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A-LIST CLIENTS: To celebrate the April 8 launch of Lifetime's new show "The Client List," talent and execs mingled at the Sunset Tower Hotel in LA on April 4. Nancy Dubuc, pres & gm, Lifetime Nets, Kelly Atkinson, CMO, West, Time Warner Cable, Emory Walton, VP, Distribution, A+E Nets & Lori Conkling, evp, distribution, A+E Nets pictured. Photo cred: Alberto Rodriguez/Getty Images.
Being an independent in today’s TV landscape “takes some guts,” according to Stan Hitchcock, chairman and CEO of BlueHighways TV, an independent network celebrating original American roots music, culture and events. And he should know. BlueHighways is his 3rd start-up, the first being Country Music Television, which he founded in 1984. At this year’s Cable Show in Boston, he was named a Cable Pioneer.
Hitchcock began his career as a country singer for Columbia’s Epic Records, produced 12 albums and 2 nationally syndicated TV shows and was inducted into Missouri’s Country Music Hall of Fame. CableFAX spoke with Hitchcock about what is takes to be an indie, translating what he learned from music to television and his favorite artists to work with over the years.
What are the top issues you face as in independent in today’s landscape?
It’s a rough business. And it has been for years. This is my 3rd independent network and it hasn’t gotten any easier, but really it hasn’t gotten any harder either. It’s a culture you accept if the belief in the concept you’re pushing—your driving force—is strong enough, and you are a stick-to-it person.
What are the challenges?
It can be a very lonely position at times, and it can be a very wonderful position. I’ve been involved with the start up of 3 independent cable networks, starting with CMT in ’84 and going on. I’ve had my share of standing in front of gatekeepers and pitching [my] dream. It takes some guts to stand there. And you don’t have a big company behind you, you don’t have the infrastructure that the big guys have. But you also have the total independence to follow your dream. And just every now and then, you’ll be doing your pitch and you’ll end up in front of someone like the late Bill Bresnan, or his brother Pat, when they took my meeting a few years ago and decided they liked our network. They were the first cable system that put on BlueHighways TV. It was more than just the fact that they put us on their system—they encouraged me. They bought into the importance of what we were doing. And that basically at the heart of it. You have to feel like what you’re doing is important. It’s not just a business challenge.
How has the industry changed over the years?
Our communication industry has made giant strides in the years since I’ve been in it. I mean when I started out, color television had just barely getting started in the ‘60s, back when I had a nationwide television show and one of the first country music shows out of Nashville. I learned early on the power of that tube and how it affects people’s lives, and how it can encourage them and entertain them.
For an independent, the main thing you have to get used to is, you’re out there with no safety net. But when you meet the challenges and you prove yourself and you stick with it, the rewards are wonderful. Not from a success standpoint as much as the feedback you start getting from an audience that is so loyal and passionate about what you’re doing. I learned that being an entertainer on stage for so many years. An entertainer feeds on the return energy from the audience. That’s what drives an entertainer and it should be what drives a television network. You should feed on the energy of your viewers and the people that support you. They’re letting you into their home, they’re letting you into their house.
Is that how your musical background has helped you succeed in television?
Very much. It taught me early on that you have to know your audience, then you have to listen your audience and you have to answer your audience. You have to provide them what they want. It’s so easy to sit around in a room with a programming committee and come up with wonderful ideas and all this. The ultimate test is not just the great ideas that come out. The great test is people watching at home. They either will support you or they’ll let you know real quick that’s not for them. So you’ve got to keep that thing growing. The pulse of television is the audience that watches.
What’s you advice to independents just starting today?
First of all, you’ve got to have the strength of conviction that what you’re doing is important and that you are there for the long haul. It can’t be a quick fix. My heroes in independent cable television were people like John Hendricks of Discovery. People think now, Discovery, what a monster company. But he was hanging out there on a limb without a support team also. He brought it through and got the support of the cable industry. He’s my number 1 cable hero.
