Gray Adds Industry Veterans To Exec Ranks

Gray Television today hired Karen Youger and Jim Curtin to assist Gray’s local news, sales and management teams.  In addition, the two will provide support to Gray’s new in-house national sales initiative that launches in January 2016.

“Gray’s stations have an enviable record of success, with increasing ratings, increasing local programming, and increasing core and non-core revenue over the past year and over the past several years,” said Kevin Latek, Gray’s SVP of business affairs. “Rather than stopping to enjoy these accomplishments, however, we believe continued investments in key people and new strategies will continue to differentiate Gray’s stations positively in the marketplace for viewers and clients.”

In September 2015, Karen Youger joined Gray as its director of sales operations. In this role, she is responsible for maximizing the use of sales and traffic systems at the station level, identifying and implementing best practices across stations, and monitoring key pricing and inventory management parameters.

Youger has 25 years of experience in television operations including analysis, strategic plan creation and implementation. Her career began at WCPO Cincinnati, where she held various positions in sales, marketing and research. In 2004, she relocated to Georgia as director of hub operations with Raycom Media. Youger joined Local TV LLC as VP of operations in 2008, and she continued in that role when Tribune Media acquired Local TV early in 2014.

She holds a B.S. in radio/TV/film and an M.B.A in marketing and entrepreneurship from Northern Kentucky University.

This month, Jim Curtin will join Gray as its research director. In this role, Curtin will bring his many years of experience in television programming and research to support sales and news efforts at the station level.

Curtin joins Gray after serving the past several years as research director for Tribune Media’s WJW Cleveland. Previously, he worked as a senior programming director for the rep firm Katz in New York and as VP of programming for the rep firm HRP (now a CoxRep division), consulting with a large list of clients on their programming acquisitions and scheduling.

Curtin began his career in the mailroom and later Midwest sales manager for the syndication firm D.L. Taffner Ltd.  He received his B.A. in communications from Fordham University, where he studied journalism and was a writer and editor of the college newspaper.