Celebrating Our 33rd Class Of Media Leaders and Legends
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Chairman, B+C Hall of Fame Charlie Weiss
Chairman Emeritus, B+C Hall of Fame William McGorry
VP, Global Head of Strategy & Ops B2B Allison Markert
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CONTENT
VP, Global Head of Content B2B Carmel King
MD, Content, Broadcast Tech Paul McLane
Content Director Michael Demenchuk
Contributors Paige Albiniak, Robert Edelstein, Jon Lafayette, Nancy Lombardi, Stuart Miller, Alyson Trager, R. Thomas Umstead
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VP, Product & Marketing, B2B Andrew Buchholz
MD, Content, Broadcast Tech Paul McLane
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Head of Design, B2B Nicole Cobban
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Welcome to the 33rd Annual B+C Hall of Fame Awards Gala
Welcome to the annual Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame awards! Tonight we gather here in New York City to celebrate a very special event — the 33rd B+C Hall of Fame class. We are proud to recognize this extraordinary group of leaders, innovators, and creative pioneers who have achieved legendary status by helping to shape the media landscape through their unparalleled vision.
Looking back to 1991, Broadcasting magazine created the first Hall of Fame to honor 60 significant contributors to television and electronic media. The original class included industry legends from William S. Paley to Bob Hope, cable pioneers from Bill Daniels to Dr. John Malone and C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, to name but a few. In the ensuing years, we’ve inducted Hall of Famers as much for their impact on the community that consumes content as we have for their influence on the medium. This year is no exception, as exemplified by this unprecedented slate of inductees.
Honorees at the 33rd annual gala include award-winning actress, director, producer, and talk show talent Drew Barrymore, host and executive producer of The Drew Barrymore Show and co-founder of the production company Flower Films. Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, ESPN, is set to receive the Hall of Fame’s Chairman’s Award. Mr. Pitaro is responsible for ESPN’s portfolio of sports content, products and experiences across all of Disney’s platforms worldwide. Sheryl Lee Ralph, actress, producer, advocate and Emmy Award winner for her role in Warner Bros. Television’s Abbott Elementary, will be honored with the Hall of Fame’s Humanitarian Award in recognition of her career and her philanthropic work via the DIVA Foundation. We’ll also pay witness to a special honor awarded to the daytime drama Days of our Lives, celebrating its 60th anniversary on-air in November. Now streaming exclusively on Peacock, the series is one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world. Days of our Lives will be honored with the Hall of Fame’s Iconic Show Award.
Rounding out this year’s incomparable class are the following entertainment industry leaders, pioneers and legends: George Cheeks, chair, television media at Paramount, a Skydance Co.; Kristin Dolan, CEO, AMC Networks; Richard A. “Dick” Foreman, president, RAFAMEDIA; Michael Gelman, executive producer, Live With Kelly and Mark, Disney/ABC; Melani Griffith, chief growth officer, GFiber, receiving the inaugural Technology Leadership Award; David Kline, president, Spectrum Reach, and
executive VP, Charter Communications; Mark Marshall, chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal; Arthur Smith, chairman and CEO, A. Smith & Co. Productions and chairman, Tinopolis USA; Jon Steinlauf, former chief U.S. advertising sales officer, Warner Bros. Discovery; Sandra Stern, vice chairman, Lionsgate Television Group; and Rob Weisbord, chief operating officer and president of Local Media, Sinclair Inc.
As always, this year’s gala will support both the Broadcasters Foundation of America — which provides support to those in the TV and radio industry who find themselves in acute financial need — as well as the Paley Center for Media.
We thank tonight’s co-hosts, Nate Burleson, co-host of CBS Mornings, and Elle Duncan, SportsCenter anchor and ESPN studio host, as well as our special presenters, Valerie Bertinelli, a member of The Drew Barrymore Show’s “Drew Crew,” and the hosts of Live, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Our profound thanks also go to the talent at the B+C Hall of Fame, including Allison Markert, Carmel King, Charlie Weiss, Bill McGorry, Jessica Wolin, Cassandra Grant, Mike Demenchuk and their respective teams, along with our renowned contributing editors. We also share in tonight’s success with our event producers at Live Star Entertainment, Eric Drath and Danielle Naassana, as well as Alan Winnikoff and Carina Sayles, our PR team. Finally, our deepest appreciation goes out to each of you, our inductees and presenters, network, studio, agency, and station group sponsors, alumni and attendees, and all others involved in this elite, best-inclass event for your support and generosity.
Thank you all again for joining us tonight. We hope you enjoy this very special evening of celebration, recognition and well-earned honors, and look forward to seeing you again next year.