The thing that I suggest to independents is, put their money in the screen—not bricks and mortar. You don’t have to build a big facility and spend all your funding money on flash. Get it on the screen, and prove yourself. And gather the support of an audience. Nothing is more powerful than that.
CMT is a different network from when you were there. There’s a lot more than music on the channel today. What do you think of the state of music television today?
That’s another part of the way life seemingly goes with independents. When you do get a network you’ve started and sweat and bled to get it to success, and it gathers the interest of the giants and they buy it and take it over… Of course, they pay their money and it’s their right to change it any way they want to and I applaud that. But what has happened in most music, and not just in terms of television but in recording and the entire music industry, [it] has gone so far overboard to capture an extremely young, youthful audience and customer base that they have ignored to a certain extent the biggest mass of people in our country right now. [They’re] not teenagers. It’s an aging population. And that aging population still loves the music they grew up on. And [with] our roots music format, we play to a lot of classic music and classic artists, but we do not close the door on new artists. We love finding new artists and new music, so in our case it’s a mix—we try a reach that covers the spectrum of a demographic that’s ever changing.
What has been your favorite project?
My favorite television project is not necessarily the most successful, which of course was CMT. It’s the one that I’m doing now, because BlueHighways TV is a distillation of all the years I’ve been in it and all of the feedback we’ve gotten through audiences and viewers all over the country. I still keep very close contact with our viewership. My day is spent in the office, at least 3 or 4 hours a day, answering direct emails from our audience who contact me and tell me at length what they want, what they like and what they love. So this point in my life with Blue Highways, a journey across America finding the good things happening. That’s really it. It’s a very pleasant place for me to be right now. So I’m excited about our prospects, we’re moving forward. And any time an independent can say hey we’re moving forward, that’s a blessing.
In your years as a musician, who was your favorite artist to work with?
One of the favorites of the newer artists—of course you’ve got to break it down into generations because I go so far back. I go back, in music, 53 years. But of the recent artists, ones that I helped to break on CMT… My wife and I Denise lived in a little log cabin outside of Nashville when I was running CMT. A record company called me, Capitol Records, and said, we got a new artist we’re bringing to town, we want you to meet him. So they sent him out to my house—not my office, but my house, which I liked. He came driving up in his pickup truck with his dog, he got out with his guitar and he and I sat on the front porch of our log cabin. He opened up his guitar case and took out his journal, opened it up and started singing from all of the monster hits that he had from then on. Garth Brooks. I was tremendously impressed with a young man that came to town, not just with a dream, but with a plan. He is and was not only a great talent but he’s one of best marketers of his music and career of anybody I have every met. And a wonderful guy. A good friend, I love him.
Mediacom’s Italia Commisso Weinand has been promoted to EVP, Programming & Human Resources. A cable veteran and one of CableFAX’s Most Powerful Women, Weinand began working in the industry at Time Warner Cable in 1977. She did a stint as regional manager at Comcast and then joined Mediacom in 1996 as VP, Operations. She’s been named a Cable TV Pioneer and served as a Board Member for the United Way, WICT, NCTC and Cable Positive. Now she’s on the board of The Cable Center and The Emma Bowen Foundation and is passionate about fundraising for charities Knights of Columbus and Hope Through Care. There’s no shortage of accomplishments on Weinand’s list, but her true aspirations are slightly more humble: “My ultimate goal is to be a beach bum.” She loves gardening, culinary “challenges”(beyond spaghetti and meatballs) and international travels and playing tennis, when time allows.
