Promotion

I wanted to know how a TV station’s creative services/marketing department could function when each member of its staff had to work from home. I know this is how things are being done now, but I couldn’t imagine how it is accomplished. So I reached out to a couple of station marketing directors to hear how they were managing working from home. In addition, I asked each if they would allow their staff to pen a few lines about their experiences working from home.

During his 48 years at CBS, George Schweitzer was in radio at CBS News under names like Walter Cronkite, served as a producer on Captain Kangaroo, worked in program practices and standards, handled broadcast operations and oversaw the network’s corporate communications. And that was before he took over CBS marketing in the early 1990s, at the same moment the entire way TV shows were promoted to audiences underwent a massive transformation.

The association is offering a weekly mix of free and premium content as well as networking opportunities, with physical conferences to return in 2021.

Local broadcasters are coming together across markets, groups and even competitors to inform and reassure viewers during the pandemic.

One doesn’t normally think of local TV news and its marketing as a source of inspiration. But lately, it’s had its moments.

Now, more than ever before, people are turning to local TV news for information they can trust about the changing conditions in their town, their city, county and state due to the coronavirus. And local TV marketers are responding with messages of hope and optimism, togetherness and kindness. Not the usual themes of local TV news promotion, but maybe the ones we need to hear right now.

The radio-TV toolkit will also offer best practices for broadcast stations to combat coronavirus misinformation.

That’s because many travelers who may have been exposed to the virus are being quarantined at two locations in Omaha. “It’s not often that you have a midsize television market playing an important part in covering a global story,” said John Livingston, KETV’s creative services director.

Kelli Raftery, a veteran CBS communications executive who has worked in many different roles over more than two decades at the company, is poised to leave, one of several executives departing in the wake of the company’s recent merger with Viacom.

“The results of All Devices (Part II) have been worth it, and the response online has been incredible,” said Erik Candiani, about WWBT Richmond’s latest news promo. “Yes, it took a long time. Yes, it was a pain in the butt to pull off, but, people notice. And that’s our job as marketers, right? Get people to notice.”

Veteran marketing executive Rebecca Daugherty is leaving her role as EVP of marketing for ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios. Daugherty tenure at ABC spans 33 years and includes campaigns for such signature series as Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and The Conners.

Dee Dee Myers will exit her post at Warner Bros as executive vp of worldwide corporate communications and public affairs. Myers joined Hollywood from the world of politics, previously serving as the White House press secretary to Bill Clinton. She has been with the studio for five years.