Nexstar Media Inc. Names Three Veteran Broadcasters as Vice President and General Manager of Media Operations in Salt Lake City, Buffalo, Green Bay and Marquette
IRVING, TX – Nexstar Media Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST), today announced that it has named three experienced broadcast leaders to oversee the company’s media operations in Salt Lake City, UT, Buffalo, NY, Green Bay, WI, and Marquette, MI.
Mark Danielson will lead KTVX-TV (ABC), KUCW-TV (CW), MTVX-TV (MeTV), and ABC4.com in Salt Lake City, UT (DMA #29). He will begin his new duties on June 27, and report to Matthew Rosenfeld, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for the broadcasting division of Nexstar Media Inc. Joe Abouzeid will take responsibility for overseeing WIVB-TV (CBS), WNLO-TV (CW), and wivb.com, serving Buffalo, NY (DMA #52). He will begin his new duties on June 13, and report to Theresa Underwood, Senior Vice President and Regional Director for the broadcasting division of Nexstar Media Inc. Judson Beck will be responsible for Nexstar’s broadcasting and digital operations in Green Bay, WI (DMA #68), and Marquette, MI (DMA #182), including respectively, WFRV-TV (CBS) and WeAreGreenBay.com, and WJMN-TV (IND) and UPmatters.com. Mr. Beck will begin his duties on May 31, and report to Traci Wilkinson, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for the broadcasting division of Nexstar Media Inc.
Collectively, Mr. Danielson, Mr. Abouzeid, and Mr. Beck have more than 90 years of leadership experience in all aspects of broadcasting, including local news, production, sales, digital content generation and community involvement. Each has consistently demonstrated the ability to grow revenue and profitability by identifying new streams of revenue, cultivating new business, developing a variety of innovative cross-platform solutions for advertisers and marketers, creating sponsorship opportunities, and deepening the ties to the communities in which they have worked.
Mr. Danielson is returning to Salt Lake City, where he worked in a variety of news, sales, and production positions early in his career, including at KTVX-TV from 1990 to 1991. In addition, Mr. Danielson earned his degree in mass communication from the University of Utah. For the past ten years, Mr. Danielson has served as the Vice President and General Manager of KEYT-TV (ABC/CBS), KKFX-CD (FOX) and KSBB-CD (24- hour news/MyNet), in Santa Barbara, CA (DMA #122), growing the group from one station when he started in 2012, to four. Mr. Danielson was responsible for significantly increasing the group’s ratings, revenue and profitability. During his tenure, Mr. Danielson and his team more than doubled the hours of weekly local news offered by the group, launched a total of ten new local newscasts, and created the area’s first 24-hour local news channel. He also spearheaded KSBB’s conversion to ATSC 3.0, NextGen TV, becoming the first television station on the West Coast to do so.
Since 2012, Mr. Abouzeid has served as the Vice President and General Manager of WDTN-TV (NBC) and wdtn.com, Nexstar’s broadcast and digital operations serving Dayton, OH (DMA #64). During that time, Mr. Abouzeid also has overseen the relationship between Nexstar and Vaughn Media, which operates WBDT-TV (CW) and daytonscw.com. Under Mr. Abouzeid’s leadership, WDTN-TV/WBDT-TV expanded local news programming by more than 21 hours per week, launched new early afternoon and weekend newscasts, created and developed a partnership with the Dayton Dragons minor league baseball team to broadcast games locally, and revitalized the stations’ websites, resulting in significant increases in unique visitors, page views, and digital revenue. Prior to joining WDTN-TV, Mr. Abouzeid served as News Director at WPRI-TV (CBS) in Providence, RI (DMA #51), where he rebuilt the Target 12 investigative team and placed significant emphasis on hard news reporting, resulting in a substantial increase in ratings in all news time periods.
Mr. Beck is very familiar with the viewers and advertisers of Central and Northern Wisconsin, and with Nexstar, having served since 2015 as Vice President and General Manager of WLAX-TV/WEUX-DT (FOX), the company’s television station serving La Crosse and Eau Claire, Wisconsin (DMA #129). During his tenure with WLAX-TV, Mr. Beck and his leadership team revitalized the television station, rebranding and expanding local news, launching a variety of new local programming and spearheading the creation and development of wiproud.com. The late-evening newscast was re-branded as “First News” and expanded to 35-minutes every night, and the station launched such local programming franchises as “Harvesting Heroes,” which spotlights inspirational stories regarding the area’s agricultural community, and “County by County,” designed to highlight the attributes of specific counties throughout the viewing area. These efforts helped to drive significant increases in advertising revenue and resulted in several new advertising clients placing business with the station.
“Mark, Joe, and Jud are proven leaders and represent the best of local broadcasting,” said Andrew Alford, President of the broadcasting division of Nexstar Media Inc. “They each have a long track record of success, a strong background in local news, and have consistently demonstrated the ability to build exceptional sales teams that produce effective solutions for advertisers and marketers. They are committed to forging deep relationships with the communities they serve. I look forward to celebrating the results of their continued accomplishments as they undertake their new roles at Nexstar.”
Mr. Danielson is an active participant in industry-related organizations, and is the incoming President of the California Broadcasters Association, having served for several years as a member of its Board of Directors. He also has served on the board of directors for a variety of community organizations in Santa Barbara, including the Boys & Girls Clubs and the Santa Barbara Zoological Association.
Mr. Abouzeid has been deeply involved in the Dayton community, serving on the Board of Trustees for the area’s Ronald McDonald House Charities and helping to lead its expansion efforts. He is also a life member of the Dayton Chapter of the NAACP. Mr. Abouzeid studied journalism during his undergraduate career at Boston University.
Mr. Beck is a veteran of the United States Navy and served in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield abord the USS Durham. He has always been committed to the communities in which he has lived, currently serving on the executive board of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, The Boy Scouts of America (La Crosse), and The Parenting Place. Mr. Beck earned his degree from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
About Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST) is a leading diversified media company that produces and distributes engaging local and national news, sports and entertainment content, including 283,000 hours of original video content each year. Nexstar owns America’s largest local broadcasting group comprised of top network affiliates, with 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U.S. markets reaching 212 million people. Nexstar’s television assets also include NewsNation, America’s fastest-growing national news and entertainment cable network reaching 75 million television homes, popular entertainment multicast networks Antenna TV and Rewind TV, and a 31.3% ownership stake in TV Food Network. The Company’s portfolio of digital assets, including The Hill and BestReviews, are collectively a Top 10 U.S. digital news and information property. In addition to delivering exceptional content and service to our communities, Nexstar provides premium multiplatform advertising opportunities at scale for businesses and brands seeking to leverage the strong consumer engagement of our compelling content offering. For more information, please visit www.nexstar.tv.
Media Contact:
Gary Weitman
EVP & Chief Communications Officer
972/383-8800
gweitman@nexstar.tv
Investor Contact:
Joseph Jaffoni or Jennifer Neuman
JCIR
212/835-8500 or nxst@jcir.com
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