No. 5 in the truck category behind Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge. 

Conill used this insight to leverage the power of Hispanics and grow market share within the demographic.

In addition to running advertising spots across both multicultural and general market platforms, there was the opportunity to create a film, and they produced Imparable Ismael Guzman.

Conill and TelevisaUnivision highlighted Guzman’s story in a digital- and social-first campaign while establishing the Tundra vehicle as a working/honorary member of the Guzman family.

Toyota wanted to target “Legacy Makers” — well-known community role models. It defined this target as adults 25-54 with incomes of at least $50,000, a high-school education and established families. The size of this audience is estimated at 6.2 million.

These individuals use social media to stay connected with family and friends, particularly those who live in Latin America. They stay current on local news and do research and watch sports highlights on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and  Instagram.

Social content was tailored to each platform and their various placements, using a variety of long-form, short-form, vertical and horizontal content to reach different audiences.

A media campaign to tell Guzman’s story consisted of 15-second and 30-second spots that ran in preroll and midroll inventory, selected with a contextual overlay. Guzman’s story was also told by Univision in segments on the local news; on its national morning show, Despierta América; and during sportscasts.

According to post-campaign studies, the performance exceeded the brand's primary KPIs. The documentary-style videos over-delivered on video view guarantees by 27%. Furthermore, the campaign was very well received by Univision’s social audience with comments sentiment showing 85% positive reactions, surpassing Talkwalker’s sentiment benchmarks for similar TU-branded content campaigns by 28%.

Hispanics who engaged with the videos were also 1.6 time more likely to consider the brand featured as a “leader,” a key KPI for Toyota’s brand identity. 

Research from Shareablee shows the company boosted Toyota’s familiarity by 6 points, elevated viewers’ opinion of the brand by 15 points, increased consideration by 6 points and boosted recall by 23 points.

“We are excited to partner with the TelevisaUnivision team on the launch of Así Studios, providing an innovative platform that created a wonderful opportunity to feature the story of the Guzmán family along with the all-new Tundra,” Ann Dragovits, media manager, integrated marketing operations at Toyota Motor North America, said. “This partnership allows the brand to be part of creative and culturally relevant storytelling that showcases our vehicles in an authentic way for our Hispanic audiences.”

“We feel like there are a lot of stories about our audience that show the positive impact they have on America and those need to be told, and told by brands,“ Dragovits said. “A big part of marketing now is making sure brands are helping and being constructive.” 

Added TelevisaUnivision executive VP and chief growth officer of U.S. advertising Dan Riess: “We feel like there are a lot of stories about our audience that show the positive impact they have on America and those need to be told, and told by brands, a big part of marketing now is making sure brands are helping and being constructive.” 

The Advanced Advertising Summit is part of NYC TV Week, which is produced by Broadcasting+Cable publisher Future plc.

Stay tuned as we reveal the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award Winner for Best Overall Campaign.

News 12 Long Island reporter and anchor Antoinette Biordi and Fox 5’s Good Day New York co-host Bianca Peters have been named as hosts of the 40 Under 40 Awards on Thursday, September 14, during NYC TV Week.

The honorees, who are profiled in the September issue of B+C Multichannel News magazine, will be celebrated at 230 Fifth in Manhattan. 

Peters joined WNYW New York, known as Fox 5, in September of 2019 and was previously the co-host of Good Day Wakeup, weekdays from 4:30-7 a.m. She joined Fox 5 from WFOR Miami, Florida, where she served as a traffic anchor and sports reporter. Prior to that, she was a news anchor and reporter for KOBI in Medford, Oregon. Earlier she had been a host and segment producer for JUCE TV in Tustin, California after having been a host and reporter for ESPN’s X Games in Los Angeles. She began her career in broadcasting as a sports anchor and reporter for College Beat Productions in Long Beach, California. A graduate of California State University, she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications.

Antoinette Biordi is a four-time Emmy Award winning reporter and anchor for News 12 Long Island and has been a TV reporter since 1997. She began her career as a “one man band reporter” producing, shooting, writing and editing daily stories for News Center 7 in Ithaca, New York. In 1998 she became a reporter/anchor for WETM (NBC) in Elmira, New York. In 1999 she worked at WNYT (NBC) in Albany, New York, and FOX 23 News in Albany. After five years in upstate New York, she jumped at the chance to be closer to home and began working as a freelance news reporter at News 12 Long Island before working full time at News 12 Westchester in 2003. In 2010, she transitioned to News 12 Long Island, where she is now a weekday reporter and weekend anchor. 

NYC TV Week, produced by Future US publications Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV, includes Advanced Advertising, the Next TV Summit and the Hispanic TV Summit in addition to 40 Under 40. 

Executives from leading marketers Pepsi, General Mills, GKS and the University of Phoenix will be speaking at the Advanced Advertising Summit in New York on Sept. 11.

Marketers pay the bills for advanced advertising campaigns and these senior execs will discuss how they made their media investments pay off.

Katie Haniffy, head of media strategy and investment for PepsiCo. Beverages, will be part of a session that will also feature Travis Scoles of Paramount Global and Suzanne Irving of OMD.

Raquel Navarrski, consumer VP, eCommerce Pure Play at General Mills, will talk about engaging viewers during Thursday Night Football with Amy McDevitt, head of sports brand partnerships at Amazon.

Sierra Bodor, director of U.S. vaccines communications at GSK, will talk about the power of emotional storytelling with Maura O’Donovan of A+E Networks/

Laura Schmidt, senior media director for University of Phoenix, will discuss creative rotation optimization with Laura Grover of EDO.

The Advanced Advertising agenda also features keynote speaker, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. ad sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery.

There will be panels on measuring results, addressable advertising, branded content and local advertising.

Executives from Comcast Advertising, The Walt Disney Co., A+E Networks, MiQ, Alliant, iSpot.TV, Spectrum Reach, fullthrottle.ai, AMC Networks, Vizio, Premion, Compulse, Effectv and ShowSeeker will also be speaking.

The event concludes with the presentation of the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards.

The Advanced Advertising Summit will be held at ETC.venues at 360 Madison Avenue. 

The summit is part of NYC TV Week, which is produced by Future U.S., the publisher of Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News and Next TV.

A full agenda and information about attending live can be found here. 

There’s no shortage of rising stars or established veterans in the media and entertainment industry who are making an impact in the years between when they start their careers and when they turn 40. And for more than a decade, Multichannel News and sister brands Broadcasting+Cable and NextTV have honored a select group of these talented individuals as part of the “40 Under 40” awards program. 

From OTT, cross-platform measurement and new metrics, to digital disruption, Big Data and economic challenges, it’s truly a transformative time in the development and delivery of video content. The 40 Under 40 awards are designed to honor those at the forefront of this industry revolution. Through a nomination and judging process, MCN has selected a group of creative, tech-savvy visionaries helping to lead media in new directions, wherever the viewers are. 

The 2023 New York “40 Under 40” class will be honored at a gala party September 14, capping off Future plc’s NYC TV Week of events, which also includes the the Advanced Advertising Summit, the Hispanic Television Summit and Next TV Summit New York. It will take place at the 230 Fifth Rooftop at 230 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. 

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

Below, meet the 2023 “40 Under 40” New York, listed in alphabetical order.

Cristina Arango
VP, Head of Business Development 
Fubo

Cristina Arango drives strategic partnerships generating revenue, subscribers and cost savings for Fubo, the leading sports-first live TV streaming platform. She is also the acting chief marketing officer of Molotov.tv by Fubo, a live-TV streaming platform in France. Arango, who joined Fubo in 2016, has held roles across multiple teams including U.S. and France marketing, business development and post-acquisition integration. Prior to Fubo, she was an analyst in private equity and investment banking, where she worked with clients such as MundoFox, a Hispanic TV over-the-air network from Fox International Channels. She has helped Fubo establish relationships with Best Buy and Viasat to boost visibility, and secured co-marketing and distribution partnerships with Google Fiber, WOW!, Frontier Communications, CenturyLink, Wave Broadband and RCN.

Katie Beltz-Long
VP, Head of U.S. Demand Sales
Beachfront

Katie Beltz-Long is a dynamic sales leader with extensive experience in media and advertising technology. She joined Beachfront in January 2022 and drives partnerships with leading agencies, brands and demand-side platforms. Focused on transforming the media buying landscape, Long works closely with internal and external stakeholders to develop technological innovations that bring greater simplicity, automation and addressability to TV and connected TV advertising. She has been the driving force behind new, innovative and timely partnerships at Beachfront, including with Kroger Precision Marketing and FlowCode. She created and leads an internal Culture Committee focused on the continued assessment and improvement of employee welfare through team activities, policies and perks. Long earlier held senior sales positions at Verizon Media (Yahoo, Oath, BrightRoll). 

Melanie Brown
VP, Advanced TVTubi 

At Tubi, Melanie Brown leads a team of strategic subject-matter experts to bring data and technological capabilities to the forefront of clients’ connected-TV activations. She is leading Tubi’s testing of new currencies to improve cross-platform measurement for CTV and linear TV guarantees. She oversees Tubi’s Certified Measurement Program, working closely with partners including Innovid, Kantar, Data Plus Math, NCSolutions and FourSquare to prove the value of Tubi’s platform for advertisers. She began her career in 2012 at Visible World. Following the acquisition of Visible World’s AudienceXpress by FreeWheel, she took her experience in linear TV activation and turned to advanced audiences for targeting and measurement, joining the TV businesses at Shareablee (now Comscore) and Experian as well as at VideoAmp. Prior to joining Tubi in 2022, she served on the addressability team at LiveRamp.

Amber Callahan
VP, Distribution
AMC Networks

At AMC Networks, Amber Callahan leads or serves as second-chair negotiator on multimillion-dollar deals in the U.S. and Canada for all of AMCN’s services across traditional network carriage, SVOD, FAST/AVOD and TVOD/EST. She is also part of the business development team, where she has spearheaded partnerships to grow awareness and subscriptions for AMC Plus with brands including Target, JetBlue, GrubHub, American Express and Meredith. Since joining AMC Networks six years ago, Callahan has transitioned from partner management and deal support to leading deal negotiations with major MVPDs, vMVPDs and connected-TV platforms, including carriage renewal deals with Comcast and Dish Network. In the last few years, she led the launch of AMCN’s FAST Channels on multiple platforms, including Samsung and Sling TV. Prior to joining AMC Networks, Callahan was a senior marketing manager at Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications.

Lori Cassorla
SVP, Group Media Director, Investments
Mediahub

Lori Cassorla is responsible for leading video strategy and investment across various Mediahub clients while also leading the advanced video advertising team. She has a passion for infusing data with traditional media, most recently focusing on outcomes-based media. Cassorla brokered first-to-market deals on behalf of such clients as Chipotle and Ulta Beauty, guaranteeing their video investments on key business metrics including search, in-store traffic and sales. From pioneering industry-first deal terms to brokering custom partnerships granting buyers unparalleled targeting control, she helps Mediahub clients secure the two things they crave most — account­ability and flexibility — while maintaining Mediahub’s creative spirit at the core.

Karen Chan
Group Director, Investment Innovation
GroupM

At GroupM, Karen Chan promotes a holistic approach to the evolution of TV and video across teams, departments and agencies. She helps to bring in new ideas and processes, including continuous play, tech and data platform partnerships, alternative currency measurement and internal communications/partner marketing. Chan was a key player in marketing GroupM’s Continuous Play study with iSpot, which found that more than $1.9 billion in media dollars are wasted in the U.S. market because about 10% of all CTV ads appear when the TV is turned off. She previously worked at Vizio, MediaMath, Tremor Video and SHE Media (Penske Media Group). She is an active member of GroupM’s AAPI employee resource group and works closely with the Learning and Development team to mentor new associates in advertising. 

Michael Chioditti
VP, Strategy and Business Development
Endeavor Streaming

Michael Chioditti oversees the media advisory group and business development efforts at Endeavor Streaming. He has a deep knowledge base of digital strategy, licensing and partnerships that has advanced the business of both Endeavor Streaming and its clients. Prior to joining Endeavor Streaming, Chioditti worked at the National Basketball Association, where he was responsible for new media business development, focusing on the implementation of new media initiatives and products for the league across digital, social and emerging media platforms. He joined Endeavor Streaming in late 2021 to spearhead its foray into consultatory business services. 

Christina Chung
VP, Business Operations
Estrella Media

Christina Chung oversees Estrella Media’s digital operating infrastructure and, in two years, has been instrumental in growing the company’s digital and streaming business from inception to a leadership position in Spanish-language FAST, AVOD  and streaming audio. Estrella Media’s four FAST channels reach 10 million viewers and deliver 280 million minutes of video per month. Chung developed the company’s ad-tech stack and ad operations, working with partners like Freewheel, Google, Amagi, Triton and Operative, to create a robust multiplatform ad monetization platform. Prior to Estrella Media, she held leadership account and solutions engineering positions at FreeWheel, managing strategic accounts including The Walt Disney Co., Fox Networks, Sony Crackle and Discovery. She also has a background in private equity and investment banking. 

Shawn Donilon
EVP, Government Relations
National Association of Broadcasters

Shawn Donilon oversees advocacy efforts for the National Association of Broadcasters on Capitol Hill and at the White House. His exceptional ability to develop and execute legislative strategies, aimed to advance and protect local broadcasters and their audiences, has been crucial to the industry’s resilience and growth amid regulatory and technological challenges. He joined NAB’s advocacy team in March 2013 and has been integrally involved in developing and executing NAB’s strategy in a host of legislative fights during his tenure. These include passage of the STELAR bill; congressional opposition to a performance tax; Congress’s appropriation of $1 billion to fully reimburse broadcasters impacted by the spectrum repack; and securing COVID-19 relief funds for all broadcasters. Donilon previously served as legislative director and counsel to former Rep. Charles F. Bass (R-N.H.). 