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A portion of the net proceeds is donated to the Broadcasters Foundation of America and The Paley Center For Media
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THE HONOREES
Drew Barrymore
Actress/Director/Producer; Host and Executive Producer,
‘The Drew Barrymore Show’; Co-Founder, Flower Films
By Paige Albiniak
Throughout her eventful life, Drew Barrymore has never shied from taking risks. And for the most part, these risks have turned into successes.
In 2020, Barrymore and CBS Media Ventures launched daytime’s The Drew Barrymore Show, which she both hosts and executive produces. As the world has moved to streaming, daytime has become one of entertainment’s most difficult places to be, with the business model becoming ever more challenged.
Making the endeavor riskier still was that the show launched at the height of the pandemic, with Barrymore often on stage in New York, Zooming with guests with no studio audience.
“I’m really grateful that they let us launch because they had every reason not to,” Barrymore said. “The show gave us the opportunity to build something that we needed in our lives at that time — something that was joyous and optimistic and silly and humandriven. We ended up making something that felt very personal to us. In a strange way, making the show during the pandemic allowed us to not try and do the trope-y daytime segments that I never really wanted to do anyway. We got to make something much more boiled-down and a little odd. I think it actually did end up being the show that I really wanted to make.”
From Star to Brand
Five years later and headed into season six, Barrymore has turned her daytime show into a cultural touchpoint and herself into a 360-degree brand. At the end of the show’s fifth season, it was
She is completely unfiltered and honest with her life. … She’ll talk about anything that’s going on in her life in a way that connects with the viewer and hopefully helps them.”
Jason
Kurtz, EP/Showrunner, The Drew Barrymore Show
averaging about 1.2 million viewers an episode and was daytime television’s fastest-growing talk show, up 18% over the prior season.
“I knew from the beginning that she was going to do it differently,” Jason Kurtz, executive producer and showrunner of The Drew Barrymore Show, said. Kurtz has had a long career producing daytime talk after starting as an intern at The Rosie O’Donnell Show at Warner Bros. and going on to executive produce Steve Harvey and Harry Connick Jr.’s talk shows at NBC. “I knew that her track record was successful, and I knew she wasn’t someone who ever failed.”
Kurtz was also drawn to the platform Barrymore had built on Instagram, where she currently has 18.4 million followers, and because she already was a proven brand-builder.
“Everything she was doing outside of being an actress — creating brands and finding all of these different avenues — all of that dovetailed with the interests of the daytime viewer.”
Prior to debuting her
talk show, Barrymore had been developing brands for 25 years. She and Nancy Juvonen launched Flower Films in 1995, and went on to produce such films as Never Been Kissed, 50 First Dates, Donnie Darko and Fever Pitch, as well as such TV shows as Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet and of course, The Drew Barrymore Show.
“I think she is one of the bravest women I have ever met,” Juvonen said. “She puts her foot forward with intention every day. They haven’t been easy steps to take, and she takes them every day. It makes me really proud.”
In 2013, Barrymore launched her own brand, Flower by Drew, which includes beauty products, a line of home products and an eyewear collection.
Ever since joining the Paramount family with the debut of Drew Barrymore, Barrymore has considered herself a brand ambassador for the company. She frequently serves as a spokesperson for all of the parent company’s television and streaming offerings, often appearing in promotions, and she also pitched and produced a primetime revival of Hollywood Squares with herself as center square. When that show launched in January, it was the season’s most-watched unscripted series, reaching nearly 24 million unique viewers with its premiere episode.
Authenticity Is Key
One of the keys to having a successful talk show is authentically connecting with the audience so they want to come back and hang out with you day after day. Kurtz said Barrymore does that in spades: “She is completely unfiltered and honest with her life. I don’t think that exists with many others. She’ll talk about anything that’s going on in her life in a way that connects with the viewer and hopefully helps them.”
After a life of playing parts, Barrymore has found true satisfaction and success in just being herself.
“I’m really glad that I don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed in any way of what our show was and is,” Barrymore said. “I’m relieved that I never felt like I needed to make something that wasn’t true to myself. As hard as it is, as odd as it feels, for better or worse we are being ourselves. And if that doesn’t work, that will be OK. I’d rather it not work while we are being true to ourselves.” ●
George Cheeks Chair, TV Media Paramount, A Skydance Corporation
IBy Paige Albiniak
f you were caught in a hurricane — and many working at Paramount Global during its tumultuous merger with Skydance Media have probably felt that way recently — there would probably be no better person with whom to sit in the eye than Paramount chair, TV Media George Cheeks, one of this year’s B+C Hall of Fame inductees.
