WBBJ GM Jerry Moore Announces Retirement

Jerry Moore, a 53-year television veteran and a top executive of Bahakel Communications Ltd. for more than 30 years, has announced that he will retire on December 31, 2013 as vice president and general manager of WBBJ, the company’s ABC and CBS affiliates in Jackson, Tenn. (DMA 177).

In announcing his retirement Moore said that “it was a good time for the transition” following the completion of the company’s new broadcast home. “I wanted to see this project, a major expansion of our facilities, completed and fully operational before leaving.” The station had its ribbon cutting and open house for the community early last month.

Moore’s career began in 1960 at WSOC, the Cox station in Charlotte, N.C., and he spent 21 years there before joining Bahakel as GM of WABG Greenwood, Miss., in 1981. He had a series of senior management positions with the company before leaving in 1988 to become a partner in acquiring stations in Traverse City and Sault St. Marie, MI in 1988.

Beverly Bahakel Poston, president-CEO of Bahakel, said “one of my Dad’s happiest days was when he was able to persuade Jerry to return to the company in 1997 as general manager of WBBJ. He has done a fantastic job there in developing the station to become one of the very best in the country as well as a respected community citizen; by providing outstanding news, weather and sports coverage for the region. We are very proud of Jerry and fortunate to have had him on our team for all of these years. We wish a very happy retirement to him and Maxine.”

Poston also announced that Mark Brooks, currently general sales manager of WBBJ, would succeed Moore as VP-GM of the station effective Jan. 1, 2014. Moore, a past president of the Tennessee Association of Broadcasters, “has been an innovator from the very beginning of his broadcast career,” according to Bahakel, and, while in Jackson, he started the daily Good Morning West Tennessee and Mid-Day. On Jan. 1, 2012, he added the CBS Television Network to WBBJ’S line up as well as the MeTV network. The addition of CBS also provided the station the opportunity to increase the number of newscasts it televised, the company added.