Matthew Duarte
VP, Strategy and Business Development
YES Network

Matt Duarte, who joined the YES Network in December 2019, identifies and recommends new business opportunities and partners with YES senior leadership to drive overall company strategy. Notable was the development and launch of the Emmy Award-winning YES App, which became the No. 1 free sports app in the Apple App Store upon its March 2021 launch. In March 2023, Duarte spearheaded the launch of YES Network’s direct-to-consumer subscription product, providing fans of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty in YES’s regional coverage territory an option to purchase a direct subscription through the app. Prior to YES, Duarte was the first enterprise manager in Madison Square Garden’s MBA Rotational program in 2018-2019, where he rotated among marketing partnerships, MSG Sports and Business Strategy and venue operations. Earlier, he was assistant VP, U.S. corporate banking at Wells Fargo. 

David Dworin
Chief Product Officer
FreeWheel

David Dworin oversees and defines FreeWheel’s product vision, strategy, design and development worldwide. Before he was promoted to this role in January 2023, Dworin was VP of product management, leading FreeWheel’s programmatic premium video marketplace, a solution that connects buyers and sellers of premium video to execute trusted, efficient and effective advertising transactions across multiple screens. He formerly headed FreeWheel’s global advisory services practice, the company’s consulting arm and its trust and standards team, which works to improve industry trust through ongoing accreditation, compliance and marketplace quality initiatives. Before FreeWheel, he ran a consulting practice that helped companies across a variety of sectors grow and scale their businesses by developing new strategies, refining operations and improving talent management. 

Matt Farina
SVP, Content Distribution
NBCUniversal

Matt Farina is responsible for the monetization and multiplatform distribution of NBCUniversal’s portfolio of television networks and streaming products. A 13-year NBCU veteran, he oversees the distribution of the company’s programming via Roku, Cox Communications, Charter, Dish, Vizio, SiriusXM, Tubi and partners in Canada and the Caribbean in his newly expanded role. Farina and his team also provide best-in-class viewing experiences, identifying new content opportunities and optimizing the consumer experience for NBCUniversal’s tentpole programming. His team’s focus on the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup led to historic ratings for the Telemundo property. 

Laura Florence
SVP, Global FAST Channels
Fremantle

Laura Florence brings nearly 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry to her new position as senior VP, Global FAST Channels at Fremantle. Previously serving as SVP and GM, Digital at Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, she oversaw Redbox and Crackle Plus digital platforms, including TVOD, AVOD, FAST channels and FAST distribution for the app and channel portfolio to over 120 endpoints across 15 platforms. Her responsibilities also included platform content strategy and operations for the company’s distribution and production groups. Her previous roles include leading North American sales and marketing for Gravitas Ventures, sales and brand management at Millennium/Alchemy and working on live events and original programming at Comcast/E! Networks.

Meredith Garofalo
Freelance Meteorologist and Space/Science Correspondent
Spectrum News NY1

Meredith Garofalo is a regional Edward R. Murrow Award-winning certified broadcast meteorologist and science/space correspondent. She is currently a freelance meteorologist for Spectrum News NY1 in New York City. She was also the 2021 chair for the AMS Station Scientist Committee. Garofalo’s 15 years in the broadcast business includes a wide variety of experience earned across the country, stemming from her internship at WGN Chicago. She has worked at stations in New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Florida and California and nationally with WeatherNation. She is also an accomplished reporter of weather and science stories, including rocket launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral.

Katie Gray
Director, Content Fulfillment and Vendor Management
A+E Networks

As director of content fulfillment and vendor management at A+E Networks, Katie Gray is focused on digital distribution with laser dedication to customer service. Leading the fulfillment of A+E’s nonlinear content, she oversees 13 on-site employees and two different vendor houses. In 2022, the teams completed more than 120,000 partner packages to dozens of endpoints in support of video-on-demand outlets including FVOD, TVOD, SVOD, AVOD and FAST. Gray was integral to the A+E library digitization, a company-wide project to track the creation of over 15,000 assets in support of expanded digital distribution deals. She began her career at A+E in 2011. 

Courtney Huber
VP, Partnership Marketing
Hallmark Media

Courtney Huber is an integral member of the Hallmark Media distribution team, leading product launch and marketing initiatives across linear, direct-to-consumer and FAST channels. (Hallmark Media assets include Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, Hallmark Drama, Hallmark Movies Now and AVOD platform Hallmark Movies and More). A key accomplishment was piloting Hallmark’s launch with Peacock of a branded streaming hub including live, linear programming. She also leads partnership marketing efforts for Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas. Huber manages major partnerships that also include Hulu, Comcast, Vizio, Pluto TV, Verizon and LG. Prior to Hallmark Media, she was VP, international partner marketing at CuriosityStream. She earlier held marketing and distri­bution roles at Spectrum Reach, Olympusat and Discovery.

Marielle Kaar
Director, Preschool Production and Development
Nickelodeon

Marielle Kaar, director of production and development for Nickelodeon Preschool, is currently the executive in charge of Dora, the new CG-animated reboot of Dora the Explorer. Kaar also oversees production as executive in charge of the newly green-lit 2D-animated series Super Duper Bunny League, and is director of production and development on additional shows on Nickelodeon Animation’s powerhouse preschool roster, including Blue’s Clues and You! and Bubble Guppies. A 10-year Nickelodeon veteran, Kaar began her career as an intern at the network and quickly transitioned to assisting executives on the preschool production and development team. She later became the manager of animation production and development for series such as Butterbean’s Café and Sunny Day. 

Andrew Kaplan 
Director, Research and Data
New York Interconnect

Andrew Kaplan provides research that moves the needle for advertising clients in the New York market. He has been with New York Interconnect (NYI), the joint venture between Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast, for five years, steadily moving up the ranks to manage his own team. Kaplan’s team develops client-specific research stories that prove the benefits of the New York DMA, as well as NYI’s various ad products, including TV360 (data-driven linear), addressable and streaming. He also is responsible for creating the campaign-level attribution reports that prove a client’s ROI and is well-versed in using set-top box data to provide network and daypart recommendations for linear/addressable campaigns based on advanced audience targets. He started his career at Discovery. 

Rob Kelly
Senior Director, Marketing
Ampersand

Rob Kelly leads the charge in positioning and amplifying Ampersand’s role as a leader in the advanced television industry. From industry event sponsorships, PR and thought leadership to handcrafting go-to-market strategies for Ampersand’s national, local and agency sales teams, Kelly serves as the engine driving Ampersand’s mantra of “Moving TV Forward.” Ampersand, owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, represents the largest share of television inventory across multiscreen environments. Kelly’s efforts led to Ampersand’s elevated presence at industry events including Cannes (Ampersand owned the entire facade of the Palais there last summer), Advertising Week New York and the ANA Masters of Marketing. Ampersand also promoted its brand by wrapping the escalators at CES in Las Vegas. 

Ryan Kristafer
Entertainment Anchor/Reporter
WNYW Fox 5 New York

Ryan Kristafer joined Good Day New York and the Fox 5 New York team in August 2019. Originally from Connecticut, he started his career emceeing corporate events across the U.S. as an on-stage host and DJ. He then hosted a nationally syndicated “Man in the Stands” feature on NBC Sports Radio. Following that, he spent five years at ABC affiliate WTNH New Haven, Connecticut, as a feature reporter and host of a daily talk show, CT Style. As the entertainment anchor/reporter for Good Day New York and Fox 5, he interviews celebrities and covers entertainment headlines, lifestyle, trends and more.

Dan Lanzano
VP, Advertising Sales
Warner Bros. Discovery

Dan Lanzano is responsible for the cross-platform strategy and monetization for marquee properties at Warner Bros. Discovery, including HGTV, CNN, TNT, ID, Magnolia Network, Trvl and HLN. He has helped move WBD’s business forward through innovative beta-test partnerships with marquee agency and client partners around alternative measurement and new currencies such as VideoAmp, Comscore and iSpot. Advertisers involved in that test include Liberty Mutual, Chipotle, the U.S. Postal Service, Subaru and Behr. Starting in 2016, he was VP of ad sales at Turner/WarnerMedia, driving multiplatform ad-sales efforts across TBS, TNT, CNN, Adult Swim, truTV, Cartoon Network and HBO Max. He began at Turner in 2007 as an account service representative for CNN. 

Deon LeCointe
Director, Networked Solutions
Sony Imaging and Professional Solutions – Americas

Deon LeCointe oversees Sony’s live production product portfolio and works with television networks and broadcasters to design and build equipment that delivers live content to millions of homes around the world. His team includes product managers, solution architects, sales engineers and service personnel responsible for the development, sales and marketing of products designed for news, sports and entertainment. He has led the implementation of IP-based infrastructure, cameras and switchers at notable installations including CNN’s Hudson Yards facility in New York and NFL Network in Los Angeles. He co-founded UJIMA, the Sony Electronics Black Employee Network.

Abigail Neugebauer
Senior Director of Content, Magnolia Network
Warner Bros. Discovery

Abigail Neugebauer develops and produces original lifestyle programming for WBD’s Magnolia Network. She is currently the production executive on shows such as Making Modern With Brooke and Brice, The Established Home, Problem Spaces and The Piece Maker. In her three years at Magnolia, she has been a pivotal figure in developing and executing a creative cross-platform production strategy that has resulted in Magnolia Workshops, a standalone series of how-to courses that rolled out across linear, streaming and OTT. Earlier, she led digital teams that created original content for brands like Food Network Kitchen, Genius Kitchen and HGTV. She began her content career at Condé Nast and later managed digital video content teams at About.com (now Dotdash Meredith). 

Molly O’Connor
VP, Business Planning and Strategy
Warner Bros. Discovery

Molly O’Connor is responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive strategy to deliver subscription volume and revenue for Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. Streaming and Networks business, with a focus on Max. Prior to joining HBO in 2018, she worked in strategy and business development at film and television studio A24. Earlier in her career, she was a management consultant in the TMT sector. She is an expert in developing effective distribution strategies for the direct-to-consumer and traditional linear television business. She helped develop and execute the distribution strategy for the launch of HBO Max in the U.S. and continues to help drive Max subscriber growth.

Andy Oh
Principal, Sports Partnerships
Amazon

Andy Oh has played a significant role in the growth and diversity of Prime Video’s sports offerings. Since joining Amazon in January 2021, Oh has piloted groundbreaking negotiations for the company’s streaming platform. Most recently, he headed the renewal with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), which will allow Prime Video to exclusively stream 20 WNBA games as well as the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship game this season. In addition to the WNBA renewal, Oh has expanded Prime Video’s female-focused offerings for customers through his leadership of the Seattle Storm deal last spring. This deal marked the first local WNBA package made available to Prime Video subscribers. 

Matthew Olson
Sports Media Agent
Creative Artists Agency

CAA sports media agent Matthew Olson represents leading sports broadcasters including Laura Rutledge, Elle Duncan, Kate Abdo, Dan Orlovsky, Pablo Torre, Shea Serrano and Jon “Boog” Sciambi. He negotiated a multiyear deal for veteran ESPN
writer and on-air personality Torre to join Meadow­lark Media, where he will contribute to its unscripted efforts. He also brokered a multi­year extension for former NFL quarterback Orlovsky to join the No. 2 NFL booth at ESPN, while also maintaining his role as one of the mainstays on NFL Live, ESPN’s signature daily NFL program. Olson was an integral member of the team that negotiated a deal for Shea Serrano at Amazon, which includes Serrano’s scripted television and audio rights. Primo, Serrano’s first series for the streamer, premiered in May. 

Marc Paskin
Agent
UTA

Marc Paskin, an agent in the News and Broadcast division of UTA, has a client roster that includes Jen Psaki, Baratunde Thurston, Brian Tyler Cohen, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, James Longman, Jenna Bush Hager, Mary Hager, Beverly Chase, Brooke Baldwin, Peter Hamby, Taylor Lorenz, Abby Phillip, Jonathan Swan and Kara Swisher. One recent accomplishment is the launch of Inside With Jen Psaki on MSNBC. He partnered with UTA’s Publishing department to secure a deal for MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan’s book, Win Every Argument, which soared to the top of The New York Times bestseller list. Paskin is a former talent executive at ABC News who later joined the online news publication Mic. He is co-chair of UTA Proud, the UTA employee inclusion group dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ members at the company.

Denise Peluso
VP, Research and Insights
BBC Studios

Denise Peluso is responsible for consumer insights and research across all BBC Studios business units in the North America and Latin America region. Since joining BBC Studios in 2015, she has helmed insights for content distribution, brands, marketing, streaming channel launches, consumer products and production. She oversees a team of multidisciplinary researchers whose remits span from analysis of content performance in market to UX research supporting BBC’s digital news and streaming division. As the company expands in North America with the rollout of new platforms and consumer experiences, Peluso has added to her team and led efforts to gain key insights into consumer perception for the BBC in the region. She started out at Universal McCann on Sony’s research team before moving to Comedy Central’s ad sales research division. 

Jackie Perez
Director, Business Development
Spectrum Reach

Jackie Perez has 14 years of experience in advertising, holding roles in the worlds of media, agency and ad tech. She uses her expertise to help build Spectrum Reach’s programmatic business from the ground up. Her clients today include WPP, Publicis Groupe, Havas Media and Procter and Gamble. She created Spectrum Reach’s first‐ever programmatic story and its corresponding sales materials, and was the first to represent the company as an expert on programmatic at industry events. Before joining Spectrum Reach, the ad-sales division of Charter Communications, Perez held positions at Time Inc. (now Dotdash Meredith), IPG Mediabrands’ Magna and Yahoo (formerly Verizon Media), and has consulted clients such as Verizon, Visa, Allstate, Best Buy and GSK.

