Hearst Television has promoted Michael Saffell to regional director of engineering.
Saffell has been the director of engineering for Hearst’s WMUR in Manchester, N.H. since 2015.
He’ll be based in New England with offices at WMUR and WCVB in Boston and will share direct engineering oversight across the station group with fellow regional director of engineering Greg Turner.
Saffell succeeds Joe Balkan, who is retiring at the end of this year after 24 years with the station group and nearly five decades in broadcast television.
“Michael is a versatile broadcast TV industry veteran with valuable experience spanning production to distribution,” said Stefan Hadl, Hearst Television senior vice president of engineering. “He’s been instrumental in managing the technology at one of our company’s most high-profile stations and he’s the right person to succeed Joe in this important position.”
Before joining Hearst in 2014 as assistant director of engineering at WMUR, Saffell served for seven years as director of technology for New Hampshire Public Radio, with management responsibilities including IT, studio facilities and remote transmission sites. Before that, he worked for eight years for Game Creek Video. His television career dates back to when he was the acting chief engineer for a 5-megawatt suburban New York TV station at 18 years old.