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January 24, 2012
New Weather Chief Sees Local Ad Opportunities
By Amy Maclean
With a strong advertising background, newly named Weather Channel Companies chairman/CEO David Kenny believes the firm can answer some of advertisers biggest problems.
“Advertisers are struggling with local,” he said. “Nobody has a local infrastructure like we do. Advertisers are looking for scale and ubiquity... and certainly we have an audience that no one else has. And certainly they’re looking for an audience that’s engaged, and most of our users come back every day.”
David Kenny
Kenny said it was too soon to talk about what advanced advertising formats could work especially well at Weather. “What I will say is that I think you’ll see some pretty big innovation around the way we sell advertising and the solutions we bring advertisers, using all the streams together and using our local footprint in a very different way,” he said.
Also on his agenda is international expansion. “Weather is important to 6 billion people everyday around the world,” he said. “Now that it’s digital and mobile, that part of it can go international much faster.”
Weather announced Kenny’s appointment Tuesday. He succeeds Mike Kelly, who after 2 years as CEO will serve as a special adviser to the board and Kenny. Kenny most recently served as pres Akamai. Prior to that, he co-founded and served as managing partner of VivaKi, the combined worldwide media and digital arm of Publicis Groupe.
"We are grateful to Mike Kelly for the significant contributions he has made to the progress of the business over the last two years, including record revenue and profitability, building the executive team, helping revitalize the company's focus on original TV programming and establishing the company as a mobile leader," said the consortium that owns The Weather Channel Companies—Bain Capital, The Blackstone Group, and NBC Universal.
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