Kendra Prasad
VP, Acquisition
The Farmer’s Dog

Kendra Prasad has more than nine years of marketing and performance expertise and industry experience and is passionate about building holistic customer-centric growth strategies that enable growth and retention. Her big moment came during Super Bowl LVII, where a commercial for The Farmer’s Dog won USA Today’s Ad Meter. “Our product can be perceived as niche, but it’s good for everyone with a dog,” Prasad said of the big investment in one commercial. “TV’s huge platform and visual nature let us tell our story and ‘why’ in a way we can’t with digital.“ The emotional spot follows the life of Bear, a chocolate lab, as he grows older alongside his owner, Ava. The tagline? “Nothing matters more than more years together.” 

Cosmina Schulman
SVP, Strategic Partnerships
NESN

Cosmina (LaBella) Schulman is responsible for advertising sales revenues at NESN, the regional sports network televising the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins, and for building out sales strategies. As part of the executive management team she plays an active role in determining vision and business approach. Previously, she was NESN’s national sales manager and local sales manager. She started her career at Home Team Sports, a division of Fox Sports, and sold for every NBA, NHL and NBA RSN in the country. She also is the VP of Women in Sports and Events Boston chapter and the executive chair of NESN’s ERG group, Women of NESN. She worked to conceive NESN’s sports-betting strategy, and her team brought to life the first-ever titled Dunkin’ Beanpot college hockey tournament, a collaboration between The Beanpot, TD Garden and NESN. 

Travis Scoles
SVP, Advanced Advertising
Paramount Global

Travis Scoles’s foresight and strategic thinking have been critical to shaping Paramount into a dominant engine of innovation and leadership within advanced advertising. He has been integral in optimizing the ways advertisers are able to leverage Vantage, Paramount’s advanced targeting product, to achieve deeper engagement and has instituted technological advancements that have further solidified Paramount’s leadership position in the space. He is also actively involved in driving thought and product leadership in advanced advertising. Scoles oversees all aspects of Vantage as well as other internal data optimization and analysis products. He also manages key efforts in currency and measurement innovation. Scoles joined the company, then called ViacomCBS, in February 2020. 

Jenna Silver
SVP, Industry Marketing, U.S. Advertising Sales
TelevisaUnivision

Jenna Silver oversees a team of strategic business-to-business marketers charged with positioning Spanish-language media and content company TelevisaUnivision as the go-to destination for helping brands grow with U.S. Hispanic audiences. Silver also leads the strategy and development of the company’s annual upfront presentation and its thought leadership conference, “Leading the Change.” Prior to TelevisaUnivision, she held sales marketing and client solutions roles spanning print, digital/mobile and out-of-home/experiential media with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Trusted Media Brands (formerly Reader’s Digest Association) and News Corp. She is a proud founding member of eMERGE, TelevisaUnivision’s early-career employee resource group. 

Josh Sims
Fox NASCAR Host and Reporter
Fox Sports

Josh Sims joined Fox Sports in July 2021 as a reporter for NASCAR Race Hub, NASCAR RaceDay and select NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races on pit road, becoming the first African-American reporter to cover pit road for a NASCAR national series television broadcast. In 2023, he made his NASCAR Cup Series pit-reporting debut in the Daytona 500 as part of a select schedule of Cup Series races throughout the season. Sims also added a full season of NASCAR Xfinity Series pit reporting to his schedule, while maintaining his NASCAR Race Hub co-hosting duties. He joined Fox Sports from WJZY, the Fox affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was a sports anchor and reporter from 2015 to 2021. At Fox, he has been able to help showcase diverse voices within NASCAR, including a feature story on Jusan Hamilton, the first Black race director of the Daytona 500. 

Thomas Staples
Master Control Operator
Cheddar News

Thomas Staples is an award-winning director and producer, technical director, video engineer and cinematographer with extensive experience in multicam directing, projection, editing, stage production and video engineering. In the theater, he worked for nine years as technical director of the American Negro Playwright Theatre. His television experience spans a range of diverse shows such as Black College Quiz, ESPN’s Monday Night Football and the Stellar Awards. At Altice USA’s Cheddar News, he has held several roles from broadcast editor to master control operator. He excelled in master control shifting, previously an in-studio-only job, to more than three years of remote operations on daily live news broadcasts with Cheddar News.

Lindsay Stewart
VP, FAST and AVOD Revenue Strategy
AMC Networks

Lindsay Stewart leads strategic direction and business development for AMC Networks’s free, ad-supported streaming products. Internally tapped to launch the company’s first FAST partnership with Pluto TV in 2020, Stewart has been integral to the continued development of the company’s growing portfolio of FAST channels, which now includes 13 owned channels like The Walking Dead Universe, Stories by AMC and AMC Thrillers across platforms including Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Vizio, Sling and Redbox. Stewart also was critical to the 2022 creation and launch of the ALLBLK Gems and AMC en Español FAST channels. With over a decade of experience in digital content strategy, partnerships, marketing and distribution, she joined AMC Networks in 2012. 

Adam Verdugo
Executive Producer, ‘CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell’
CBS News

Since June 2022 Adam Verdugo has executive produced the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, based in Washington, D.C. He was part of the program’s launch team in 2019 and played a key role in its move to Washington as executive story editor. After joining CBS News in 2013, Verdugo has worked closely with O’Donnell for more than a decade. He has helped develop franchises on the newscast including “Profiles in Service,” featuring everyday Americans and U.S. military service members who dedicate their lives to helping others, and he helped launch and currently manages Person to Person With Norah O’Donnell on the CBS News Streaming Network. He began his career at NBC News and was a senior producer on Meet the Press.

Brian Weiss
VP, Entertainment Programming and Multicast Networks
Tegna

Brian Weiss joined the successful startup company Cooper Media to launch true-crime multicast network Justice Network in 2015, and helped lead the strategy and launch of action-adventure reality network Quest in 2018. He was president of the networks when they were acquired by broadcast group Tegna in 2019. Weiss has a track record of working effectively with others to drive distribution and sales growth by finding mutually beneficial partnerships. At Tegna, he leads all entertainment content, including true-crime production group Vault Studios and the syndicated program Daily Blast Live. Before Cooper Media, Weiss led business development and partnerships for The Washington Post, where he helped strike revenue-share distribution deals with YouTube, Hulu, Amazon and Microsoft. He began his career at Bloomberg. 

Patrick West
Senior Manager, Sales
Amagi

After joining Amagi in June 2022, Patrick West has become a valued partner for many U.S. news organizations and station groups navigating the world of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) and cloud-based playout and distribution workflows. He brought to Amagi more than 15 years of media distribution and technology experience. West previously worked at CNN’s Newsource business for seven years, building a terrific network of news leaders. In less than a year, he helped deploy FAST strategies for station groups like Graham Media Group, Imagicomm and Morgan Murphy Media. Earlier, West worked at CNN Newsource as senior director of sales and affiliate relations. Prior to CNN, he worked at Inform, a video platform connecting content owners with digital publishers. He also was affiliate distribution manager for The Weather Channel. 

Travis Winkler
General Manager, Video and Audio 
Bloomberg

Travis Winkler oversees Bloomberg L.P.’s video and audio business, including the teams responsible for worldwide video and audio distribution, business development, content partnerships and business operations. In February, he led the cross-functional launch of Bloomberg Originals (previously Quicktake), featuring cinematic documentary-style deep dives, talk shows, live events and video podcasts. He and his team negotiated deals for bringing on the hosts of Getting Warmer With Kal Penn and The Future With Hannah Fry, the first two Bloomberg Originals shows. Winkler’s team also continues to score wins with distribution of Bloomberg TV Plus and Bloomberg Originals, including 2023 launches on Amazon Prime Video in Canada, Mexico, Australia and Brazil.

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. 

A campaign submitted by Magnite for Travel Texas won the 2023 Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for best definition of a target market.

The award will be presented at the Advanced Advertising Summit on September 11 in New York. Previously, it was announced that a campaign for Ken Ganley Kia New Port Richey (Florida) won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Best Use of Data.

The “Get Your Own Trip to Texas” creative aimed to showcase that Texas has something for everyone and that every trip to Texas is unique.

The goal of the campaign was to provide incontrovertible evidence that the long-awaited convergence of traditional TV and CTV has finally arrived and that the intricacy of technical execution is no longer an obstacle to success.

Magnite’s programmatic addressable offering enabled Travel Texas to broaden its campaign footprint across key audience segments compared to OTT alone, driving overall incremental reach and growing its consumer pool by 21-35%.

The results, measured in a cross-platform analysis by InnovidXP, also demonstrated a significantly higher conversion efficiency for linear addressable across Travel Texas’ key audience segments compared to CTV/OTT.

Proof Advertising, Travel Texas’ digital buying agency, had been working with its client to shift to new ways of looking at video for several years. Prior to this, Travel Texas was focused more on traditional linear buying. Having incorporated programmatic linear addressable into its video mix for the past few years, working with Magnite significantly expanded its access to inventory.

Segment selection was carefully and meticulously curated with quality data partners such as LG, Epsilon, Acxiom and more. Each segment selected has a tried and true data collection method that is reliable and direct, and all segments are refreshed continuously for accuracy.

The Team from Proof Advertising was also able to use its first-party data segment and target over-the-top and connected TV, as well as addressable linear. in the same media plan.

Honing Target Audiences

The target audience was comprised of the following groups: Millennial adults age 26-41, with household incomes of $60,000 to $150,000 with or without children under 18 within the household; travel-enabled millennials, age 26-41, with household incomes of $150,000 and up with or without children under 18 in the household; Gen X adults age 42-57 with household incomes of $60,000 to $150,000 with or without children in the household; and travel-enabled Gen X adults with household incomes of $175,000 and up with or without kids; baby boomers 58-76 with household incomes of $60,000 to $125,000; travel-enabled boomers with incomes of $125,000 and up; and Generation Z members age 18-25 with incomes of $40,000 and up.

Magnite worked with data partners including LG, Innovid, and TransUnion, which provided access to ACR data, digital attribution and measurement, respectively. All device types showed strong performance and surpassed Magnite’s KPI benchmarks.

Media types included CTV FEP, OLV, Addressable, CTV Live Sports, CTV HBO Max, LG ACR and Social.

Throughout the campaign, Magnite provided holistic frequency and pacing across both OTT and linear addressable, while Proof Advertising delivered against Travel Texas’s custom audience segments. Innovid XP provided accurate, real-time measurement across both linear addressable and CTV/OTT environments.

Innovid XP provided real-time measurement across linear addressable and CTV/OTT.

Programmatic Adds Value

The results achieved led Travel Texas to increase investment with Magnite following the initial success of the campaign and speak to the power of bringing the granularity of programmatic digital to traditional TV, capturing valuable audiences who would otherwise have been overlooked in an OTT-only execution.

“Working with Magnite has allowed us to reach our desired audiences with highly effective, tailored messages at moments when they are most receptive to advertising,” Heather Hager, director of media services at Proof Advertising, said.“The addition of programmatic addressable to Magnite’s inventory portfolio gives us centralized planning and frequency management capabilities across linear and digital, Hager said.

Said Magnite senior VP, advanced solutions Matt McLeggon: “The extension of programmatic capabilities to traditional television environments represents a significant step in the evolution of television advertising. Magnite intends to stay at the forefront of the growth of addressability across all environments where TV is consumed. The results we’ve achieved with Travel Texas show the clear impact this strategy can have on the reach and efficiency of audience-focused advertising.”

The Advanced Advertising Summit is part of NYC TV Week, which is produced by Broadcasting+Cable publisher Future plc.

Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards will also be presented for Best Use of Branded Content, Best Use of Multiple Platforms and Best Campaign Overall.

NYC TV Week wrapped up a successful return to live-event status by honoring the 2022 “40 Under 40” New York with an awards party at 230 Fifth in Manhattan on September 15. Forty under 40 recognizes a select group of emerging executives who are pushing the boundaries of innovation in the video industry. NYC TV Week also included the Advanced Advertising Summit, Next TV Summit and Hispanic TV Summit. For more coverage from the weeklong event, click here. 

The 20th Annual Hispanic Television Summit, held September 15 at etc.venues as part of NYC TV Week, explored the multiple ways that television programming is embracing Hispanic culture in 2022 across platforms from streaming to broadcast to traditional pay TV, with a special focus on the increasing preference for programming made by Hispanics for Hispanics. The event also included the annual Hispanic Television Awards, honoring top executives and on-air personalities in the sector. Here are some snapshots from the daylong event.  

Distributors of live sports programming need to be willing to play on both linear and digital TV platforms in an effort to effectively reach sports fans and maximize revenue opportunities, according to executives speaking at the Next TV Summit.

With live sports programming continuing to drive ratings for linear broadcast and cable channels, executives speaking at the “Live Sports: The Last Unbundle?” panel Tuesday — part of NYC TV Week — said that high-profile sports events will not aggressively migrate to streaming services in the near future. That doesn’t mean that streaming services aren’t a suitable and lucrative destination for live sports programming in an effort to reach cord-cutting sports fans.

“There will continue to be this hybrid; there’s not going to be a single solution for any league or broadcaster,” FIFA Plus head of audience Laura Andriani said. “I think there’s going to be a figuring out process of what’s best for each proposition.”

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

Indeed, Bally Sports chief product officer Michael Allen said that while the company offers live, compelling pro sports programming through its 19 linear-based regional sports networks, later this month it will launch Bally Sports Plus, a subscription digital service that will allow consumers to purchase content from their respective regional networks outside of traditional MVPDs and satellite distributors.

“We see Bally Plus as complementary to what’s already in the market,” he said. “If [customers] are cord-cutters or cord-nevers, we now provide a new way in which they can consume this content.”

