Valari Staab

NBCU-owned KNTV in the Bay Area built a digital innovation team composed of unique specialists whose goal was to transform the newsroom’s culture. The team’s ambitious, multimedia investigative projects have garnered an armful of Murrow awards and illuminated bold, new storytelling pathways.

Led by Valari Staab, the group has surged with vital investments in its technology and newsrooms. She talks about the creation of new facilities that have charted an early path to the industry’s IP future; bilingual collaborations with Telemundo stations and expanded investigations that have elevated its reporting; and NBCLX, which has successfully targeted a new generation of local news viewers with innovative, multiplatform approaches to news storytelling. Read the story and/or watch the full video  above.

Experts say for stations to survive the onslaught of multiscreen competition, they must make a serious commitment to promotion. “Google-proof” the news, says NBCU’s Valari Staab, while SmithGeiger’s Andrew Finlayson exhorted: “We are in the reminder business. “Don’t just run the same [local news promo] over and over all evening. Make these the best promos on your air.”

The Broadcasters Foundation of America has elected four broadcast industry leaders to board of directors. The new members were voted into office during last week’s board of directors meeting in New […]

After 40 years in television, the head of NBC’s New York flagship O&O will step down next June. Prior to taking over at WNBC in 2010, Jack ran two other NBC stations, WRC Washington and WCHM Columbus, Ohio.

Valari Staab, the president of the NBC Owned Television Stations, took over management of the 10 stations a few years back. Her bosses also gave her the charge of improving the group and money to do so. She talks about how her investment in investigative reporters, helicopters, additional newscasts, new facilities and other resources has paid off. This story originally appeared earlier this month in the Spring 2014 edition of TVNewsCheck’s Executive Outlook, a quarterly print publication devoted to the future of broadcasting.

Two of the panel discussions at the NYC Television Week event focused on local TV. While the panel with Peter Liguori, president and CEO of Tribune Co., was held earlier than the lunchtime discussion with Valari Staab, president of NBC owned stations and Rebecca Campbell, president of ABC owned stations, much of the discussion revolved around the health of local stations.

In a reorganization, Valari Staab, president of the NBC Owned Television Stations will also oversee Telemundo’s 16 TV stations as well as Boston-based regional cable news network NECN.

Valari Staab, president, NBC Owned Television Stations: “As consumers rely more and more on time-shifted viewing, we strongly believe that live-plus-same-day ratings data best reflects how people watch television today and should be adopted as the minimum standard for local viewing measurement.”

As part of parent NBC’s push to beef up news at its owned stations, its WCAU Philadelphia has upped its game. With new people and tools, including SkyForce 10, a state-of-the-art  Bell helicopter with four HD cameras, there’s a new approach to reporting news, one that involves expanding the station’s geographical coverage, heightening investigative and enterprise work and putting news in better context. “A year ago we were probably more reactionary — something would happen and we would react. And now we are a little more thoughtful in our process, more balanced, a lot more measured,” says News Director Anzio Williams.

The station group’s leader, Valari Staab, is betting two new syndicated shows — Steve Harvey from NBCUniversal and Jeff Probst from CBS Television Distribution — will flow nicely with current shows and help turn around the fortunes of her 10 stations.

NBC Owned Television Stations today announced it has entered into agreements to create cooperative newsgathering and reporting arrangements with a series of locally-focused, nonprofit news organizations.

Rebecca Campbell (l), CEO of the ABC Owned Television Stations, and Valari Staab, CEO of NBC Owned Television Stations, face very different tasks. Staab has before her a full-blown reclamation project while Campbell is charged with maintaining her group’s reputation as local TV broadcasting’s premier franchise. But the two women also share attributes: Both are engaging personalities and boast proven aptitude at running major market TV stations. It will be interesting to see how they approach their respective challenges.

Valari Staab, a longtime ABC local broadcaster who was hired away to lead the NBC Owned Television Stations, is reinventing the group through a four-pronged strategy of bigger budgets and staff for better, stronger newscasts; better promoting those newscasts and stories; increased local autonomy; and otherwise recharging the non-network daytime schedule.

One of the first moves made by the new head of NBC’s television stations, Valari Staab, was to rename her group from NBC Local Media to NBC Owned Television Stations. While I applauded the introduction of Local Media four years ago, the time is now right for the new moniker. Staab has smartly focused the attention of every one of her employees on strengthening the 10 stations. And the name change also tells the world that the new controlling owner of NBCUniversal, Comcast, believes in the vitality and growth potential of broadcasting.

In an apparent effort to emphasize the unique value of the company’s TV stations, Valari Staab, newly appointed NBC station group president, is rebranding her NBC Local Media division as NBC Owned Television Stations.