“In a business where no one knows anything, if we all really knew as much as we purport to know, there would be no failure,” Pearlena Igbokwe, chairman, Universal Studio Group, said. Igbokwe first met Cheeks when both were students at Yale University. “George has always been a great student. He understands the importance of learning and he has a large grasp on all of the details of our business.”
Cheeks launched his entertainment law career in 1992. In 1998, he joined MTV Networks as senior counsel and began negotiating his way up, eventually becoming executive VP of business affairs and general counsel at Viacom Music and Entertainment Groups as well as head of standards and practices for Viacom Media Networks.
From Lawyer to Leader
He moved to NBC in 2012 as executive VP, business operations, NBC Entertainment and Universal Television. It was at NBC that Cheeks began to realize his true goal: to become an entertainment leader rather than an entertainment lawyer.
“I have always known since I was a kid that this is what I wanted to do,” Cheeks said. “When I got into the business, I was lucky to get an entertainment law job. Every time I would tell a mentor what I wanted to do, they would say, ‘You are now viewed as an attorney, no one will believe you have creative chops.’ At first, it was demoralizing, but then it became a challenge.”
Obviously, there’s been a lot of noise around our company. George handles all of that noise and allows people to stay focused on the task at hand. He’s there when and how we want him to be.”
Dave
Berson, President and CEO, CBS Sports
When he got to NBC, he met the legendary Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, and that became an inflection point. After working with Cheeks, Michaels went to thenNBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke and endorsed him to run NBC’s late-night department.
From there, Cheeks’ rise was steep. From 2014-15, he served as president, business operations and late night programming, NBC Entertainment. From 2015-18, he continued to oversee late night while also working as co-president, Universal Cable Productions & Wilshire Studios. And then in 2018, he landed his dream job: co-chairman, NBC Entertainment, alongside Paul Telegdy.
That job did not last long, however, as Burke prepared to retire and pass the torch to Jeff Shell. In 2019, Cheeks was promoted out of that job and named vice chairman of NBCUniversal Content Studios.
Rise to the Top
But all of that leadership had prepared him: in January 2020, he was named president and CEO of CBS Entertainment Group. In April 2024, he added co-chairman of Paramount Global, along with Chris McCarthy and Brian
Robbins, to that title. In that role, he has continued to oversee CBS Entertainment. On Aug. 4, the new Paramount announced its leadership team, with Cheeks remaining as chair of TV Media, adding oversight of all of the company’s TV studios and cable networks to his current purview over everything CBS.
Through all of it, Cheeks has kept his teams focused on sticking to their strategy.
“The more we’ve doubled down and focused on our strategy and the task at hand, the more we’ve delivered results,” Cheeks said. “We knew we needed to present our new owner with a working strategy. That’s been a mandate we’ve aligned around and that’s been helpful.”
To that end, CBS was up 7% in viewers, excluding sports, at the end of the 2024-25 TV season. It also boasted five of the top 10 most-viewed shows on network television, with Justin Hartley-starrer Tracker leading the pack with an average of 17.34 million viewers an episode.
“The fact that we’ve maintained our No. 1 status for 17 straight years — that can be very much attributed to George,” CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach said. “We would not have accomplished that without him having the foresight to expand our franchises and brands. He really pushes us to think about the kinds of shows we’re programming and to make sure they will work for us on linear, streaming and internationally.”
Live sports, which is one of the most powerful drivers of traditional television, also has thrived under Cheeks’ leadership. CBS continues to program such big sporting events as NFL football, The Masters golf tournament and the NCAA men’s March Madness college basketball tournament, which it airs in
Kristin Dolan
CEO, AMC Networks
By Stuart Miller
Kristin Dolan always loved to read — and that’s how she ended up as CEO of AMC Networks.
An English major in college, Dolan wanted to go into publishing. She later earned her master’s in publishing at Pace University and then took a job at Random House. And that’s when she realized the print world wasn’t for her.
“It was an old-school culture,” Dolan said, one that made her look back fondly at an internship she’d previously had at, of all places, AMC. She snagged a job in affiliate sales and marketing and spent much of the 1990s there.
“I spent my 20s traveling all over the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic states and everybody in the industry was young at that point,” she recalled. “I got to meet a lot of up-and-coming people in this cool industry. It was a fun time.”
It was also a learning experience. “It gave me so much exposure to the operating side of the business,” she said. Her career saw a steady rise in the Cablevision Systems family, which included creating a department called Field Communications, an internal team responsible for communicating everything the company was doing all the way up and down the line. (She also literally became part of the family in 2002, while she was VP of digital product management, when she married CEO James Dolan.)
