Graham Media Group

The former Scripps exec will be responsible for developing and implementing newsgathering, storytelling and distribution models strategy across all platforms.

Executives from Gray Television, Morgan Murphy Media, Graham Media Group, Ticker and Newsbridge will break down the key elements of AI’s rapidly widening role in broadcast TV and what the C-suite needs to know about the business implications in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference at the NAB Show New York on Oct. 25. Register here.

Marketing leaders from Cox Media Group, Graham Media Group, Gray Television and Tegna will discuss projects that get to the heart of localism and how they’ve successfully built high audience engagement around them in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on July 13. Register here.

She will provide legal advice and counsel to the senior management team on a broad range of issues involving employment and labor relations, defamation, privacy, media and intellectual property law, litigation and regulatory matters, working along with GMG VP/Co-General Counsel Heidi Schmid Whiting.

The appointment comes as Kim Wilson, SND founder and president, announced she will leave the company at the end of April, along with co-founder Elisa DeFoe.

Without political advertising and with, possibly, a recession on the horizon, station groups rely on their customer-focused approach to drive cross-platform businesses with omnichannel, client-focused campaigns. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Executives from Nexstar, Graham Media and Gray Television will share strategies for creating and expanding on opportunities to reach consumers on streaming and other digital platforms in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch webinar on Jan. 26. Register here.

Cox Media Group, Capitol Broadcasting, Graham Media Group and other broadcasters are participating. Magnite, an independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform, will make CTV inventory available to agencies and programmatic buyers.

Stephanie Slagle named chief innovation officer and Michael Newman becomes director of transformation.

The broadcast group’s corporate offices relocate to Detroit from Chicago, where Graham Media Group (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations) had been based since 2012.

The veteran broadcasting executive is stepping down later this year. She joined Graham Media Group, then Post-Newsweek Stations, in 2012. Under her leadership, she has transformed the organization from a broadcast-based model to seven local media hubs — each in a top-71 market, representing just under 7% coverage in the U.S. Her successor, Catherine Badalamente, joined Graham in 2000, serving in a number of executive roles, including spearheading the organization’s digital efforts since 2009, most recently as VP and chief innovation officer.

Executives from WarnerMedia, Graham Media Group, Dalet and Perspective Media Group told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week that the proliferation of direct-to-consumer services and remote/distributed production shifts put the industry’s cloud migration as next year’s biggest trend.

Graham Media Group, TVNewsCheck’s Station Group of the Year, is fostering tighter relationships with its most highly engaged audiences via Insiders, a company-wide membership program it launched last year. Graham executives believe it will have a transformative effect on news content, community building and revenues in an era of ever-disaggregating audiences. Read part one of the series on Graham’s culture of innovation here. Read part two on President and CEO Emily Barr here.

Emily Barr, president and CEO of Graham Media Group, enjoys an unrivaled level of respect and admiration among station group chiefs. TVNewsCheck’s Station Group of the Year-winning leader forged her reputation on her exceptional empathy and embrace of innovation. Read part one of this three-part series here.

Graham Media Group, TVNewsCheck’s 2021 Station Group of the Year, is bucking the industry’s consolidation trend by fostering a company-wide culture of innovation to serve ever-disaggregating audiences. In the process, it’s aiming to reboot the station-audience relationship and create a new paradigm for advertising.

Make Ends Meet is Graham-owned WKMG Orlando’s effort to help Floridian viewers navigate state and federal agencies to connect with their COVID-related unemployment benefits. Headed by reporter Mike Holfeld, the practical, utility-minded segments have aided in the delivery of $1.5 million in benefits to Florida residents.

Graham Media is moving him from GM of WJXT Jacksonville, Fla. to succeed the retiring Marla Drutz as head of its Michigan NBC affiliate.

Led by Emily Barr, Graham Media Group has long been at the vanguard of multimedia experimentation, making bold moves in streaming and on digital platforms. In an era of dramatic industry consolidation, the family-owned group has also remained defiantly independent.

The increase to $175.2 million is due to a $50.3 million increase in political advertising revenue and $5.2 million increase in retransmission revenues, partially offset by reduced local and national advertising demand related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When it comes to mobile apps, broadcasters still face a range of options from a single- or multiple-app approach to adopting back-end tech allowing user personalization. But some goals remain constant: keeping users on owned-and-operated mobile platforms over social and monetizing the experience wherever possible.

Graham Media expands its ambitious campaign to develop a membership program for Graham stations and potentially pave a new path to sustainability for local TV news.

TV stations are still hiring during the pandemic, but HR executives say they’ve had to get creative in their largely virtual environments, turning to social media and marketing tools to fill key positions, particularly account executives, producers and executive producers.

Broadcasters have largely steered away from enabling audience commenting on their digital platforms, but emerging AI moderation tools and a business case for fostering engagement via comments may prompt some to reassess.

Executives from Fox News and Graham Media say they’ll rely heavily on IP contribution, cloud editing systems and other remote production tools in their coverage of the 2020 election, and they’re also ready to settle in for the long haul if final results aren’t confirmed for days, if not weeks, after Nov. 3.

Leaders of television’s news and technology community will talk about how technology can facilitate coverage of the 2020 election season during a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar set for Thursday, Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. ET. Speakers are (top, l-r): Alan Komissaroff, SVP news and politics, Fox News Channel; Tony Plosz, SVP and CTO, Graham Media Group; Bogdan Frusina, founder, Dejero and (below, right: Stephane Guez, founder and CTO, Dalet Digital Media Systems; and, left, Glen Dickson, contributing editor of TVNewsCheck, who is moderating the event. Register here.

TV salespeople have been working from home since March, but the technology necessary for the entire sales workflow to be cloud-based is still developing. Both WideOrbit and Imagine Communications are transitioning existing products to the cloud and developing new cloud-based software.

Emily Barr, president and CEO of Graham Media Group, is holding the line against layoffs, furloughs or salary cuts, but still sees a rocky second quarter unfolding. She says being communicative and honest with employees has been the most essential part of managing through an unprecedented crisis.

Graham Media Group President and CEO Emily Barr credits local GMs, news directors and sales leaders with spinning up creative and inspiring efforts to pull their markets through the crisis.

The increase to $115.4 million is pegged to increases in both political advertising and retransmission consent revenues, but Graham notes that company-wide it was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and warned that the virus is expected to “negatively impact advertising revenue and the operating results at the television broadcasting division for the remainder of 2020.”

The former Dispatch Broadcast Group digital and sales executive is picked to fill the station group’s new position of senior director, brand agency and sales strategy.

Graham Media Group says the move “will provide a common audience-measurement currency across all platforms which simplifies the assessment of cross-platform media campaigns.”

He joins the station group from NBCU’s WCAU-WWSI Philadelphia. CEO Emily Barr said: “Tony’s deep knowledge of both IT infrastructure and broadcast operations and engineering will be invaluable to Graham Media Group.”

Both Graham and Nexstar have openings in their respective corporate headquarters in Chicago and Dallas for a chief technology officer and a senior vice president of local content development.

The station group adds chief innovation officer to Catherine Badalamente’s title of vice president. Said Graham CEO Emily Barr: “Under Catherine’s leadership, the Graham Digital team has nurtured and developed our web and mobile sites, overseen the growth of significant digital revenue and developed industry-leading applications and have been recognized by a slew of industry experts.”

Crafting the right strategy for each service is crucial, broadcast executives say at TVNewsCheck’s OTT News Summit.