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Deborah Turness Named President of NBC News

May 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

NBC News on Monday named Deborah Turness, a British news executive, as its next president, ending a monthslong search to fill one of the most prestigious jobs in American television journalism.

Ms. Turness will be the first woman to run a network news division in the United States. She will succeed Steve Capus, who stepped down in February after nearly eight years at the helm.

In a statement, Ms. Turness called her appointment “the greatest imaginable honor.”

“I am hugely excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and look forward to working with the talented journalists and technicians who make it one of the great global news operations,” she said.

Through a spokeswoman, Ms. Turness declined an interview request. She was in London on Monday, convening a staff meeting for her longtime colleagues at ITV News, the operation she has overseen for nine years, to tell them of her move, which will take effect in August. She will meet the staff of NBC, a unit of Comcast, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ms. Turness will inherit a news division that is wounded, having forfeited the top spot in the morning television ratings race last year to its archrival, ABC News. NBC’s “Today,” by some measures the most profitable part of the news division, has yet to recover. Earlier this month, in another loss for NBC News, its parent network canceled “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” the two-year-old newsmagazine that had struggled to hold onto a time slot.

However, its flagship nightly newscast, anchored by Mr. Williams, remains in first place in the ratings, and its in-house production company, called Peacock Productions, continues to strike deals with cable channels that want its programming. NBC’s news reports reach tens of millions of viewers a day.

More broadly, Ms. Turness will face the same challenges as her counterparts at ABC and CBS, the other two networks with news divisions. As television viewers spend more time online, news producers have to move with them, lest they risk losing market share. NBC News took control of its main Web site, MSNBC.com, last summer, when it dissolved a joint venture with Microsoft at a cost of about $200 million to the network. It renamed the Web site NBCNews.com. Later this year, MSNBC.com will become a destination for MSNBC, the liberal-leaning cable channel that has been a profit center for NBC News.

Ms. Turness’s job will be smaller than her predecessor’s job. For example, she will not have oversight of MSNBC. That’s a result of a restructuring that began last summer, shortly after the “Today” show fell to second place after a 16-year winning streak. The NBC News president, Mr. Capus at the time, stopped reporting directly to NBCUniversal chief executive Steve Burke; instead, the news division became one unit within an umbrella group called the NBCUniversal News Group. Mr. Burke named Patricia Fili-Krushel the chair of the new group, which also included MSNBC and CNBC. Mr. Capus stepped down partly due to his dissatisfaction with this arrangement.

Some business functions of NBC News are now handled by the umbrella group. And MSNBC, whose president Phil Griffin previously reported to Mr. Capus, now reports to Ms. Fili-Krushel, and will continue to do so after Ms. Turness arrives. This change implies that Comcast is putting some distance between the traditionally nonpartisan NBC News and the more opinionated, controversial MSNBC.

But Ms. Turness, who will report to Ms. Fili-Krushel, will have oversight of all news-gathering and programming for NBC News. This is similar to her role at ITV News, where her title was editor, in charge of three daily news broadcasts and seven bureaus around the world.

Ms. Fili-Krushel declined an interview request on Monday. But in an internal memorandum, she said that at ITV News Ms. Turness “has earned a reputation for being a strong leader, innovator, and respected journalist, and I look forward to her joining NBC News.”

The decision to look outside NBC and outside the United States for a president suggests a yearning for new thinking on the part of NBCUniversal executives. In her public statement about the appointment, Ms. Fili-Krushel mentioned Ms. Turness’s “proven track record for innovation and collaboration.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/media/deborah-turness-named-president-of-nbc-news.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Advertising: A Channel Reflects the Reshaping of TV Demographics

February 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The network, Bounce TV, part of Bounce Media, has hired Dennis Ray for the new post of executive vice president for advertising sales. Mr. Ray, whose résumé includes stints at Fox Broadcasting and NBC, is based in a new New York sales office for Bounce TV, which has headquarters in Atlanta. He is overseeing a staff of three sales executives, with plans to add additional employees in the office.