The recently launched free FIFA Plus digital service will offer more than 40,000 live soccer matches from around the world this year as a complement to the World Cup TV rights deal FIFA has with Fox Sports through 2026. Andriani says the streaming service allows the organization to superserve rabid fans with both live and originally produced content that’s translated into 10 different languages.

“Fans want to see different things, so [FIFA Plus] is really a test-and-learn [service],” she said. “There’s a need for FIFA to have a more constant touchpoint with fans, not just every four years [for the World Cup].”

Ultimately, big-ticket sports properties like the NFL, NBA and MLB will continue to have a major presence on broadcast television, but for second-tier sports like rugby, track and field or bowling, the digital platform can provide opportunities for fans to consume content from their favorite sports, according to FloSports VP of global operations Michael Levy. The FloSports subscription streaming service offers more than 200,000 live sports events across more than 25 sports.

“I see an ongoing conversion of tier-1 sports-TV rights going to the biggest players in the market, and I see more and more of that tier-2 sports-league rights being underserved and set aside,“ he said. ”Someone is going to have to fill that void.” ■ 

Hispanics feel underrepresented, almost invisible, on TV — and that should be a concern for marketers missing out on what could be effective campaigns to Latinos, experts on the subject said Wednesday at the Hispanic TV Summit during NYC TV Week.

Carlos Santiago is a co-founder of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA’s) Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing. At the 20th anniversary Hispanic TV Summit Wednesday, he said Latinos have the strongest interest of any multicultural consumer group in seeing programming they feel authentically represents them. They also respond well to ads that feel culturally relevant to them, Santiago and a co-panelist, Veronica Hernandez, product manager of inclusion analytics, at Nielsen, said. 

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

“From all of the segments, the segments where culture has the most weight to the sales success of a campaign is among Hispanics,” Santiago said. “It explains 78% of the success of a campaign. For other segments, it’s a little bit below 60%. Hispanics, when they see culture, they make a connection that takes them to the purchase.”

Using the Spanish language in ads, he said, can add 22% to the success of a campaign, all of which means authentic and relevant content is key to return on investment. “The impact is not marginal. The impact is astronomical.”

Severely Under-Represented

Nielsen estimated Hispanics make up only 13% of on-screen casting on TV, and the figure drops to 7% when Spanish-language programmers are removed from the mix, Hernandez said. By contrast, Hispanics were about 19% of the population as measured by the 2020 U.S. Census.

Hispanics also are the multicultural consumer category (77%) most likely to feel stereotyped in portrayals on TV, Santiago said. And 59% of Hispanics, according to AIMM research, believe they are under-represented or not represented at all in shows on TV. “They feel invisible because they are invisible,” Santiago said of Hispanic TV viewers.

On English-language networks, there’s a scarcity of shows that feel culturally relevant to Latinos and not enough such shows being developed, Santiago said, citing the cancellation of shows such as Jane the Virgin (The CW), Vida (Starz) and Netflix’s La Casa de las Flores and Mr. Iglesias. Not enough similar fare is being developed, he said. “There really is nothing out there,” Santiago said.

Hernandez said Hispanics love to watch programming on streaming platforms: 44% of the content Hispanics watch is on streaming, 9 points higher than the general population. An increase in free ad-supported streaming channels in Spanish would give marketers more opportunities to reach those consumers with culturally relevant advertising, she said. For more about Latinos' preferences for streaming, read this Nielsen report released the day of the summit. 

She also said the U.S. Hispanic population is increasingly diverse. There are 3.8 million Afro Latinos, she said, and the Asian Latino segment has grown 23% since the 2010 Census. “We’re young, we’re queer, we’re differently abled, so there is just not enough content to capture all of the nuance that exists in the community,” Hernandez said.

U.S. Hispanics are mostly (67%) born in the U.S., she said. “This generation has also been really exposed to social justice and equity issues. That empowers us to demand more as consumers of the content that is being offered to us.”

“I think that the expectations from Gen Z is not just to see your identity but to see it in a positive light,” Santiago added. “It’s beyond having someone in the cast that is Hispanic. It’s to make sure that that representation is accurate. That you feel proud of that representation. When all of that is encapsulated in a great storyline, great series, then consumers, respondents, viewers are rating that at a high level. When combined with advertising that is in that context, that increases ROI.”

Not Enough Content

The summit began with comments from Gonzalo Del Fa, chairman of the Hispanic Marketing Council and president of GroupM Multicultural, urging TV executives in the room to insist that English-language programmers have Latinos represented more fairly before and behind the cameras. "Besides the Hispanic networks, is there enough relevant and authentic content? Not at all," he said. 

Among the growth statistics Del Fa cited about the Hispanic population was its spending power: $1.9 trillion, he said, compared with $495 billion in 2000 when the first Hispanic TV Summit was held. In 2025, he said, U.S. Latinos' estimated spending power will be $2.5 trillion. 

NYC Television Week also included the Advanced Advertising and Next TV summits. It ends tonight (September 15) with the 40 Under 40 Awards. ￭

Some of the video industry’s leading executives gathered at New York’s etc.venues on September 13 for the Next TV Summit, where they discussed the most pressing economic, operational and technological issues facing the streaming business while offering valuable insights into how to succeed in today’s unprecedented disruptive times. The event, part of NYC TV Week, also honored the inaugural winners of the Next TV Innovation Awards. Here are some snapshots from the daylong affair. 

Professionals from across the TV advertising disciplines caught up on the latest issues, trends and changes on the horizon for the sector at the Advanced Advertising Summit, held September 12 at New York’s etc.venues as part of NYC TV Week. The 2022 Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards winners were also recognized. Here are some snapshots from the day-long event. 

With streaming video companies looking for ways to stem the slowdown in subscriber growth, a panel of experts at the Next TV Summit said using an old cable tenet — bundling — could help attract more price-conscious consumers into the fold. 

At the “Recession Realities” panel at the gathering Tuesday, part of NYC TV Week, Weather Group senior VP and chief marketing officer Fred Bucher said the same economic forces and price sensitivity that killed the cable bundle are apparently making a comeback with streaming. Already streamers like Disney, with its Hulu, ESPN Plus and Disney Plus bundle, and others are repackaging services to make them more attractive to consumers. 

“Economic forces and price sensitivity is what killed the cable bundle, and that’s continuing,” Bucher said, adding that price sensitivity and churn are driving the creation of different tiers of pricing and services like ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services.

Weather Group launched its own streaming service — Local Now — to address cord-cutters who missed local news and entertainment content.

“A lot of the answers for the future are in the past,” Bucher said, adding that what built the cable business — aggregation, better pricing and bundling — will likely be cornerstones of SVOD and AVOD models in a few years. 

Panel moderator Jon Geigengack, founder and principal of Hub Entertainment Research, said that as the bundle grows, consumers will crave a way to make finding content easier, and aggregation is one way to satisfy that need. 

DirecTV Advertising Group VP, client success, programmatic and ad operations Rose McGovern agreed, adding that aggregation is what DirecTV does best. Citing recent Nielsen research, she said about 64% of customers wish to have a bundle that includes as much or as little content as they want. 

That includes live and local programming as well, McGovern added, with about 67% of people nationally watching live content every day. 

As content streaming choices grow, Bucher said it is imperative that content companies get the word out, and that means marketing becomes more important than ever. 

“The biggest threat is underinvestment in marketing,” Bucher said. “It starts with great content, great product experience, and great marketing. If you don’t have those three things, you’re not going to win.” 

Bucher added that critical to the marketing effort is that streamers really know their consumers. 

“You have to understand who your consumers are, understand who your hard core users are too  and make them happy,” Bucher said.

And once you’ve hooked a viewer, the trick is keeping them. At AMC Networks, executive VP of performance marketing Sylvia George said engagement is a critical part of the equation. 

“What is so critical is your audience,” George said. “The relationship with the audience, super-serving the audience, making sure that you’re segmenting your audience based on data, based on what is your audience engaging with once they come in — not just the first thing they watch, what’s the second and third thing they watch. Getting people engaged within a specific time period is critical to ensuring retention. If you don’t get your subscriber engaged within a few weeks, you’re at risk of losing them. You can’t get complacent.”

The panel also was encouraged by Netflix’s plan to launch an ad-supported version of the service soon. The company has already partnered with Microsoft to provide the tech infrastructure for the AVOD service. 

“In some ways, they could help re-energize the advertising business,” Bucher said, adding that Netflix doesn’t have the “institutional inertia” of some other companies that have long been in the ad business. “It’s kind of cool to take a fresh look.”

Bucher was especially encouraged by the vast amount of data in Netflix's arsenal, adding that the ad business may never get this chance again. 

McGovern also was encouraged by the potential for more innovation that a Netflix AVOD product could bring. For example, a departure from the traditional 15-second to 30-second ad spot.

But Bucher warned that whatever comes out of the Netflix AVOD experiment will depend on outside pressures. 

“There’s a lot of stuff they could do that could be an enormous amount of fun… but what it’s going to come down to will be how much pressure they’re under to deliver a number of revenue,” Bucher said. “If there are huge revenue expectations, that’s going to diminish innovation, because they are going to default to what they know, and agencies will say, ‘Just make it easy for me.’ That, to me, will be a shame. 

“The irony is that Reed Hastings, who was so dogmatic for so long about advertising, can actually become the person to really reinvent the space,” Bucher continued. “I hope they’re given the time to do that. “ ■ 

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Geir Skaaden 
Executive VP and Chief Products and Services Officer Xperi Corp. 

Xperi purchased TiVo for $3 billion three years ago. 

Geir Skaaden is a key Xperi architect, helping build a global streaming strategy based on that acquisition. Xperi wants its TiVo Stream TVOS to compete on the global stage with the dominant gateway streaming OS companies, Google, Amazon and Roku. Xperi’s TVOS will be “very different from the big tech platforms, which take away the customer and maintain all the economics that go with that relationship,” Skaaden told Next TV in July, shortly after his company announced the purchase of European video software company Vewd, a key ingredient in its product TVOS plan. 

Xperi sees its market as being tier-two smart-TV makers in regions like Europe — those that don’t have the wherewithal or desire to supply their own OS, as Samsung and LG do. 

Xperi’s Linux-based, TiVo-branded software will give these smart TV manufacturers a customizable platform alternative to the big third-party OS gateways, allowing them to maintain their branding and their economics. 

Xperi already has a deal with an unnamed smart-TV manufacturer to use the software. The product will hit shelves in mid2023, Xperi said. 

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

William J. Rouhana
CEO, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment

Blockchain could play a “critical” role in the ad-tech business, providing needed transparency and helping smaller companies counter the walled gardens of advertising behemoths like Google, Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook said during a session at NYC TV Week’s Advanced Advertising Summit Monday.

“Blockchain is going to play a critical role in advertising,” Vanderhook said, adding that one of the big concerns for ad-tech companies at present is whether publishers are getting paid properly. 

“When you think of the blockchain and putting the payment on the blockchain for the publisher, you can now have full transparency up the chain on who got paid what,” Vanderhook continued. “I think for advertisers, who we represent, they want trans to make sure we deliver the dollar to the publisher that was supposed to get there. So I think the blockchain is going to deliver transparency in spades, which is going to be an enormous thing.”

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

He also saw the currency as a means to return some control to smaller companies dealing with huge behemoths like Google for their ad revenue.  

“The blockchain can also help to counter walled gardens, big walled gardens like Google who run centralized ad exchanges,” Vanderhook said. “You’re basically at their mercy to get your check 60 days later. And they can change the impressions, they can change the dollar amount, there’s no real control. I think there is something around the blockchain in creating a decentralized advertising service that the whole Open Web can tap into that no one controls.”

Vanderhook admitted it will probably be a while until something like that becomes reality, but “I just feel like there’s there there.”

Vanderhook has made his living anticipating the future, with varying results. A co-founder of FAST pioneer Xumo with his brother Chris in 2011, the two sold the company to Comcast in 2019, just 12 days before the pandemic hit. 

“I looked at my brother and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it was the first time in life we’ve ever been lucky,’ ” Vanderhook joked. “And about a month later we spoke to the CEO [and], he said, ‘Man, you won’t believe it, revenue is up 400%, usage is up 500%,’ and they were off and running. Still not lucky.’ ”  

But that same year the two brothers repurchased another startup they founded and earlier sold to Time Inc., ad-tech firm Viant. The Vanderhooks bought back Viant for about $50 million in total valuation. When they took the company public in 2021, Viant had a $1.5 billion valuation and raised $286 million. The stock has since fallen sharply — it is down about 92% from its closing price on February 12, 2021, the date of its IPO, but Vanderhook added the offering served its purpose, providing the capital needed to move the business forward. 

“We got the capital and have been investing in R&D and the business is off and running and doing great,“ he said. ”The stock price is still in the tank, but the business fundamentals are great.”

Xumo was one of the first FAST services, but now it appears to be one of the hottest segments in the industry. Vanderhook said he and his brother based Xumo on the Spotify model, basically offering something for free with ads and driving those customers to the paid, ad-free service.  

Now companies that have held out from offering ads — Netflix and Disney Plus — are planning to launch ad-supported versions. Vanderhook said it could have a huge impact on revenue for both companies. 

“In the end, free users create who you go after to create paid subscribers,” Vanderhook said. “And free is the cheapest way to pull somebody into a new service. Anyone who’s in growth marketing knows that if you roll free content, you’re going to get a lot more people to tune in. That’s a lot easier and more cost-efficient than getting people to sign up for a free trial of a brand new service.” 

As far as the revenue impact, Vanderhook noted that FuboTV generates about $7 in ad-supported revenue each month. For Roku, it’s $3.75 per month and Vizio generates about $2 in monthly ad revenue. 