Bonnie O'Donnell Jody Vogelaar
At Fox Networks Bonnie O’Donnell and Jody Vogelaar were upped to VP, Fox Networks Distribution Marketing, filling the vacancy left by Sol Doten’s shift to VP, Communications in Feb. O’Donnell will oversee distribution marketing for Fox sports nets and their non-linear components, as well as Fox Global Networks. Appropriately, Bonnie likes sports. The Boston Red Sox and her daughter’s t-ball team, the Cincinnati Reds, top her list of teams. She also starts every day with a Diet Coke. Vogelaar will head up distribution marketing strategy for entertainment, non-fiction nets and their non-linear extensions, including FOX, FX, National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD and Fox Movie Channel. Jody, we learned, is rather musically inclined. “I play 5 instruments, but my favorite is piano.” Other favorite activities are tennis and home improvement. Doten, by the way, calls his own appetite for sports TV “unhealthy,” especially when it comes to Boston pro teams and the University of Arizona. And he plays them, too: basketball, tennis and mountain biking are his faves.
Sol Doten
Veteran GMC TV exec Paul Butler has been tapped to oversee ops as GM at Magic Johnson’s Aspire, a new African-American network launching in June. He’ll report to Aspire chmn Johnson. Butler held the role of SVP/General Counsel at GMC most recently. He’ll continue to occupy the post during the transition. On Paul’s iPod: Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, J Cole and Darius Rucker.
In recent years, the concept of corporate responsibility (CR) has spread like wildfire across the business landscape—there is even a magazine devoted solely to the topic. In virtually all industries, employers are ramping up efforts to be good corporate citizens, doing their part to make their hometowns and the whole world better places in which to live and work. Within the cable industry, though, active community involvement is nothing new. Both programmers and MSOs have long made community outreach part and parcel of their corporate missions. I asked a few CTHRA members to tell us about some of their employers’ major philanthropic initiatives and their impact on employees, the community and (yes) the company’s bottom line.
Aiming High
When it comes to corporate responsibility, you’d be hard put to find a more ambitious objective than the one Scripps Networks Interactive has set for itself with its program entitled “Change the World,” run jointly by the HR and corporate communications departments. Jerilyn Bliss, vice president of corporate communications admits that changing the world is one huge goal, “but we believe that it can be done, one step at a time.”
Those steps range from donation matches, a robust United Way campaign and general encouragement of employees’ volunteer activities to an arrangement in which each of the network’s six lifestyle brands partners with a specific national non-profit related to its area of interest. For instance, said Bliss, “Food Network’s partner is Share Our Strength, which focuses on hunger. This spring we held Share Our Strength Great American Bake Sale fundraisers in multiple offices with the assistance of our Employee Action Committee, and offered employee advance-screening opportunities for the co-produced documentary Hunger Hits Home.”
During this period, in addition to baking and selling up a storm, Scripps’ employees raised money, donated food and learned about hunger problems and solutions. And when the documentary aired on Food Network, viewers and online users immediately responded with more than $100,000 in donations to end childhood hunger.
In another targeted effort, Scripps, Travel Channel and the Friends of the Smokies organization have raised more than $2 million to preserve and protect Great Smoky Mountains National Park, our most-visited national park and a major draw for the nearly 1,000 employees working and living in Knoxville, where SNI is headquartered. Said Bliss, “Several of our employees also serve on boards and committees dedicated to the upkeep, promotion and preservation of the park.”
Getting Specific
Scripps isn’t the only employer to find strength in specialization. For example, although Time Warner Cable (TWC) has a long history of investing money, volunteer hours and technology in communities throughout the country, since 2009 the company has aligned its community outreach and giving more closely with its business imperatives and core competencies. According to Tessie Topol, TWC’s senior director of strategic philanthropy and community affairs, “We are inspiring the next generation of problem solvers through Connect a Million Minds (CAMM), a five-year, $100 million philanthropic effort to encourage young people to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers. CAMM was launched in November 2009 with clear objectives: Build connections with customers, enhance employee morale, establish TWC as a credible thought leader and achieve tangible social impact on an issue of great importance to our nation.”
