Paul McTear

Raycom Media’s new CEO, Pat LaPlatney, has a broad TV background, but it’s his experience in what digital media can offer that led to his succeeding Paul McTear as the station group’s top exec. He says he sees broadcasting, the web, mobile, OTT and other digital media as parts of a whole. Raycom, he says, needs “to aggregate the biggest video audience we can, gather as much data as we can about that audience and go out and sell it aggressively.”

Paul McTear, Raycom Media president-CEO, will retire at the end of June after being with the company from its inception in 1997 and serving as CEO since 2001. He will be succeeded by current SVP Pat LaPlatney who joined Raycom in 2007 and who now oversees all revenue for the company along with the company’s growing digital ventures. In addition, SVP Susana Schuler is being promoted to EVP of content and operations.

The station group paid $160 million for the collection of TV and radio stations in Texas and Oklahoma. “This is a group of market leaders; each with a strong presence not only on the broadcast side of the business but also in digital and Spanish-language platforms,” says Raycom CEO Paul McTear.

Paul McTear’s company invests in tech and home-grown programming to stay on top and continue engaging audiences as consumption patterns evolve at an ever-quickening pace.This story originally appeared in the winter edition of TVNewsCheck’s Executive Outlook.

Paul McTear’s first job in broadcasting was assistant business manager at WPHL, an independent station in Philadelphia, in 1977. If not for a little luck and good chemistry with broadcast […]

With 53 stations covering more than 13% of U.S. households, Raycom Media Group will be honored by TVNewsCheck as the 2015 Station Group of the Year. “Under the bold direction of CEO Paul McTear for the past 13 years, the group has grown considerably and emerged as an industry leader,” says TVN Editor Harry A. Jessell.