“This is huge when you compare it to $15 a month for just a subscription,” Vanderhook said. “It has the ability to substantially lift their revenue.”

Vanderhook also is encouraged about the rise in interactivity on the internet, but added he feels the industry has only scratched the surface. The ability to manipulate video and place interactivity over content, for applications such as live gambling, is a step toward realizing the technology’s true potential, he added. 

“We’re still pushing videos, pre-produced and edited in a flat file and pushing it out to people, which is what linear TV created,” Vanderhook said. “It’s a great experience, but it could be so much more.”

On the interactive advertising side, Vanderhook said among the hurdles to overcome are “cookies,” the small pieces of data that are used to identify a user. With connected TVs, he says cookies are the reason that ads are duplicated so often. And luckily, Viant's specialty is delivering targeted ads without cookies. That cookie-less future is where Vanderhook believes the whole ad business is moving. 

“We think cookies are a really big problem,” he said. “When you get into CTV, we all have the same experience in streaming, everyone sees the same advertisement over and over again. Why is that? There’s no user ID for a DSP like us to stop buying the ad. When that ad request comes across, it looks like a new user every time, even though it's the same one. So, solving identity in these cookie-less environments like connected TV, that’s what we set out to do, that’s what we accomplished — our ID works 90% of the time across the hit stream.“ ▪️

Comcast Advertising president James Rooke called the notion that advertisers must choose between putting their money into linear or streaming networks but not both a “false narrative” at the Advanced Advertising Summit Monday, adding that only through collaboration will advanced ad tech get the boost it needs. 

“I think there is a narrative out there at the moment that says hey, you should be putting money in linear or streaming, and it’s an either or, I think that’s a false narrative,” Rooke said at the event, part of NYC TV Week. “The reason for that is because if you’re an advertiser, then ultimately you’re looking to reach your audience, get the maximum reach possible, the most efficient reach possible wherever those viewers are.”

Also: Comcast Finds Campaign Reach Peaks With 20%-30% of Spend on Streaming 

In the U.S. that means going after viewers with traditional TV, satellite, cable and telco video service, as well as cord-cutters who are getting video from streaming SVOD, FAST and AVOD providers.

“If you’re just buying CTV, then you're isolating a large portion of the population, and that seems problematic,” Rooke said. 

Rooke added that although it is clear that traditional linear TV is declining, it still represents the larger piece of the viewing audience and will for the foreseeable future.

“Our view is that traditional linear TV will remain a foundation for a cross-screen campaign,” Rooke added. “We think between 20% and 30% of budgets should be moved into streaming.”

Also: Group M's Gerber Says Measurement is Still Key to Ad Evolution 

In that scenario, linear TV starts to slag off with lighter viewing households. That’s where streaming comes in, he said. According to Rooke, dollars spent on streaming gets 2.5 times better performance and spending dollars on live streaming results in 2.5 times better performance in light TV households. 

“The point is, it’s not a choice of either/or,” Rooke said. “It is how you better plan and then manage optimization of delivery across the fragmented distribution points that you’ve got that’s going to get you to a better outcome.”

Rooke also championed collaboration between streaming and traditional TV outlets, pointing to Comcast’s recent partnership with Charter Communications for its Flex TV streaming service. 

Other pearls of wisdom from the Comcast executive included:

• Better measurement is needed, but Comcast isn’t choosing sides. Rooke said that while measurement may be “broken,” Comcast “is not in the business of picking a winner.” Instead, Rooke said Comcast would rather help stimulate competition and innovation. “We don't want to replace Nielsen, we believe in a multi-currency world that is solving for cross screen. … From a data standpoint, we are willing to have conversations with players to be able to license aggregated viewership data to them, in spirit helping them to solve for that problem.”
• The midterm elections are going to play a big role in Advanced Advertising’s success. Rooke estimated ad revenue from the mid-terms could be $10 billion higher than the 2020 presidential election or about 3.5 times bigger than the last midterm elections. “It’s the strongest category by far,” he said. “We’re gearing up for the window that’s coming up.” He said Comcast is aiming to try to get more of the dollars that overwhelmingly go to local broadcast TV stations.
• Rooke sees the biggest challenge for advanced advertising going forward is the “significant” amount of backend transfer work that needs to take place going forward. “There’s a lot of engine room work that needs to get done to be able to bring the industry to the promised land,” he said. NYC TV Week continues with the Next TV Summit and Hispanic Television Summit. ■ 

Advanced Advertising Summit panel “The Local View” looked at TV stations and cable operators reaping revenue on their digital and over-the-top platforms. Local advertising on linear TV is in a good spot, the panelists said, and OTT adds to the take. 

“What we like to focus on is the tremendous broad reach of broadcast,” said Christopher Martinez, Hearst Television OTT director of sales. “Linear and OTT working together has revitalized the need for local.”

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

Jon Lafayette, business editor of B+C Multichannel News, moderated the panel. 

Jim Loughran, senior VP of convergent video partnerships at Viamedia, acknowledged the cord-cutting issue and said, “broadcast and cable have huge reach and it’s not going away.“ Adding OTT to the local mix, he added, “makes the reach excellent.”

Kristin Wnuk, director of local sales at Roku, mentioned the measurability of OTT. “CTV and OTT absolutely gives clients the opportunity to extend their reach,” she said. “It also gives clients the opportunity to measure differently.”

Carol Hinnant, Comscore chief revenue officer, said there are “too many siloes” in terms of measuring viewing on the various platforms. “That is definitely the challenge,” she said.

Loughran mentioned how some clients don’t understand the value of some of the advanced measurements available to them, including cross-platform attribution. “People are very comfortable with doing things the way they’ve been doing them for a long time,” he said, adding that it’s on the salespeople to tell the story well.

Hinnant agreed. “That’s the key word, educating,” she said, “The desire to have better metrics is there.”

Wnuk said most everyone in television is trying to bridge the gap between linear and digital. “We are at a time when not all ad impressions are created equally,” she added.

When Lafayette asked about hot ad categories, the panelists mentioned the chip shortage continuing to slow down auto sales, but said other categories have bumped up. Loughran mentioned COVID testing and vaccine centers, cannabis, sports gambling and solar energy ramping up spending. “You have things that didn’t exist before,” he said.

Political spending, the panelists noted, remains red hot around our divided nation. “Political’s very strong. It’s gonna be very strong until they change the rules,” said Loughran. 

Despite reports of its demise, local television looks to stay hot, the panelists agreed. “Is local dead?” Wnuk asked. “It’s absolutely not.” 

NYC TV Week continues on Tuesday with the Next TV Summit and on Wednesday with the Hispanic TV Summit. ■

The Advanced Advertising Summit panel “CTV’s Big Moment“ looked at the booming connected-TV space and how the likes of Disney Plus and Netflix will fare as they push into the ad-supported connected-TV world. Adam Gaynor, chief revenue officer and interim president of Gamut, said the category looks “incredibly strong,” with more and more viewing happening on the streaming side. 

Diana Horowitz, Imagine Communications VP of strategic sales and advertising technology, said the viewer boom is a catalyst for advertising. “As viewership continues to grow,” she said, “the advertising outlook is very strong.”

Danielle DeLauro, VAB executive VP, moderated the panel. Lori Cassorla, senior VP, group media director, investments at Mediahub Worldwide, said a lot of advertisers Mediahub works with are shifting to streaming, “but it’s definitely not a wholesale share shift,” with broadcast still commanding eyeballs. 

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

DeLauro asked the panel about Netflix and Disney Plus entering the advertising space. Marni Rommel, VP of business development at Beachfront, said users will try the new platforms. “I think we’ll see a lot of testing and experimenting” in the near future, she said. “People follow the content they want to see.”

Anthony Susi, director at Xandr, said a minimal ad load will be likely for Netflix. “When you’re into Stranger Things, you don’t want to break,” he said. “It needs to be a careful go-to-market.”

Gaynor noted how frequent repetition of ads diminishes the viewer experience considerably. “We know what we do in the marketplace helps the end-all viewer,” he said. 

The panel mentioned how the streamers will be bigger players in sports. “Live sports is a huge, huge piece of the marketplace and content that people crave,” Cassorla said.

Programmatic was also discussed. Gaynor said programmatic “should be considered a process, and not a product.” He mentioned how programmatic “drastically limits our ability to scale in a marketplace,” whether it’s campaigning politicians or car dealers. 

The panelists said the FAST category looks to remain hot. “We’re getting a lot of demand from our customers,” said Horowitz. “There’s a hunger for the great content. Free ad-supported content, I expect to see a lot of growth.”

Free is the right price for many in this day and age. “People are only willing to pay for a certain amount of subscriptions,” Cassorla said. “The fragmentation is making us all build our own cable bundles.” ■

As streaming video tightens its grip on the way consumers view and engage with content, advertisers need to find ways to effectively measure audiences in the new paradigm, while at the same time remain flexible in how they sell ads beyond traditional pods and shows, Group M executive director, U.S. investment strategy Adam Gerber said at the Advanced Advertising Summit, leading off NYC TV Week. 

Measurement has been a major concern for advertisers, networks and buyers for years as streaming has further fragmented viewership. Gerber, who kicked off his speech by comparing the current ad environment to the Doomsday Glacier — the massive sheet of arctic ice that is expected to play havoc with world sea levels — said fragmentation is much different today, promoting the need for the industry to work together to find effective solutions.

Also: More Coverage from the 10th Anniversary NYC TV Week

Gerber, in a fireside chat with B+C Multichannel News business editor Jon Lafayette, said that in the past, fragmentation meant more distribution choices — hundreds of cable channels versus four broadcasters — but could still be measured via passive panels. With impression-based advertising, measurement becomes dependent on publishers implementing tags or conducting server-to-server integration with measurement companies, which most publishers choose to avoid.  

Also: AVOD a Growing Part of Streaming: Nielsen 

“That’s the growing problem, as measurement is dependent on a publisher or a media company deploying either an SDK, server-to-server integration or a tag, as soon as one of the big ones decides not to participate in that, you don’t have a view of the marketplace,” Gerber said.

But the answer isn’t necessarily having a new measurement currency for the industry, Gerber said, adding that every advertiser will have a different way to evaluate the marketplace and do deals with publishers. Whether that is through attention metrics, audience based metrics or something else depends on the size of the advertiser. But he does believe that the industry needs a common way to size the overall market.

As streaming becomes more prevalent — Nielsen reported that streaming video share surpassed cable and broadcast for the first time ever during the month of July — Gerber said questions around ad capacity and valuation become more important. That gap could widen as Netflix and Disney Plus unveil the ad-supported versions of their respective services. Gerber said while streaming’s dominance may be a little questionable on the ad-supported side — he said about half of streaming subs are in non-ad-supported services — those that do air ads do so with less frequency. 

The typical linear network airs 16 minutes to 18 minutes of ads every hour, Gerber estimated. For streamers, that ad load drops to between three minutes and seven minutes each hour. That works out to a 60% decline in ad capacity, meaning that every streaming ad impression has to work harder. 

Also: What If They Launched an Ad-Supported Streaming Service and No One Came? 

The solution, he said, isn’t in returning to the old model — something that will never happen, he believes — but in finding new ways to squeeze money out of ad impressions.

“The challenge for streaming companies is to find the right balance,” Gerber said. “It might not be pods and shows. It might be much more tied to some of the things tied to the streaming space, things like voice navigation, things like commerce, things like sponsor-based models in delivery of programming. I think we have to have a creative renaissance in the streaming space to find new ways to engage consumers in ways that don’t tick them off. I think we’re just getting around to it.” ■

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

William J. Rouhana 
Chairman and CEO Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment 

The name Chicken Soup for the Soul conjures feel-good self-help books in big-box retailers. But increasingly, the name should evoke the fast-growing streaming-video company that William J. Rouhana also heads. 

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment just pulled off another notable deal, buying struggling Redbox Entertainment to fill in most of what Chicken Soup still needed to achieve Rouhana’s vision of an AVOD-centered powerhouse precisely positioned for the future of TV. The deal has one overlap: It’s adding yet another small AVOD channel. 

The company already has Crackle, Popcornflix and, yes, Chicken Soup for the Soul. The new channel will expand ad inventory. But the deal also brought 36,000 video-rental kiosks, a transactional VOD service and a loyalty program with 40 million entertainment-loving customers. 

It also swelled the company’s library to 51,000 assets. In a techmedia market full of giant fish devouring smaller ones, Rouhana finds ways to keep on building. 

“We wouldn’t be the first company to use a legacy business to finance a new-age business,” he said. “This gives us an underlying stability. I like the combination of underlying businesses, in this case, as a way to reduce risk.”

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Erick Opeka
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

Erick Opeka drives Cinedigm’s corporate strategy and M&A efforts and also oversees a portfolio of 20 SVOD, AVOD and linear networks available online and on mobile devices, gaming consoles and connected TVs. 

He leads strategy, development, programming and operations for these networks, which include Fandor, Screambox, documentary network Docurama, fandom network CONtv, family-centered Dove Channel, Viewster Anime and more. 

Under Opeka’s leadership, the company has entered more than a dozen channel partnerships with large media players, including Warner Bros. Discovery- and Liberty Global-owned All3Media and American Public Media. Opeka also developed and launched Cinedigm’s proprietary over-the-top software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform Matchpoint. 

In addition to his efforts at Cinedigm, Opeka is a part-time adjunct professor at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School and has an influencer presence in the realm of tech-media social discussion. 

He is a board and executive committee member of OTT.X, the entertainment industry’s largest streaming trade organization. And he’s a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy. 

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Two years after launching Google’s second smartTV interface, Google TV, Shalini Govil-Pai still faces plenty of challenges as a top TVOS operative, leading the company’s troops in the ferocious global battle for market share of connected devices and screens. 