A Great Communicator
“I met with our new interns yesterday and they always ask, what’s the most important thing in my job, and it’s absolutely communi cation,” she said. “You need to make sure people understand your goals and strategies and tactics and why those decisions are being made.”
As a former AMC intern
When she doesn’t know something, she sets about getting to know it, which is important in a world in which technology changes so much.”
Josh Sapan, former CEO, AMC Networks
herself, she also emphasizes there’s no way to know where your career will end up. In 2016, as Cablevision’s chief operating officer, she was part of the leadership team that reaped a $17.7 billion sale of the company to Altice USA. She then founded a new company, partnering with Charter Communications to form what became 605, an advertising measurement and analytics firm that was sold to iSpot.tv in 2023.
“We had already been selling advertising in a different way at Cablevision, doing impression-based and segmented media sales as opposed to just throwing it at the wall and see what sticks,” she recalled.
“I really liked getting to create a culture there from the inception,” she said, noting the company mixed old-guard cable executives with young tech startup analysts. “We spent a lot of time and energy on what we wanted the company to be and how we wanted
That experience proved crucial in 2023 when she became CEO of AMC Networks, which includes cable outlets AMC, BBC America, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv, as well as streamers such as AMC+, ALLBLK, Acorn TV and Shudder. “It’s still about communication and culture,” she
said, especially coming in after layoffs and in a period of transition. “We’ve had all-hands meetings and monthly coffee chats and visited every office to communicate our strategy.”
She’s added midyear reviews and employee surveys. “We want to get everyone on board. Now we’re all rowing in the same direction.”
Dolan is the right leader for this moment as someone who remains calm in troubled waters, according to a predecessor as AMC Networks CEO (and in the B+C Hall of Fame), Josh Sapan. “She can build a team and delegate with great comfort while describing her vision well to thousands of people,” he said.
Dolan is “super-smart, capable and wildly articulate” with experience in almost every area, Sapan added, but also someone who loves to learn. “When she doesn’t know something, she sets about getting to know it, which is important in a world in which technology changes so much.”
Jen Koester, president and chief operating officer of Sphere Entertainment, who worked under Kristin Dolan at Cablevision years ago, added that Dolan’s “unwavering commitment to data and her ability to drill down into data for insights and then translate to clear actionable plans” is essential to her success. Koester also notes that Dolan has consistently championed opportunities for other women in leadership. “She provides guidance and advocates for them and has a history of promoting women, so her impact is undeniable.”
Positive Vibes
Dolan feels good about AMC’s future. “It’s still chaotic out there, but we’re wellpositioned,” she said. “We like our size, and we like our independence, and now I have the right teams in place and we still make really good programming.
“We’ve gotten a lot more efficient but I think there’s even more work that we can do without compromising the quality of what we put on the street,” she added. “We’re getting there.”
Looking back, Dolan adds that being a lifelong reader not only enabled her to pore over and glean information quickly, but also made her a better leader.
“I think all the exposure to different people and different cultures in the novels I’ve read has been helpful in understanding people,” she said.
Richard A. Foreman
President, Richard A. Foreman Associates Inc. – RAFAMEDIA
By Alyson Trager
As a kid, Richard A. “Dick” Foreman spent his evenings listening to The Lone Ranger on his transistor radio. This was his first introduction to the radio industry that would later become his life’s work. He loved all things radio: the announcers, the entertainers, the disc jockeys, the whole process. In the late 1950s, his uncle took him on a trip to Boston to learn more about radio transmission, and he was hooked.
Foreman started his own radio station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and later set one up at his prep school, Austin-Cate Academy in Center Strafford, which operated until the school closed in 1981. During this time, he also worked part time at a local radio station in Dover, solidifying his love for broadcasting.
He got his first full-time radio job when he joined the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, working at a local station in Japan. After his service, Foreman bounced around the country, working at smaller stations in Virginia and then moving on to bigger ones in Pennsylvania and Maryland before landing in Schenectady, New York, where he worked to reorganize the two keystone stations owned by General Electric, WGY and WGF. Taking part in a GE task force for broadcast communications, Foreman was charged with planning the company’s direction, especially as FM radio began to take off with GE’s acquisition of two FM radio stations, one in Boston and one in San Francisco, in 1973.
Foreman then moved to North Carolina to work for Southern Broadcasting, later acquired by Harte-Hanks Broadcasting, rebuilding music stations in Houston, Phoenix, Memphis, Tennessee and RaleighDurham, North Carolina. He had to get these
I’ve worked on numerous transactions with Dick over many years. He is creative, tireless and always upbeat.”
Jeff Warshaw, Founder and CEO,
Connoisseur
Media
running from the ground up, including hiring new announcers and formulating new advertising and marketing plans.
