Three new digital hires for Hearst Argyle Television: Terry Casey joins as weather product manager, Chris Steib as entertainment product manager and Judy Stone as the high school sports product manager. More details…
PRESS RELEASE — Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. (NYSE: HTV) today announced three additions to its growing digital media team.
Terry Casey joins the Hearst-Argyle digital media team as Weather Product Manager. Casey has served as an on-air severe-weather expert for MSNBC and Fox News Channel; he has appeared on Bloomberg News and the Discovery Health/ Discovery Wings cable networks; and he served on the team that developed the Time Warner weather channel network. For a decade he served in a variety of management capacities for Weather Services International (WSI) including Director of Weather Programming. He most recently served as Senior Weather Producer and on-air meteorologist for Boston NBC affiliate WHDH-TV, where he also managed the launch of that station’s digital Weather Plus channel. In his new role, Casey will oversee weather content, production, technology and workflow in the development of superior weather brands on the Internet, mobile, and digital multi-cast channels. He will be based at WCVB, the Hearst-Argyle ABC station in Boston.
Chris Steib also joins the Hearst-Argyle digital media team as Entertainment Product Manager. He had been Manager, Executive Communications at NBC Universal; he also is the Founder and Editor in Chief of a profitable digital publishing site, VoidMagazine.com, and is a correspondent for Gather.com, writing a bi-weekly column on emerging digital trends in publishing. In his new role Steib will work in New York with the Hearst-Argyle management team innovating local entertainment profiles for the Company’s station Websites, to include entertainment directories, social networking and professional and amateur local interest lifestyle videos, among other products.
Judy Stone will undertake responsibilities as High School Sports Product Manager. A former high school track and field player and referee, Stone has worked at Hearst-Argyle’s WXII-TV, in the Greensboro / Winston-Salem market, in various news and content capacities, and was instrumental in distinguishing the WXII Website among area news outlets with coverage of high school sports, entertainment and an innovative weddings page; she also assembled her own network of digital users as a personal focus group to determine digital behaviors. Previously she worked as a director or production assistant at WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, and WSLS-TV in Roanoke, Virginia. Stone will collaborate with the Hearst-Argyle stations in the gathering and production of content, including high school football, basketball and regional niche sports, for various digital platforms.
The new product managers will work with Michael Gay, who joined Hearst-Argyle in December 2006 as Executive Producer of Digital Media Content, and who produces general news content for the Hearst-Argyle Websites and other digital media platforms.
The appointments, effective immediately, were announced by Terry Mackin, Hearst-Argyle Executive Vice President and head of the Company’s digital media group, and Jacques Natz, Hearst-Argyle Director of Digital Media Content.
“Our digital group is organized around expanding new media content, leveraging existing resources and building businesses that are scalable,†Mackin said. “We’ve prioritized resources for on-line performance and local opportunities where we have a conviction about our chances for success.â€
“Terry, Judy and Chris represent the new breed of multi-platform media managers who have the passion, expertise and entrepreneurial spirit to create new lines of digital content that enhance the user experience in weather, local entertainment and high school sports,†Natz added.
In 2006 and early 2007, Hearst-Argyle added digital-media executives encompassing content development, sales and business development. Natz joined from WTHR-TV in Indianapolis, where as news director he oversaw the station’s market-leading Web news operations; Gay subsequently joined from WBBM-TV, Chicago, where he managed the CBS-owned station’s award-winning Web operation. Eric Koepele, Director of Digital Media Sales, and Julie Kelly, Product Marketing Manager, joined the Company from CNet. Felix Banuchi, Director of Digital Media Development, joined the Company from NBC, where he played key roles in the launch of Weather Plus and other digital projects.
Mackin joined Hearst-Argyle in 1999 and recently assumed full-time oversight of digital media for the Company. He initially broadened Hearst-Argyle’s role in digital media beginning in 2003, when, in his capacity as Chairman of the NBC Affiliates Futures Committee and subsequently as Chairman of the NBC Affiliates Board, he co-developed Weather Plus and the National Broadband Company (‘nbbcâ€) and oversaw the NBC affiliates’ role in the NBCOlympics.com Websites developed for the 2004 Athens and 2006 Torino games.
The Company’s digital media efforts currently encompass video broadband initiatives, television multicasting products and mobile distribution of proprietary content. In 2006 the Hearst-Argyle local Websites generated 1.3 billion page views and 38 million video streams by an average 4 million monthly unique visitors. Among recent product launches, a revamped local auto classified advertising section has generated growth in pageviews on the Company’s Greenville, South Carolina, site, WYFF.com, from approximately 8,000 per month to more than 106,000 per month, with a quadrupling of unique users; and a new interactive local directory, featuring nearly 1,600 local businesses, has attracted more than 700,000 pageviews in its first month on the Company’s Sacramento site, KCRA.com. The Hearst-Argyle sites are among the most highly trafficked within their local markets and also provide wireless application protocol (WAP) content, podcasts, Web-based newscasts, Web-based video and blogs in a broad cross-section of markets.
Additionally, Hearst-Argyle’s NBC-affiliated stations have launched digital broadcast carriage of Weather Plus, with widespread cable and satellite carriage, while other Hearst-Argyle stations also have launched digital weather channels. Hearst-Argyle reported $15.5 million of digital media revenue for 2006.