At the same time, she’s overseeing integrations of those interfaces with Google’s many other ventures and its even more numerous partners. To get there, Govil-Pai has an ambitious vision for the future of “the largest screen in the house” as a central hub for smart homes that integrates with the world’s biggest ad-supported service (YouTube), the AI-powered Google Assistant, third-party hardware and much else. 

“We expect to see a rise in creative use cases from video providers with shopping on-screen or shared viewing experiences,” Govil-Pai said in a written interview. 

“The role of the TV will also continue to expand beyond entertainment for other use cases that make sense, like fitness, gaming and video conferencing,” she added.  

Google TV launched as an upgrade/successor/flashier younger sibling to the widely used Android TV. Since then, Govil-Pai has presided over a string of improvements, including user profiles, an upgraded ambient mode, a virtual remote, new apps and integrations with Apple TV Plus, Sling TV, Philo and Pluto TV.

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Matt Duarte might have one of the great jobs in TV. He’s in charge of making the app for the YES Network — the regional sports network owned by the New York Yankees, Sinclair Broacast Group and Amazon — cooler and more useful to fans of the Yankees and three other pro-sports franchises. 

“We launched with core functionality delivering the highest-quality video player we could,” Duarte said. “We wanted to make sure when it launched that video quality was top-notch. What we’ve done since is layer on different ways for Yankees fans to engage with the game. We want to keep them in our ecosystem and have that choice of how they want to watch the game.” 

The continued improvements paid off quickly, viewership jumping 200% after launching in March 2021, and jumping another 35% this year. Among the popular features: a free “pick-and-play” competition awarding up to $25,000 a night for predicting game outcomes, a “Watch Together” function, and increasingly sophisticated live stats. 

Duarte also customizes the app experience for the very different needs of fans watching YES’s other teams, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA’s New York Liberty and MLS’s New York City FC.

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Todd Achilles
Co-Founder, CEO and President
Evoca TV

Todd Achilles leads a fledgling video company positioned on numerous cutting edges. Boise, Idaho-based Evoca TV is a virtual pay TV operator, infiltrated into 10 markets across five states. The low-priced, skinny-bundled Evoca platform, which is primarily targeted to rural customers, delivers most of its content via ATSC 3.0, not streaming (although there is a lower bandwidth internet protocol component to the service). To provide hardware for the platform, Achilles bootstrapped the manufacturing of Evoca’s proprietary set-tops out of China himself. And as regional sports networks begin to go over the top, Evoca has evolved to package these channels into inexpensive bundles that achieve a largely similar objective for sports fans who don’t want to pay the Full Pay TV Monty. “I think innovation is key to the future of broadcast, and I think the future of broadcast is incredibly bright,” Achilles told Next TV. “The new technology opens up new business models and that’s what we’re experimenting with.” Evoca’s rapid evolution has come despite ATSC 3.0’s slow rollout. “Part of that is regulatory-driven, part of it is broadcasters have lost that innovation muscle, and it’s coming back now,” Achilles said. “I believe the whole broadcast sector is going to transform.” — David Bloom

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer
Samba TV

Samba TV collects viewer data via a global network of 46 million addressable TV devices, primarily smart TVs, powered by the company’s wholly-owned full tech stack, which includes a multi-source television panel 100 times larger than legacy measurement systems. Samba TV and its solutions are involved in numerous advanced advertising initiatives, but we at Next TV are particularly interested in the company’s program performance metrics for streaming, which provide the immediate third-party audience measurement we’ve been unable to find elsewhere. Meredith Brace, a former Fox Corp. executive and OpenAP board member, is the marketing chief in charge of explaining this innovative company’s brand message.  — Daniel Frankel

Matt Duarte
VP of Strategy and Business Development
YES Network

Matt Duarte might have one of the great jobs in TV. He’s in charge of making the app of the YES Network — the regional sports network owned by the New York Yankees, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Amazon — cooler and more useful to fans of the team and three other pro-sports franchises. “We launched with core functionality delivering the highest-quality video player we could,” Duarte said. “We wanted to make sure when it launched that video quality was top-notch. What we’ve done since is layer on different ways for Yankees fans to engage with the game. We want to keep them in our ecosystem and have that choice of how they want to watch the game.” The continued improvements paid off quickly, viewership jumping 200% after launching in March 2021, and jumping another 35% this year. Among the popular features: a free “pick-and-play” competition awarding up to $25,000 a night for predicting game outcomes, a “Watch Together” function, and increasingly sophisticated live stats. Duarte also customizes the app experience for the very different needs of fans watching YES’s other teams, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA’s New York Liberty and MLS’s New York City FC. — DB

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms
Google

Two years after launching Google’s second smart-TV interface, Google TV, Shalini Govil-Pai still faces plenty of challenges as a top TVOS operative, leading the company’s troops in the ferocious global battle for market share of connected devices and screens. At the same time, she’s overseeing integrations of those interfaces with Google’s many other ventures and its even more numerous partners. To get there, Govil-Pai has an ambitious vision for the future of “the largest screen in the house” as a central hub for smart homes that integrates with the world’s biggest ad-supported service (YouTube), the AI-powered Google Assistant, third-party hardware and much else. “We expect to see a rise in creative use cases from video providers with shopping on-screen or shared viewing experiences,” Govil-Pai said in a written interview. “The role of the TV will also continue to expand beyond entertainment for other use cases that make sense, like fitness, gaming and video conferencing.” Google TV launched as an upgrade/successor/flashier younger sibling to the widely used Android TV. Since then, Govil-Pai has presided over a string of improvements, including user profiles, an upgraded ambient mode, a virtual remote, new apps and integrations with Apple TV Plus, Sling TV, Philo and Pluto TV. — DB

Geir Skaaden
Executive VP and Chief Products and Services Officer
Xperi Corp.

Xperi purchased TiVo for $3 billion three years ago. Geir Skaaden is a key Xperi architect, helping build a global streaming strategy based on that acquisition. Xperi wants its TiVo Stream TVOS to compete on the global stage with the dominant gateway streaming OS companies, Google, Amazon and Roku. Xperi’s TVOS will be “very different from the big tech platforms, which take away the customer and maintain all the economics that go with that relationship,” Skaaden told Next TV in July, shortly after his company announced the purchase of European video software company Vewd, a key ingredient in its product TVOS plan. Xperi sees its market as being tier-two smart-TV makers in regions like Europe — those that don’t have the wherewithal or desire to supply their own OS, as Samsung and LG do. Xperi’s Linux-based, TiVo-branded software will give these smart TV manufacturers a customizable platform alternative to the big third-party OS gateways, allowing them to maintain their branding and their economics. Xperi already has a deal with an unnamed smart-TV manufacturer to use the software. The product will hit shelves in mid-2023, Xperi said. — DF

William J. Rouhana
Chairman and CEO
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment

The name Chicken Soup for the Soul conjures feel-good self-help books in big-box retailers. But increasingly, the name should evoke the fast-growing streaming-video company that William J. Rouhana also heads. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment just pulled off another notable deal, buying struggling Redbox Entertainment to fill in most of what Chicken Soup still needed to achieve Rouhana’s vision of an AVOD-centered powerhouse precisely positioned for the future of TV. The deal has one overlap: It’s adding yet another small AVOD channel. The company already has Crackle, Popcornflix and, yes, Chicken Soup for the Soul. The new channel will expand ad inventory. But the deal also brought 36,000 video-rental kiosks, a transactional VOD service and a loyalty program with 40 million entertainment-loving customers. It also swelled the company’s library to 51,000 assets. In a tech-media market full of giant fish devouring smaller ones, Rouhana finds ways to keep on building. “We wouldn’t be the first company to use a legacy business to finance a new-age business,” he said. “This gives us an underlying stability. I like the combination of underlying businesses, in this case, as a way to reduce risk.” — DB

Erick Opeka
Chief Strategy Office
Cinedigm

Erick Opeka drives Cinedigm’s corporate strategy and M&A efforts and also oversees a portfolio of 20 SVOD, AVOD and linear networks available online and on mobile devices, gaming consoles and connected TVs. He leads strategy, development, programming and operations for these networks, which include Fandor, Screambox, documentary network Docurama, fandom network CONtv, family-centered Dove Channel, Viewster Anime and more. Under Opeka’s leadership, the company has entered more than a dozen channel partnerships with large media players, including Warner Bros. Discovery- and Liberty Global-owned All3Media and American Public Media. Opeka also developed and launched Cinedigm’s proprietary over-the-top software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform Matchpoint. In addition to his efforts at Cinedigm, Opeka is a part-time adjunct professor at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School and has an influencer presence in the realm of tech-media social discussion. He is a board and executive committee member of OTT.X, the entertainment industry’s largest streaming trade organization. And he’s a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy. — DF

As NYC Television Week returns to live-event status, the editors of B+C Multichannel News will once again single out a select group of emerging executives pushing the boundaries of industry innovation as this year’s New York “40 Under 40.”

This group of pioneering people help create, market and sell what we’re watching on the video screen. They’re at the forefront of an industry where the development and delivery of content is transforming at a record pace, and they’re involved in a variety of disciplines, from OTT to FAST to Big Data and more. 

To learn more about this year’s New York 40 Under 40, and the NYC Television Week event at Manhattan’s 230 Fifth where they’ll be honored on September 15, visit tvweek40under40.com. 

Denise Bailey-Castro 
Head of Finance, BET Networks
Paramount Global

Denise Bailey-Castro manages all financial aspects of BET Networks across a portfolio that includes BET, BET Plus and BET Studios. She joined as a member of the executive team that launched BET Plus in 2019 and continues to support its partnership with Tyler Perry Studios. Within a year, her efforts helped BET Plus gain more than 1 million subscribers and become the No. 1 African-American SVOD service. Previously, Bailey-Castro led negotiations with cable, satellite and digital partners as a member of the legacy Viacom Media Networks content distribution team. Earlier she worked at JPMorgan, Paramount Pictures and HBO. 

Ben Belmont
Senior Director, Digital Strategy
Paramount Global

Ben Belmont is a senior director of digital strategy at Paramount Global, leading an integrated marketing team for streaming service Pluto TV. He led the Pluto TV general positioning and sponsorship strategy as the platform became part of Paramount Global’s unified sales team. He has been with the company for nine years, touching nearly every area of the business. Belmont began his career focused on CBS Sports Digital in the nascent days of streaming video. Prior to joining Paramount (at the time, CBS) Belmont graduated from Duke University, where he was a four-year men’s lacrosse letter winner, a two-time All-ACC Academic team selection and a member of the 2010 National Championship team.

Dan Callahan
Senior VP, Data Strategy and Sales Innovation
Fox Corp. 

Dan Callahan is senior VP of data strategy and sales innovation for Fox Ad Sales. He is based in New York and reports to Fox Ad Sales president Marianne Gambelli. In this role, Callahan leads a team that is focused on the next generation of advertising capabilities, notably around audience and programmatic advertising solutions and driving their widespread adoption by marketers and agencies. This includes efforts around the company’s Fox Next initiative, delivering precise audiences and driving gains for advertising partners. He serves as Fox’s board member of OpenAP, the industry consortium developing new industry standards around data-driven advertising. Callahan joined Fox in 2007. In 2019, he was promoted to his current role. Callahan graduated from Wake Forest University where he was a member of the school’s ACC champion football team. 

Matt Chazen
Television Agent
CAA

Based in Creative Artists Agency’s New York office, Matt Chazen represents many of the world’s leading production companies, documentarians and independent producers, including ll3Media, Box to Box, DiGa, NorthSouth, OBB, Pulse Films and Radical Media, as well as directors/producers such as Angie Day, Nick Davis, Alex Lowry, Erik Parker and Michael Steed. Over the past few years, Chazen has put a specific focus on growing his representation of intellectual property by signing media companies and digital publishers. After three years working in integrated marketing at NBCUniversal, Chazen made the move to CAA in 2012, joining the alternative television department in New York City. Within the past year, Chazen has put together several premium projects on behalf of clients, including the upcoming Jerry Garcia documentary from clients the Jerry Garcia Estate LLC, Justin Kreutzmann and Radical Media. 

Daniel Church
Head of Advanced TV Product
Beachfront Media

Daniel Church is a savvy and strategic product leader with nearly a decade of experience driving advertising innovation across the TV industry. As head of Advanced TV Product, he leads ad-tech provider Beachfront Media’s attempts to uniformly connect cable, broadcast and connected TV within modern advertising marketplaces. A market-renowned expert in TV infrastructure and high-frequency ad trading, he has authored several patent-pending technologies around Advanced TV. Prior to his role at Beachfront, Church served in similar roles at FreeWheel, StickAds.tv (acquired by FreeWheel) and Smaato.

Kevin Connelly
Senior Director, Programmatic Monetization
Sinclair Broadcast Group

Kevin Connelly is responsible for programmatic revenue across all of Sinclair’s digital properties, including a portfolio of 250-plus station sites and apps, along with streaming inventory from Bally Sports Networks, NewsON and Tennis Channel. Responsibilities include providing inventory access points for brand advertisers, agencies and DSP partners, as well as creating strategic solutions across the company’s technology stack. Connelly also contributes to business development ventures and strategic projects within Sinclair Digital. 

Mike Correia 
VP, U.S. Networks Distribution
Paramount Global

Mike Correia is the lead or second chair negotiator on multimillion or billion-dollar content licensing negotiations with Paramount Global’s distribution partners, in categories such as retransmission consent, cable networks and digital deals. He also manages day-to-day business relationships and works with distributors to identify new business development and partnership opportunities. Prior to joining Paramount, he was on Univision’s content distribution team and handled the launch and distribution of cable network Univision Deportes. He began his career in media at ION Media Networks, supporting distribution efforts for ION’s 60 owned-and-operated stations. Earlier, he was an analyst at Bloomberg.