In a similar vein, said Kevin Martinez, senior director of corporate outreach for ESPN Inc., “All of our corporate responsibility strategies complement and enhance the business and community case. ESPN’s mission, to serve the sports fan, drives our content, production and relationships, whether to further our business or support charity.”
Given ESPN’s corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, as well as the network’s Education Through Sports program, one key beneficiary of time and money, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, is a natural. In addition, said Martinez, “Through our focus on health and fitness, ESPN partnered with Jimmy Valvano to found The V Foundation for Cancer Research, which has raised more than $120 million for the cause. Our tireless support of our military and veterans led us to produce our highly acclaimed week honoring veterans, as well as Disney’s Heroes Work Here initiative. And our commitment to social inclusion helps us foster our Enabled strategy that works globally with Special Olympics International.”
All Hands on Deck
From all accounts, it hasn’t taken any arm-twisting to get employees involved in their companies’ community outreach efforts. Said TWC’s Topol, “Once we established strong partnerships to help bring CAMM to life, including For Recognition and Inspiration in Science and Technology (FIRST) and the Coalition for Science After School (CSAS), the stage was set for a major grassroots effort among consumers and employees.
TWC employees have enthusiastically embraced CAMM by mentoring and coaching FIRST robotics teams and teaching kids about the STEM principles behind cable technology with TWC’s signature curriculum, “Cracking the Codes in a Wireless World.” For example, last April, 1,500 TWC employees hosted STEM learning events for 7,000 students. This year, employees have been involved with our “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If” contest, which invited kids ages 10 through 15 to dream up inventions that would make their lives, communities or even the world a more wonderful place. And they have!” (Visit www.connectamillionminds.com to learn more.)
But wait—that’s not all! Said Topol, “TWC’s employee involvement in corporate social responsibility extends beyond CAMM. For example, employees across the company are forming green teams to support our stewardship of the environment. ”
The folks who work at ESPN are an equally enthusiastic bunch. According to Kevin Martinez, “This is a company made up of entrepreneurial and innovative employees who love sports and want to share that knowledge and love of their favorite games with others. They are innately team players who want to help their team mates and their company to be the best they can be. Team ESPN is a program that realizes those objectives every day in more than 400 volunteer events each year with thousands of our employees lending a hand.
“Our outreach department creates hundreds of engagement opportunities each year which help direct employee talent in skills-based volunteerism and service to community. In addition, Team ESPN is supported by The Walt Disney Company’s VoluntEARS program that translates volunteer hours into financial grants to thank both employees and community organizations for the work that they accomplish.”
Good Citizenship Pays Off
No one pretends that pouring money, talent and volunteer time into the community is any substitute for delivering a good product and excellent service. Still, word gets around, and research has shown that a company’s good deeds do enhance its reputation among its customers and, by implication, the broader public (a.k.a. potential customers).
For example, consumer research conducted in 2011, a little over two years after TWC implemented its more focused cause strategy, found that awareness of its CR activities had increased 52 percent. “Further,” Topol explained, “there was strong recognition of the CAMM brand specifically, and the positive perception of TWC among consumers had doubled. We are proud of our how far we’ve come in a relatively short time and appreciate the benefits of being recognized as a thought leader in STEM education.”
Employers have found that a solid community outreach program also packs a major punch in rising to one of our industry’s major challenges: the on-going war for talent. As Steve O’Connor, senior director of executive staffing for ESPN Inc. put it, “When our activities are discussed and written about they become part of the overall employment brand, which in turn results in greater company awareness and increased desirability for candidates to seek out and review potential opportunities. When we ask applicants the reasons they pursue opportunities with ESPN, the most common responses are a good fit with the position described, the product the company represents and our reputation in the community as a good corporate citizen.”
Scripps’ Bliss agrees that community involvement can work like a talent magnet, enticing candidates to come onboard and helping to keep them there. As an example, she cites an employee profile from the internal newsletter that hangs in her office. It quotes the subject’s response to a question about benefits: “My favorite part about Scripps’ benefits is how the company promotes Community Social Responsibility (CSR). I like to participate in Volunteer Day every year, where, instead of coming to work, employees select an organization and go work in the community.”