Bounce TV, which began its digital over-the-air broadcasts in September 2011, is indicative of the multiplying media choices for multicultural consumers like African-Americans and Hispanics, whose increasing numbers and buying power make them attractive audiences for marketers.

“You can look at the last election,” Mr. Ray said in a telephone interview. “Diversity is imperative for the survival of these companies and their brands.”

In broadcasting to African-Americans, and selling commercial time to marketers seeking to reach them, Bounce TV competes with channels and networks that include Aspire, BET, Black Heritage Network, Centric, GMC and TV One.

The hiring of Mr. Ray and the opening of the New York office come after Bounce TV has sold commercials to marketers that include the Chrysler Group, General Motors, Johnson Johnson, McDonald’s, Nissan Motor, Sprint, Toyota Motor and Wal-Mart Stores. The expansionary moves also come after Nielsen began to measure viewership for Bounce TV and issue ratings data.

Bounce TV now reaches 77 million American television homes and 86 percent of African-American television homes, said Jonathan Katz, chief operating officer at Bounce TV, who joined Mr. Ray for the interview.

“We are poised to capitalize on that growth on Madison Avenue,” Mr. Katz said, “and that was part of the decision to bring Dennis in.”

Mr. Ray said that when he started talking to Mr. Katz about Bounce TV, “I told Jonathan this is eerily familiar to me” because it reminded him of “when I was leaving NBC to go to Fox” in 1989, “working to build something from the ground up.”

“We’ve had over 50 meetings with agencies” recently, Mr. Ray said, and “we are in talks” with marketers of packaged-goods products to join the lineup of Bounce TV advertisers.

Executives at agencies already working with Bounce TV praise it.

“There are a few other solid African-American networks,” said Detavio Samuels, executive vice president at GlobalHue in Southfield, Mich., which works for the Chrysler Group. “But I love that Bounce TV is not on cable, because the opportunity to get more eyeballs to the network is great.”

“And Bounce TV has been doing the right thing in getting distribution,” he added.

Although African-Americans as a demographic group “may not have the same growth trajectory of Hispanics,” Mr. Samuels said, they remain important to marketers for several reasons that, in addition to buying power, include their status as “true influencers of pop culture in America.”

“The goal is to engage with African-American audiences in a way that enables them to become influencers,” he said. “It’s definitely about the amplification.”

Deborah Gray-Young, vice president and media director at Burrell Communications in Chicago, which works for clients like McDonald’s and Toyota, said: “We really liked Bounce TV’s philosophy on programming being family-friendly and respectful. Not all programming in the marketplace adheres to those values.”

“I take offense to a lot of the stuff out there” that is “denigrating, meanspirited and salacious,” she added. “You want to be in an environment where consumers appreciate what’s coming into their homes. The idea you could be anywhere on that network and not be concerned what the content is makes our job easier.”

Ad sales for Bounce TV had previously been handled by two representation firms, the Ace Media Corporation and Marathon Ventures. Mr. Ray, who worked with Ace Media on the initial sales efforts for Bounce TV, now takes over that function as Bounce TV brings it in-house. Marathon will continue working for Bounce TV, Mr. Katz said, handling sales of direct response advertising.

The Bounce TV moves come as the television industry readies for the upfronts, the annual series of sales presentations ahead of the coming season. Some upfront presentations for 2013-14 have already been made; dozens more are planned through mid-May.

Bounce TV plans to hold meetings with agencies individually during the upfront season.

Underlining the reshaping of television’s demographic landscape is a deal that Bounce TV made in December with Univision Communications, which specializes in programming aimed at Hispanic viewers. The agreement calls for the Univision Television Group to carry Bounce TV through what is known as multicasting — a digital television technology that gives viewers access to local broadcast TV channels — in seven major markets like Boston, Miami and San Francisco.