Patrick Courtney
Senior VP, Digital Strategy
Fuse Media

At Latino-owned Fuse Media, Patrick Courtney oversees strategy and operations for the company’s emerging media efforts and streaming division. He leads strategy for its business development efforts, subscription service Fuse Plus, mobile and connected-TV app development, YouTube and social-media growth, as well as its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) brands, Fuse Beat, Fuse Backstage and Fuse Sweat. Earlier, Courtney served as SVP of programming and marketing strategy for the digital media company Above Average, founded by Lorne Michaels’s Broadway Video and backed by Turner and Condé Nast.

Samantha DiPippo
Senior VP, Development
Hallmark Media

Reporting to Hallmark Media EVP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly, Samantha DiPippo is responsible for the sourcing and development of original holiday content for the company’s three linear networks, Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama, and the subscription VOD service Hallmark Movies Now. Her oversight includes hearing pitches, evaluating submissions, developing projects and creating programming strategies with senior management. Prior to joining Crown Media in 2017, DiPippo was director of co-productions and acquisitions for Lifetime Networks. Previously, she held positions in the programming and scheduling departments at both truTV and History Channel. She has a bachelor’s degree in television and radio from Ithaca College.

Sean Doherty Jr.
COO, Co-Founder
Wurl

Sean Doherty Jr. co-founded Wurl in 2010 with David Martinez and Sean Doherty Sr., aiming to make TV better for everyone. Wurl interconnects thousands of streaming channels from the world’s top content companies with leading streamers in more than 50 countries. His vision and leadership of Wurl recently led to the company’s $430 million purchase by Silicon Valley’s Applovin. He began his work with Wurl as a sophomore at Boston College. After college, he joined the Endeavor Group agency WME in the talent department, where he had roles as an assistant and coordinator. Since transitioning back to Wurl full-time in 2018, Doherty has held different roles, including director of business development and SVP of operations. 

Matthew Dominguez
Senior Manager, Streaming Distribution and Partnerships
Cox Media Group

Matthew Dominguez manages free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels for 10 Cox Media Group local TV news stations. He also oversees distribution for 12 third-party streaming partners. He is responsible for sourcing and negotiating distribution agreements, executing streaming strategy and supporting content and programming efforts to drive revenue and audience growth. Prior to joining CMG, he worked in digital distribution at Fuse Media, where he managed AVOD, SVOD and FAST distribution. In addition to his experience on the distribution side, he worked in OTT content strategy and video production operations for Discovery’s digital food brands, including Food Network, Food.com and Genius Kitchen. 

Mike Fisher
VP, Advanced TV
Essence/Group M

Mike Fisher in 2020 joined the media agency Essence to lead the Converged Advanced TV practice from the world of ad tech, where he previously led TV/OTT strategy at MediaMath and was one of the first to help build out streaming dynamic creative at Brightline. It wasn’t long before his role with Essence was expanded into a dual-hat position within GroupM to bring together disparate parts of the business and drive the Advanced TV practice forward, moving it away from purely linear or digital toward an audience-first approach. 

Lauren Fry
Chief Revenue Officer
Simulmedia 

Lauren Fry first joined Simulmedia, the cross-channel TV advertising firm where she is chief revenue officer, in 2013 as an account executive. After serving as director of tune-in sales and VP, customer success and business analytics, for Xandr (then AT&T AdWorks), she rejoined Simulmedia in 2018. She was responsible for the growth and sales revenue strategy for TV Plus, the cross-channel TV advertising platform Simulmedia began rolling out in late 2021. Fry started her career as a national sales planner at Comcast Spotlight. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology from Bucknell University and an MBA in finance and management from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Tara Gotch
Senior VP, National Services
Comscore

As SVP, national services for Comscore, Tara Gotch oversees a team and portfolio of enterprise, medium and small business clients ranging across all Comscore products, with a focus on national networks, publishers, digital and crossplatform. She brings more than a decade of industry experience to her current role at Comscore. She started her career at Comcast NBCUniversal and spent more than seven years on the ad sales team, working across a number of networks and platforms. In 2013, she joined Rentrak before assuming her role at Comscore following the 2016 merger of the companies.

Angie Grande
Director of Streaming News Channels
NBC Universal Local

Angela “Angie” Grande thrives on being a trailblazer in the news industry. She started her career as a news producer at WKTV in her hometown of Utica, New York, during her senior year of college. She went on to work as a producer in Syracuse and Albany, New York, before making her way to WNBC New York, spending seven years there as a top producer. In 2018, she joined NBC News Digital to help develop a first-of-its kind news show on Snapchat, Stay Tuned. Now, as director of streaming news channels for NBCUniversal Local, she is charting the launch of NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations’ new local news channels for streaming platforms. 

David Koonin
Sports Media Agent, Head of Sports Media Marketing and Endorsements
CAA 

As an agent in Creative Artists Agency’s Sports Media practice, David Koonin
represents more than 40 sports media talent clients, including ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, Damien Woody and Field Yates; Turner/CBS’s Grant Hill; Turner’s Allie LaForce; YouTube superstars Dude Perfect; and NFL Network and CBS’s Scott Pioli. In his dual role as head of endorsements and marketing for CAA Sports Media, he oversees a team of three agents who work on behalf of CAA’s roster of more than 200 clients. This role includes managing the endorsement and commercial portfolios of his own clients, in addition to such sports media stars as Mike Greenberg, Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Adrian Wojnarowski, Malika Andrews, Laura Rutledge, Marty Smith and Joe Buck. 

Courtney Kundtz
Senior Director, Head of Client Services and Ad Business Operations
Roku

Courtney Kundtz is responsible for overseeing the success of all ad revenue clients that partner and execute campaigns on the Roku platform. Since starting at Roku, Kundtz has led the client services team through record-breaking revenue and organization growth. More recently, she began overseeing the ad strategy on the order-to-cash process as streaming media shifts towards more automated buying. She also was elected to co-chair the Women of Roku Employee Relations Group, helping foster and promote inclusive employee development and leadership initiatives. She is a Colgate University alumnus, a council board member of Hathaway Brown School for Girls and a certified yoga instructor in New York City.

Erin Leigh
Senior VP, The TV Group
Screen Engine/ASI

Erin Leigh is an SVP in the Screen Engine/ASI Television Group. She runs the kids’ TV team and has consulted on thousands of pilots with top platforms and studios in that arena, providing strategic guidance for clients throughout the green-lighting and series development process. She has been with Screen Engine ASI (SEA) for nearly 10 years. Prior to SEA, she was at both JD Power and Lieberman Research (now Material). Her client base is broad and includes companies such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and DreamWorks. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from UCLA and a master’s degree in human behavior from USC. 

Brian Lin
Senior VP of Product Management, Advanced Advertising
TelevisaUnivision

Brian Lin is head of product management within TelevisaUnivision’s ad sales organization, focusing on strategy and productization of new capabilities across the advanced advertising ecosystem. His aim is to build or partner to enable capabilities across advanced linear, addressable, new interactive ad formats and commerce. Prior to TelevisaUnivision, the 10-year industry veteran led product innovation for organizations including VideoAmp, Viacom, OpenAP, Cablevision Systems and most recently MadHive, where he served as chief product officer. At MadHive, Lin drove product and strategy for the company’s  software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based suite of customizable solutions.

Socrates Lozano
Senior Director, ScrippsCast and Newsroom Innovation
E.W. Scripps Co.

Socrates Lozano, a 16-year broadcast executive, has spent the last four years helping build the E.W. Scripps connected-TV content strategy and technology infrastructure. He has a passion for storytelling and is immersed in modernizing the production and distribution of content to viewers. Winner of the “Creating Value” award for work building a new approach to streaming across 42 television stations, he leads a new broadcast initiative focusing on newscast personalization and AI-driven experiences on all platforms, including ATSC 3.0. 

Kevin Maloy
VP, Advanced TV Solutions
Amobee

Kevin Maloy is VP of Advanced TV Solutions at Amobee, the cross-channel video advertising platform provider. With more than 10 years of experience, he has been a key player in the evolution of the connected-TV ecosystem, having served as one of the industry’s first CTV buyers in 2014. At Amobee, he has won new business and retained key clients, including Fox, The Walt Disney Co., A+E Networks and Univision. He is able to successfully leverage legacy platforms and enhance their performance by layering on technology that allows Amobee to get to market quickly, yet sets the framework to allow for continuous innovation of ad products across its full portfolio. 

Lindsey Mandia
VP, Production
Fox Sports

Emmy Award-winning producer Lindsey Mandia leads the Fox Sports production team from the company’s Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters. With more than a decade at Fox Sports, Mandia manages a growing staff of more than 50 employees and oversees the creation of all video content for Fox NASCAR races (Cup, Xfinity, Trucks, ARCA), Fox NFL Sunday, and college basketball and football.  Her oversight includes the production of five studio shows including NASCAR Race Hub and NASCAR RaceDay, which accounts for more than 10 hours of weekly programming during the height of the NASCAR season. Mandia also was instrumental in building up the Fox Sports production hub in Charlotte. 

Jason Manningham
CEO & Co-Founder
Blockgraph

Jason Manningham is CEO and co-founder of Blockgraph, the advertising-technology company incubated at Comcast-owned FreeWheel and launched as an independent company two years ago. Its platform enables data-driven advertising with privacy protection. Owned by Comcast NBCUniversal, Charter Communications and Paramount Global, Blockgraph’s distribution footprint has grown to 71 million internet households, 51 million pay TV homes  and 40 million addressable TV households. Manningham successfully navigated complex, multiparty partnership discussions that raised several million dollars to form the new entity. Before FreeWheel, he was at AOL and Viacom Media Networks. 

Joe Marino
Managing Partner and Head of Client Success Organization
MadHive

Joe Marino is the head of the client success organization at MadHive, an enterprise software platform that powers modern media. He oversees revenue generation from new and existing business and builds relationships with current and future clients to ensure their business needs are met and exceeded. He leads a 25-plus-person team that is transforming how advertisers approach and use connected TV, including Fox, Scripps and Tegna. During his tenure at MadHive, he has grown the business from three clients to more than 40, bringing on new TV and radio station groups, national brands, direct-to-consumer brands and agencies. He brought more than a decade of experience building sales and customer relationships to MadHive, including previous leadership roles at MediaMath and Adobe. 

Ken Norcross
Head of Data Licensing & Strategy
Vizio

Ken Norcross, head of data licensing and strategy at Vizio, is the operations leader responsible for developing growth strategies at the smart-TV maker’s Inscape data division. Inscape is the leading provider of automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies and TV data. Norcross is responsible for fueling the data-driven strategy of Vizio’s connected-TV business based on ACR TV viewing data as part of the new landscape of third-party measurement platforms used as TV currency. He is also a leading representative for the Vizio-led addressable TV consortium, Project OAR. Before joining Inscape in 2017, Norcross worked in cross-platform measurement at Nielsen. 

Corey Petruccelli
VP, National Sales
New York Interconnect 

Corey Petruccelli is VP, national sales for the New York Interconnect, the local ad-sales venture among Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast that reaches 22 million consumers across 100-plus networks. He is responsible for identifying and selling ad opportunities across the New York DMA to national clients, leveraging addressable TV, IP targeting, OTT and VOD solutions. Before joining NYI, he was a senior account executive at Spectrum Reach for eight years. He received both his MBA and bachelor’s degree from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and lives in Tuckahoe, New York, with his wife and their two children.

Yana Podroubaeva
M&E Global Account Lead
Amazon Web Services

Yana Podroubaeva is a media technology expert with a creative approach, specializing in cloud solutions in the media, entertainment and telecommunications industry. Based in New York City, Podroubaeva leads a $100 million-plus global Media & Entertainment team at Amazon Web Services and mentors 14 Amazonians. She has worked with and transformed the businesses of some of the world’s largest media customers, such as NBCUniversal, The New York Times, News Corp., AMC Networks and Foxtel. Previously based in Sydney, Australia, she worked across media portfolios at Amazon and Telstra. 

Kirsten Polley
Senior VP, Operations
WWE

Reporting to WWE co-CEO Nick Khan, Kirsten Polley leads operations for WWE’s revenue strategy and development team. She played a key role in the licensing agreement with longstanding partner NBCUniversal that gave Peacock exclusive U.S. streaming rights to the WWE Network. She also helped lead the strategy and development around the creation of WWE’s first-ever NFT (non-fungible token) drop. Before joining WWE, Polley was a talent agent at Creative Artists Agency, working with such media personalities as Colin Cowherd, Skip Bayless, Charissa Thompson, Adam Schefter and Mike Greenberg. She also helped broker notable TV contracts, including securing a four-year pact with ESPN for Top Rank Boxing and WWE’s deal that brought Friday Night SmackDown to Fox. 

Isabel Rafferty
Founder and CEO
Canela Media

Isabel Rafferty is a digital marketing pioneer. She is the founder and CEO of Canela Media, a leading digital-media tech company that gives brands the tools they need to effectively connect with multicultural audiences through multiple touchpoints, including newly launched free-to-stream platform Canela.TV, influencer marketing, branded content and more than 180 exclusive Spanish-language sites. Prior to starting Canela Media, she founded Mobvious, a company dedicated to reaching U.S. Hispanic and African-American audiences via mobile advertising. Under her leadership, Mobvious quickly became the largest Hispanic-focused ad network, as ranked by Comscore, before being acquired by PRISA in 2017. 