I don’t think there is an employer in our industry who would not echo Bliss’s reaction to that quote: “It’s a pretty cool thing that when employees think of their benefits at Scripps Networks Interactive, they think about involvement with our CSR practices and activities right up there with pay and healthcare.”
* The FCC wants additional info following Verizon Wireless’ announcement that it would sell all of its 700 MHz A and B spectrum licenses in order to rationalize its spectrum holdings. FCC Wireless Bureau chief Rick Kaplan wants to know if Verizon Wireless has taken steps to deploy mobile services using the lower 700MHz.
* In a continuation of FCC’s request for comments on what exactly constitutes an MVPD, ABC, NBC and CBS told the Commission that online video providers should be included in that definition.
5 Secrets for Transforming a Downturn into an Upturn >>
Netflix has come to town with kid-friendly offerings that are nibbling away at the traditional audience share of such stalwarts as Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and other syndicated youth-oriented shows. According to an analysis by the Sanford C. Bernstein Company, in the first quarter of 2012 Netflix has taken a sizeable bite out of viewer ratings for kid-friendly networks. Included in the analysis were Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and other syndicated shows.
Bernstein used data from TiVo DVRs to compare the viewing patterns of households with Netflix and those without the service. Now Disney and Viacom are a tricky situation. If they pull their premium kids programming from Netflix, it would cost each of them about $75 million in revenue starting in 2013. And yet withholding some kids’ offerings from the Netflix mix would undoubtedly make the Internet streaming service less attractive to youth and family viewers.
This type of indecision impacts revenue—and leaves some aspects of future profits ambiguous at best.
If you are experiencing erosion of your market share, it’s time to act. What can you do when your competition begins to chip away at your business?
The Basics
Seek out unique ways to work with clientele and staff.
Set up scenarios that can prepare you for trends, slides, the unexpected—and the expected as well.
Keep your product and/or service as fresh and inviting as possible—seek to be unique and trend friendly.
Do more for your clients than the competition. Keep your promises; be proactive; anticipate as much as possible.
Consistently over-deliver
Specifics
1. Follow the Jeff Bezos rule: During meetings, set up an empty chair to represent your customers. If your customer is not “in the room,” then how can you really consider them?
2. Create a “customer centric culture:” Develop an atmosphere where your people are constantly doing what they can to meet and fulfill the needs of customers. Keep in mind that you have external customers as well as internal ones, i.e. your employees. Happy employees mean happy clients, too.
3. Constantly evaluate future risks and rewards; prepare for different eventualities and economic situations. Ask yourself this: Where will our customers be in 5, 20, 40 years? How will the economic climates impact our business? How will prices for commodities influence the market?
4. Capitalize on how well you fail and succeed: Have you turned failures into what makes your company most successful? Failures are a perfect opportunity to learn and they are great platforms for success.
5. Swap jobs with each other: Allow people in your company to exchange jobs for 1-2 days. This is a terrific way to get more insight into your organization’s blind spots. Different perspectives yield new returns on investment.
The Bottom Line
Study your situation
Evaluate your competition
Welcome input from employees and associates
Study diverse resources
Act decisively and with forethought
(Esther Weinberg is a leadership expert and a cable veteran with a 20-year track record in the industry. She creates breakthrough strategies for such companies as ESPN, Microsoft, Scripps Networks, NBCUniversal Cable,Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc., Motorola, Headline News Network and MTV Networks. She is the contributing author to the leadership book “Breaking Through” by acclaimed author Barbara Stanny. Esther is a Board Member of NAMIC-Southern California, a mentor for WICT Southern California and a member of the Cable and Telecommunications Human Resources Association. Sign up for her FREE leadership newsletter with valuable information at www.mindlightgroup.com.)