“It seemed like a great partnership to serve the largest two minorities in the United States,” said Kevin Cuddihy, president at the Univision Television Group. The agreement, with undisclosed financial terms, is “a multiple-year deal,” he added, “with options for extending it.”

Helping Bounce TV reach more viewers of broadcast television is important, Mr. Cuddihy said, because “African-Americans and Latinos have a higher percentage of over-the-air viewing” compared with cable viewing.

“To use our bandwidth to broadcast Bounce TV makes a sweet combo,” he added.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/business/media/a-channel-reflects-the-reshaping-of-tv-demographics.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Hoping for the Next Big Show, TV Ups the Ante

September 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This fall the television networks are trying to lure jaded viewers with high-concept, big-budget shows like “Terra Nova,” which has computer-generated dinosaurs trying to kill off human characters, and “The X Factor,” Simon Cowell’s manic sequel to “American Idol.”

To do that, they are spending years on development and marketing, and in some cases releasing trailers for new shows almost a year before they actually appear on TV. “Terra Nova,” which premieres Monday night, took two years to develop, a timeline more typical for the film industry than for television. “The X Factor,” also on Fox, was first promoted last Thanksgiving and was finally introduced last week.

It’s true at other networks too. NBC’s “Smash,” a drama set backstage at a Broadway musical, was first previewed in May, and it will not have its premiere until February.

Clearly, the hunt is on for blockbuster shows, the kind that will, as Kevin Reilly, the president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting, put it, “get the hooks in deep enough.” That’s why Fox promoted a $5 million prize for “The X Factor” and budgeted $15 million to $20 million for the two-hour pilot episode of “Terra Nova.”

The potential rewards are huge. According to industry estimates, “The X Factor” is charging up to $400,000 per 30-second commercial, an exceptionally high rate. “Idol,” which is nine years old and is the most popular entertainment show on American television, gets about $475,000.

But the risks are also substantial. That point was underscored when “The X Factor” attracted about 12.5 million viewers in its debut — strong by almost any standards, but below the sky-high expectations for the singing competition.

Mr. Reilly said the network’s willingness to swing for the fences this fall was in part an effort to avoid “the malaise of stuff that comes out in a clump” at the start of each new television season. If history is any guide, 70 percent of the shows that pop up this month and next (the new season officially started last Monday) will not survive long enough for a second season. “The viewer just sort of shrugs” each fall, Mr. Reilly said, “and that’s disappointing — and expensive.”

The alternative might be more expensive — the judges on “The X Factor” command eight-figure salaries and the dinosaurs on “Terra Nova” don’t come cheap either — but it may improve TV’s batting average. Marquee shows tend to be nurtured more carefully and promoted more aggressively, improving the odds that viewers will tune in at least once. The shows can be sold more easily overseas and to digital platforms like Netflix, making it easier to recoup the costs of production and turn a profit.

Steve Sternberg, an independent television analyst, said that CBS and NBC were “playing it relatively safe” this season, but that ABC was taking risks with the retro drama “Pan Am,” the fairy tale-inspired “Once Upon a Time,” and the soapy Hamptons-set “Revenge,” “none of which are currently like anything else on broadcast TV.”

When Paul Lee, the president of entertainment for ABC, took over the network’s ailing prime-time schedule last year, he signaled that he wanted to empower the producers of individual shows to experiment.

“Big failures come from that, and you have to be ready to fall on your face,” he told reporters last winter. “But brand-defining television comes from that. I encourage that; we don’t want cookie-cutter television.”

Risk-taking paid off for ABC in 2004 when it introduced “Lost,” the sprawling science-fiction show. But since then, it has spent heavily on shows like the time-bending mystery “Flash Forward” that have not attracted viewers.

A risk-taking attitude was evident in the halls of the Fox network on a recent visit, where marketers were furiously finishing Web ads for “The X Factor,” teasers for “Terra Nova” and billboards for a new sitcom called “New Girl,” which got high ratings in its premiere on Tuesday night.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f1bea46dfc88610a209e983b5adbcf08

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