The long-time TV news and management executive has served as president and general manager of CBS Television Stations’ properties in San Francisco since 2012.
Bombshell GM Switch In Chicago, San Fran
WGN’s GM, Marty Wilke, is moving over to CBS O&O WBBM, succeeding Bruno Cohen, who is taking over the GM slot for CBS’s San Francisco duopoly, plus its KSTW Seattle. Cohen succeeds Ron Longinotti, who is leaving the company.
Who Calls The Shots At WBBM Chicago?
So who’s really in charge of what’s going on these days at WBBM? Is it Bruno Cohen, 59, the owlish GM of the CBS-owned station who took over a money-losing also-ran in 2008 and turned it into a profitable contender? Or is it his bosses in New York, who unloaded a bunch of second-stringers from WCBS (including Kate Sullivan, Steve Bartelstein and Megan Glaros) on their station here and forced Cohen to cancel his pet project, Monsters and Money in the Morning, after just seven months?
Things Are Finally Looking Up At WBBM
While it would be stretching a point to suggest that WBBM is anywhere close to recapturing the dominance it held until the mid ’80s, its late-news ratings performance last month was the first real sign of a turnaround in as long as anyone can remember. For Bruno Cohen (right), who’s been president-GM since October 2008, it was the light at the end of the tunnel he’d been looking for. “It’s just very heartening for me because it’s a clear indication that we’re doing a number of core things correctly and that our approach is working.”