May 15, 2012
Univision Execs Tout Digital Integration at 2012 Upfront >>
"Modern Family" star Sofia Vergara with Univision
pres, ad sales & marketing David Lawenda
“I might work somewhere else, but Univision is my home,” “Modern Family’s” Sofia Vergara told a theater of advertisers in a surprise appearance at the company’s 2012 upfront in NYC. Though the starlet resides at ABC currently, she used to star in Univision’s telenovelas. Vergara’s comments echoed the upfront’s theme, “Latinos Live Here.”
Univision pres, ad sales & marketing David Lawenda spoke of the company’s 73% market share of Spanish-language television and beating NBC 195 nights of the year in primetime. And to the delight of the entire theater, he broke into song and dance on stage with a crowd of actors embedded in the audience—a performance which warranted Vergara to observe, “You don’t strike me as Latino.”
Joking aside, Lawenda spoke about the recently announced Starcom USA/Tapestry deal, which he called the “largest total market partnership in our collective history.” And on a conference call Friday for press prior to the upfront, pres & CEO Randy Falco talked up the company’s digital presence, noting that the “traction the newfront concept has gotten this year” exemplifies its importance. Digital integration, he added, is in “everything we do this year.” Moreover, 94% of Univision viewership is live viewing. “We’re an anomaly—in a good way,” he said.
And at the upfront, Lawenda touted this as one of the company’s advantages over its competitors, along with having young consumers (the median age is 36), mostly live viewing (94%) and a highly engaged, mobilized and largely unduplicated audience. “Univision is no longer a niche,” he said.
The clearest example of Univision’s digital integration is its new UVideos Digital Network, a video platform serving as a portal for video content from all of Univision’s TV nets. Largely through authentication, viewers can watch content through game consoles, smartphones, tablets and iTVs. It’s currently in beta and scheduled for a launch this summer.
Morever, telenovela fans can expect to see 3 brand new webnovelas co-produced by Televisa and Univision Studios via the UVideos platform. Univision Networks pres Cesar Conde called it the “digital front door of long and short-form content across all 12 networks.” That includes the company’s 3 new cable nets, tlnovelas, Deportes and FOROtv, which now will be carried by AT&T in addition to DISH. Conde added that sports programming on Deportes will increase from 1,700 hours to 10,000 hours, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil will be aired live and in primetime.
Conde also alluded to Univision working with Facebook to allow viewers to access content and the upcoming launch of “new genre-specific broadband channels” in partnership with various broadband networks.
Having wrested the rights to air Major League Soccer games from Fox Soccer, NBC Sports Network is making a home for the league with new production tactics, analysis and amped up marketing. MLS hopes the partnership will help grow the league along with its ratings, which are looking up.
More top stories from the 5/14/12 issue of CableFAX Daily:
*Ahead of its upfront tomorrow, Univision announced a deal with Starcom USA and its multicultural agency Tapestry making it the largest single-agency deal the company’s ever conducted. It also announced a new video platform called UVideos Digital Network.
Lakers-centric RSNs Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Spanish-language Time Warner Cable Deportes are set to launch Oct. 1. Along with Lakers, Galaxy and Sparks games, the nets will offer non-event programming like nightly news shows. Here’s TWC Sports pres David Rone on cutting out the middle man in sports rights deals and its hopeful bid for Dodgers’ rights.
More top stories in the 5/11/12 issue of CableFAX Daily:
·The FCC Media Bureau has designated an ALJ hearing for GSN’s carriage complaint against Cablevision, which GSN filed in Oct after the MSO moved the net to its Sports & Entertainment tier. More on the ruling and Cablevision taking umbrage with the Commission.
·DISH’s threat to drop AMC Nets at the end of June dominated Thurs’ 1Q earnings call, with AMCN CEO Josh Sapan acknowledging that it may have a material impact on financial results. Execs also respond to Charlie Ergen’s claims that AMC Nets aren’t watched much by DISH subs.
