Kevin Latek

Gray Television exec Kevin Latek’s background is in communications law and he thinks the current FCC needs to update the commission’s ownership rules to reflect the reality of today’s TV ecosystem, not that of the 1950s or even the 1990s.

Gray says it will pay “one-time discretionary cash incentive compensation awards” totaling more than $4 million to three top execs. President-CEO Hilton Howell Jr. will get $2,488,900; EVP-CFO James Ryan will get $716,130; and EVP and Chief Legal and Development Officer Kevin Latek will get $870,014.

It’s in the network affiliates’ interest to nurture some of these new skinny bundles by supplying them with their signals, even if it is on terms dictated by their networks. It’s a hedge against cord cutting and it’s another avenue into the OTT and mobile world where younger audiences await. Here’s the caveat: the affiliates’ revenue from the OTT providers — their end of whatever the networks negotiate — must be comparable to the net retrans they are getting from cable and satellite.

Following the company’s recent growth, it promotes its five senior vice presidents — Jim Ryan, Kevin Latek, Bob Smith, Nick Waller and Jason Effinger.

Kevin Latek, Gray Television’s SVP of business affairs, says his company is looking to buy more “high-quality TV stations that really serve as institutions in their markets, that are typically No. 1 or No. 2 in news.” Gray is also intent on delivering that programming to as many devices as possible and so has embraced CBS All Access and NBC’s TV Everywhere initiative.

It eliminates the COO and regional VP positions and promotes two former regional VPs to SVP positions, joining three others, all reporting to new President-CEO Hilton Howell.

Gray Television Inc. announced today that Robert A. Beizer, the company’s vice president for law and development and secretary, will retire effective Feb. 29. Kevin P. Latek, a partner in […]