Justin Rosen
Senior VP, Data and Insights
Ampersand

Justin Rosen joined Ampersand (rebranded from NCC) in 2018 concurrent with the creation of Ampersand’s Advanced TV practice, where he has taken on leadership for data, analytics and insights. He has led the implementation of Ampersand’s addressable data capabilities, established Ampersand’s Total TV and Incremental Reach solutions and has advanced audience-first tactics and storytelling connected to Ampersand’s AND Platform, launched in 2020. He also works alongside Ampersand’s MVPD owners and affiliates to ensure consistent methodology, data governance, and workflows. He received an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BA from Cornell University. He lives in South Orange, New Jersey, with his wife and two sons.

Seth Rubinroit
Manager, Content Integrations and Audio
NBCUniversal Local

Seth Rubinroit spearheads the multiplatform audio strategy for NBCUniversal Local’s 43 NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations and six regional sports networks. He began efforts to shoot video of the division’s network of podcasts, fueling NBC’s multiplatform content engine with 100-plus original TV programming hours. He is a member of NBCUniversal Local’s DEI Council, co-leads the New York chapter of NBCU’s Young Professionals Network and mentors underserved high school students. Before joining NBCUniversal Local, he worked for NBC Sports as a digital editorial producer for the 2016 and 2018 Olympics, interviewing and profiling more than 100 Olympians and Paralympians. 

Adam Salmons
VP, Content Acquisition
Philo

Adam Salmons leads Philo’s content-acquisition efforts to bring more channels, shows and movies to its subscribers. At Philo for the past five years, he is responsible for overseeing and growing the relationships with content partners and has been integral in expanding the platform’s offering to include add-ons and FAST channels. Prior to Philo, Adam was manager of content strategy and acquisitions at Verizon Communications, helping to advance the telco’s Fios TV and digital video endeavors. He began his career in the media industry as a financial analyst at HBO, where he was focused on financial strategy for HBO’s domestic network distribution group. 

David Sanderson
Founder and CEO
Reelgood

David Sanderson is the founder and CEO of Reelgood, a streaming service aggregator and “TV guide” for streaming. The company has developed the algorithms and proprietary IP that matches all the streaming availability data, which is constantly changing. This technology gathers, parses and matches billions of pieces of content from hundreds of different catalogs of streaming services. Reelgood’s ad product can target people based on their viewership across all their streaming subscriptions. Reelgood already has partnerships with many primary streaming services for this ad product. Prior to launching Reelgood in 2015, Sanderson spent three years at Facebook, most recently as a product manager. 

Christy Smith
Director, Social Creative Strategy
Nickelodeon

Christy Smith strives to creatively tell exciting and authentic stories through an ever-evolving kids’ lens. From bringing the Kids’ Choice Awards to life on social media to relaunching beloved shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and All That, she’s a big kid at heart. A true advocate for Black voices and experiences in media, she joined the Paramount family four years ago after being instrumental in developing social and digital campaigns for OWN TV shows Greenleaf and Queen Sugar, cultivating the voice and online social presence for the leader in entertainment for women of color. She is a member of Nickelodeon’s Inclusivity Council and leads all DEI social initiatives and campaigns across Nick’s brands.

Brad Stockton
Senior VP Video Innovation
Dentsu 

As SVP of video innovation at Dentsu Media, Brad Stockton oversees advanced video investment strategy, including addressable TV, data-driven linear, connected TV and emerging technologies and platforms. He also oversees U.S. partnerships across the leading partners in the streaming and advanced TV space across all Dentsu agencies, including Carat, DentsuX, 360i, iProspect and Merkle. Over the last decade, he has taken on multiple media strategy buying roles focused on delivering result-driven buying strategies across various client categories including pharmaceuticals, quick service restaurants, entertainment and consumer package goods. Before Dentsu, he was a media manager for Henkel, overseeing the North America beauty omnichannel media portfolio. He studied marketing at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he also played soccer. 

Courtney Thomasma
General Manager, AMC Plus
AMC Networks

Courtney Thomasma is general manager of AMC Plus, AMC Networks’ premium, ad-free streaming bundle featuring original programming from across the company’s entertainment networks, AMC, BBC America, IFC and SundanceTV, and its targeted streaming services Shudder, Sundance Now and IFC Films Unlimited. Thomasma is responsible for the overall management and strategic direction of AMC Plus, driving subscriber acquisition, user engagement and global expansion. Before AMC Plus, she was executive director of BBC America. Earlier, she worked at Nielsen. She started her career in ad sales research for Sony Pictures Entertainment. 

Sapna Vyas
VP, Scripted Content
Lifetime

Sapna Vyas is a star at A+E Networks, the global media company, and has become a leading voice in the entertainment scripted community. Since 2008 she has risen through the ranks at Lifetime from an assistant in the scripted series department to VP, scripted content. She spearheads Lifetime’s holiday movies series, which had 30 original titles in 2021 alone. While still in the scripted-series department, she helped to develop hit series Devious Maids, from executive producers Marc Cherry and Eva Longoria. Prior to Lifetime, Vyas worked in scripted development at The CW, and began her career in the TV Literary department at CAA.

Simon Wong
Executive VP
Sabio 

Simon Wong is EVP for ad-tech company Sabio Holdings. Minority led and founded, the company includes the Sabio demand-side platform. As EVP, Wong leads product innovation, partnerships, inventory, marketing and growth efforts globally. He joined in 2016 as director of advertising operations. His 13 years of experience includes positions at Opera Mediaworks (now AdColony), IAC, Yahoo! and MediaPost. He began his career as a market research intern for Forbes. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Stony Brook University. He resides with his wife and two children in Queens, New York.

Jimmy Zasowski
Senior VP, Platform Distribution Strategy
Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution

Jimmy Zasowski leads distribution strategy and business affairs for Disney’s media networks, direct-to-consumer, theatrical and home entertainment businesses. He and his team are responsible for deal analysis, strategic planning and developing growth strategies. He collaborates with sales on platform negotiations in the U.S. and globally and plays a pivotal role in bringing direct-to-consumer streaming services — Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, Hulu and Star Plus – to a wide-range of platforms. He joined Disney in 2009. 

Samuel Zimmerman
VP, Programming, Shudder
AMC Networks

A former editor and programmer of the film festival for horror website Fangoria, Samuel Zimmerman became involved with AMC’s SVOD service Shudder early in its development, helping with the initial launch and determining its continuous direction serving fans of horror and the supernatural. He was essential to the launch of its first original scripted series, Creepshow, from The Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero. It became the most-watched program in Shudder history, had a successful run on AMC and a fourth season is now in development. Zimmerman also oversaw Shudder’s first original documentary, Horror Noire, on the history of Black stories and creators of horror. It was the inspiration for a fictional anthology series of the same name. ▪️

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. ▪️

The Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Samba TV collects viewer data via a global network of 46 million addressable TV devices, primarily smart TVs, powered by the company’s wholly-owned full tech stack, which includes a multi-source television panel that is 100 times larger than legacy measurement systems. 

Samba TV and its solutions are involved in numerous advanced advertising initiatives, but we at Next TV are particularly interested in the company’s program performance metrics for streaming, which provide the immediate third-party audience measurement we’ve been unable to find elsewhere. 

Brace, a former Fox Corp. executive and OpenAP board member, is the marketing chief in charge of explaining this innovative company’s brand message. 

"Samba TV was purpose-built for this moment in time, serving as a catalyst for a new multi-currency future," Brace told Next TV in a Labor Day email. "From being tapped as Disney’s official third-party measurement partner, to launching a new revolutionary currency built on only paying for guaranteed incremental reach, and being named as a leading provider of measurement capabilities according to research firm Frost & Sullivan, Samba TV continues to prove there is a better way to measure and engage consumers. The company has become the world's leading solution for connected TV, future-proofed and built on a foundation of 100% privacy-compliant first party opted-in data from more than 40+ million connected TVs globally."

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

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 Next TV Summit on September 13, part of the 10th annual NYC TV Week, will for the first time include the Next TV Innovation Awards, recognizing CEOs, technologists, strategists, creatives, marketers and other executives leading some of the most innovative companies in the video business. Each day from Sept. 2-13, our Next TV SmartBrief will profile one of our seven 2022 Innovation Awards honorees. (You can sign up for the SmartBrief here.) For more information about the summit and the award winners and other NYC TV Week events visit nyctvweek.com.

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca TV

Achilles leads a fledgling video company positioned on numerous cutting edges. The Boise, Idaho-based Evoca TV is a virtual pay TV operator, infiltrated into 10 markets across five states.

The low-priced, skinny-bundled Evoca platform, which is primarily targeted to hard-to-reach, primarily rural customers, delivers most of its content via ATSC 3.0, not streaming (although there is a lower bandwidth IP component to the service). To provide hardware for the platform, Achilles bootstrapped manufacturing of Evoca’s proprietary set-tops out of Asia himself. 

And as regional sports networks begin to go over the top, Evoca has evolved to package these channels in inexpensive bundles that achieve a largely similar objective for sports fans who don’t want to pay the Full Pay TV Monty.  

“I think innovation is key to the future of broadcast, and I think the future of broadcast is incredibly bright,” Achilles told Next TV. “The new technology opens up new business models and that's what we're experimenting with.” Evoca’s rapid evolution has come despite ATSC 3.0’s slow rollout. “Part of that regulatory driven, part of it is broadcasters have lost that innovation muscle, and it’s coming back now,” Achilles said. “I believe the whole broadcast sector is going to transform.”

Reading the checklist of what Evoca and Achilles have accomplished recently can be exhausting:

* Expanded into 10 markets in five states; 
* Added Altitude Sports, GAC Family, Hallmark, and even a Basque-language channel;
* Partnered with Sling to integrate the vMVPD’s national channels into Evoca’s independent, local and regional programming;
* Partnered with broadcaster Heritage to launch in Traverse City, Mich.;
* Launched DVR app Evoca Record;
* Conducted first U.S. test of “MIMO” technology that promises to dramatically expand bandwidth capacity and enable new business models, including data-casting businesses;
* First test of HDR10+ format to further improve 4K video quality;
* Testing emergency information data casts;
* Designing in-home receivers compatible with ATSC 3.0 and wireless 5G.

Evoca’s rapid evolution has come despite ATSC 3.0’s slow rollout. 

“Part of (the slow rollout was) regulatory driven, part of it is broadcasters have lost that innovation muscle, and it’s coming back now,” Achilles said. “I believe the whole broadcast sector is going to transform.” 

Previously announced Next TV Innovation Award honorees:

Todd Achilles
Co-founder, CEO and President, Evoca

Meredith Brace
Chief Marketing Officer, Samba TV

Matt Duarte 
VP of Strategy and Business Development YES Network 

Shalini Govil-Pai
GM and VP of TV Platforms, Google

Erick Opeka 
Chief Strategy Officer, Cinedigm

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 on April 27.

“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 Broadcasting+Cable contributing editor Paige Albiniak. Barzilay 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.

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,” BritBox senior VP and commercial head Emily Powers said.

Ampersand senior VP, 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. 

TiVo’s chief revenue officer, Matt Milne, said the company’s new consumer-grade streaming device, the TiVo Stream 4K, should hit the market in “the next few weeks.”

Speaking during a keynote session last Tuesday (April 28) during the Virtual Next TV Summit, part of Future’s Virtual NYC TV Week Spring, Milne said TiVo product developers have been working at home amid the pandemic to get the Android TV-based OTT device ready to market.

At CES in January, where TiVo introduced the $70 dongle and successfully created buzz for it, the company touted an April release date for the TiVo Stream 4K.

The TiVo 4K Stream will have access to all the apps available in the Google Play Store via Android TV. What will make it different from other OTT devices, Milne said, is its ability to tap TiVo’s sizable search and discover resources.

“We’re investing well over $100 million a year at a foundational level to help people with discovery,” he said. “This is a product built for the streaming wars. It’s built to bring all that content together.”

Users of streaming services, Milne said, spend an average of 11 minutes searching among an average of seven subscription VOD, AVOD and other OTT programming sources for a movie, TV show, or news or sports event.

The TiVo 4K Stream will allow users to navigate their apps through the traditional “Gemstar grid,” Milne said. But it will also offer a separate user interface based on TiVo’s proprietary search and discovery UI.

TiVo, he said, will become a “neutral third party,” with SVOD and AVOD platforms available to, in turn, anonymously monitor app usage through its platform.

TiVo isn’t totally neutral — it recently launched its own AVOD platform, TiVo Plus. Milne didn’t say whether or not TiVo Plus has any kind of priority status in terms of what search and discovery results users might get on TiVo Stream 4K.

“We see this as a merchandiser opportunity,” Milne said. “How do we connect the consumer to the content?”

Also at the Virtual Next TV Summit, a panel of programming executives talked about their services’ place in the streaming world and ways they are adapting. Craig Engler, general manager of AMC Networks-owned Shudder, the horror-themed subscription VOD service, said the disruption in the movie theater world prompted an April 28 “surprise drop” on Shudder of new original movie Blood Quantum that was originally supposed to debut in Alamo Drafthouse theaters. “That’s fun, because it creates excitement for people” who subscribe to the service, Engler said.

Rachel Brill, senior VP and general manager of B/R Studio, at WarnerMedia-owned Bleacher Report, said B/R is moving more toward integrating social and original programming within the app, notably with three days of NFL Draft coverage. The aim is to find shareable moments. “How do you truly create an all encompassing immersive experience for sports fans?” she said.

William Sager, chairman and CEO of The Preview Channel, said the year-old, OTT-delivered service plans to add new channels devoted to previews and trailers about video games and classic movies. “We are off and running” and serving passionate fans of games and movies, he said.

Brendon Thomas, VP of distribution at Viacom-owned Pluto TV, said at the ad-supported (free) VOD service “we do see ourselves a bit more as programmers than aggregators,” focused on optimizing the content it has used to create more than 250 “live linear-like channels” plus on-demand programming. 

Kent Gibbons contributed to this story.