·DISH’s Hopper whole-home HD DVR system is now being activated with “Auto Hop,” which lets subs skip all commercials for most recorded HD programs on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC when viewed the day after air. Sanford Bernstein weighs in.
NimbleTV has named Louis A. Borrelli, Jr. its Chief Marketing Officer. Having joined the soon-to-launch cloud-based TV platform service as an advisor and investor in 2011, Borrelli will now oversee all marketing, including communications, strategy and business development. (Read about NimbleTV’s role as streaming middleman between multichannel providers and consumers in CableFAX Daily.) Previously Borrelli served as President CEO of NEP Broadcasting, LLC, SVP of Broadband of America Online, Inc. and founding partner and COO of Marcus Cable, among other posts. CTAM has given him 2 TAMI awards and a Pinnacle Award, and he was elected to the Cable Pioneers in 2002. Fun facts about Lou include a drum habit and a pension for grilling: “I grill...therefore, I am.” Also: Attention Dave Grohl, you have an able-bodied fan who’d jump at the chance to join your ranks. “I can play all the drum parts for the entire Foo Fighters catalogue,” Borrelli admits. “When Dave Grohl calls because Taylor Hawkins broke his arm, I will be ready.”
Craig Parks
Craig Parks has been upped to SVP, Digital Media & Alternative Content at IFC. Parks is charged with extending the brand’s sensibility to digital, oversight of editorial content for IFC.com, social media strategy and deploying content across alternative platforms. In the VP role at IFC, he developed IFC Sync, a duel-screen experience allowing fans to interact with each other and network talent. Prior to joining AMC Nets, he worked for ABC Family, MTV and VH1. Parks enjoys visiting his wife’s family in Hawaii, where he surfs with his mother-in-law, “a pretty awesome long-boarder.” He also swims, and is currently training for long distance.
Nancy Jo
Guess who else swims? Nancy Jo, Bravo Media’s new VP, Digital Strategy and Business Development. “I’ve developed a habit of always encouraging friends and colleagues to join me,” says Jo. “This may result in a conversation that would ordinarily take 5 minutes, spread over the breaks of a 20 minutes set.” Jo’s newly created post entails developing growth opportunities and strategy in digital media, identifying new partnerships and growing revenue across digital platforms via alternative methods of monetization. She’ll report to Lisa Hsia, EVP of Digital Media for Bravo. Jo comes to the net from VEVO, where she was Senior Director of Business Development. Prior to that, she worked as VP of Corporate Finance and Business Development at Modern Luxury Media.
Emily Mayer
Comcast Entertainment Studios has tapped Emily Mayer as VP, Development. She comes to CES from GRB Entertainment, where as VP of Development she sold projects to cable nets like E!, AMC, Animal Planet, MSNBC, OWN, VH1 and WE. So she has experience hiring show runners, liaising with talent and execs and executive producing. At CES she’ll develop new series, pitch and sell projects and manage creative personnel. Some fun facts about Emily: she met her fiancé at a trapeze class (um, awesome), she recently rescued “2 sassy dogs” from the kill shelter, and she’s into fashion. Though she calls herself “an avid follower of sample sales and emerging fashion designers,” you can also find her wandering flea markets regularly to satisfy her tastes for “all things vintage.”
Samantha Maltin
Samantha Maltin has joined the A&E family from Nickelodeon, as SVP, Marketing, for History and H2. She’ll oversee marketing and expand H2 across all media, while reporting to Nancy Dubuc, President and GM, History and Lifetime Networks. Most recently she was SVP, Global Partnerships for Viacom International Media Network, where drove international revenue and monetization of Nick’s properties globally. Samantha loves to travel (“Paris”), ski (“Telluride”) and make her own wine (“still learning!”). Her favorite thing to cook might be Moroccan food. One of her weaknesses is cinnamon. You’ll find her putting it on…. everything.
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