CBS O&Os Names Business Development VP

Ed Ziskind has been named vice president, business development and strategic partnerships, CBS Television Stations, it was announced Tuesday.

Ziskind will report to Amy Scanlan, the station group’s SVP, business development and strategic partnerships, and be responsible for working with the sales teams at the group’s local stations and national sales offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. CBS said will play a key role in the creation and execution of new business initiatives and the development of strategic cross-platform sales opportunities involving CBS-owned television stations and other CBS Local Media assets, including CBS Radio stations and combined local TV and radio digital properties, as well as advertising solutions provided by CBS Outdoor and CBS EcoMedia.

Ziskind will work alongside Cathy Murphy, who is also VP, business development and strategic partnerships. Murphy, who joined Scanlan’s team in May 2011, will continue to manage the unit’s New York-based office. In addition, Murphy will work with stations and regional offices in New York (where she and Ziskind will jointly work with the station group’s national sales team, WCBS-TV and WLNY-TV), Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami and Baltimore. 

In addition to leading the group’s operations nationally, Scanlan also works with stations and regional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Sacramento, Calif.

Ziskind joins the CBS Television Stations following 15 years at Tribune Broadcasting. He started with Tribune in 1997 as a research manager at WLVI Boston and returned to his New York roots in 2001 as director of multimedia sales at WPIX New York. In 2007, he launched Tribune Broadcasting’s group sales and marketing department and was promoted to SVP in 2010.

Ziskind received his MBA at Bentley Graduate School of Business in Waltham, Mass.  Prior to that, he received his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he also worked as a DJ at the college’s radio station, WUSB.