Satellite Pioneer
With that hard-earned expertise, Foreman made his way to New York to work as VP of programming for the ABC Radio Networks in 1978. There, he used new satellite technologies to deliver music to the stations at a time when the company didn’t have the transmission bandwidth to do so. He created an entire entertainment division that eventually pioneered the first digital transmission capability through satellite, bringing in NBC and CBS to change the way information was delivered to radio listeners forever.
“Anything could be transmitted through satellite communications digitally to all the radio stations in the country,” said Foreman, which was a fundamental change from delivering vinyl discs to station hosts around the U.S.
From there, Foreman decided to create his own business, Richard A. Foreman Associates, also known as RAFAMEDIA, consulting radio stations that had fallen out of popularity because they weren’t effectively reaching their audiences. The venture started as purely a consulting firm, with Foreman’s first clients being his four previous employers.
“In 1985, the consulting business was good, but it really didn’t give me an opportunity to
go into the financial, merger and acquisitions area of the business, which [was] really prospering at that time, because radio was becoming a real commodity on Wall Street,” Foreman said. Since then, RAFAMEDIA has become involved with television, telephony, telecommunications and digital media, resulting in more than $2 billion of media transactions, including group transactions with NewMarket Media, Fritz Broadcasting, Sinclair and Black River Broadcasting, as well as digital transactions with DG Media, SnappSearch and JuiceReel.
“I’ve worked on numerous transactions with Dick over many years,” Connoisseur Media founder and CEO Jeff Warshaw said. “He is creative, tireless and always upbeat.”
Leading and Giving Back
Much of Foreman’s later career has been characterized by philanthropic endeavors and leadership roles. His involvement as director, and later as vice chair, of the Broadcasters Foundation of America allowed him to give back to broadcasters and others in need after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.
“I think when you become successful in any particular genre, it is your mandate — your requirement — to go and give back to those people that have helped you through your initial involvement and growth in a particular arena,” Foreman said. As a pilot, Foreman would deliver doctors and supplies to the southern parts of Haiti. This work earned him the Broadcasters Foundation of America Chairman’s Award in 2006 and a certificate of recognition from the National Association of Broad casters in 2010.
As for his next chapter, Foreman will continue to challenge himself, including while in the air, as he flies his eighth airplane. “I just want to do new things,” he said. “I want to enjoy life.”
Michael Gelman
Executive Producer
‘Live With Kelly and Mark’
By Paige Albiniak
Veteran daytime talk show Live has been called many things, but never Live With Gelman. But perhaps it should have been, since executive producer and B+C Hall of Fame inductee Michael Gelman has been with the show since its inception as The Morning Show, starring Regis Philbin and Cyndy Garvey, on WABC New York in 1983. Gelman was named the show’s EP before it went into national syndication in 1988, when the show starred Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford (then Johnson) and was called, famously, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee
Since then, it’s been called Live With Regis and Kelly from 2001-11, after Kelly Ripa joined; Live With Kelly alone, when Philbin retired in 2011-12; Live With Kelly and Michael from 2012-16, when Michael Strahan came on board; Live With Kelly (again) from 2016-17, after Strahan left to join ABC’s Good Morning America; Live With Kelly and Ryan from 2017-23, when Ryan Seacrest became co-host; and currently Live With Kelly and Mark Ripa working with her husband and frequent guest host Mark Consuelos.
Through it all, Gelman has been stage-side, gently joking with the hosts and coaxing quips from them. He appears on camera but he’s never center stage. He’s on air often enough, however, that people approach him in the street.
Familiar Face
“I’m one of those people who are on-air so people talk to me about my own show all over the place. I
I’ve never had a brother, but my relationship with him is very much like how I would imagine what a relationship with a brother would be. … We challenge each other and we really believe in each other.”
Kelly Ripa, Co-Host, Live With Kelly and Mark
saw people in Europe who were like, ‘Hey, Gelman, what are you doing here?’” Gelman said. “I’m a one-man focus group and I’m always getting feedback along the way.”
Gelman started as an intern at Live when it was still The Morning Show with Philbin and Garvey. He so impressed the team that he was brought back as a freelance production assistant, then a full-time production assistant and, pretty soon, Philbin’s right-hand man.
The Morning Show for a while to work with Philbin on other projects and on the CBS primetime Hollywood Squares. But then he got the call that the local show’s EP, Steve Ober, was leaving, so he threw his hat in the ring at the age of 24. He landed the gig and one year later, took the show into national syndication.
Even though Gelman has ostensibly been doing the same job for four decades, what he loves about it is that it’s always changing.
“The different phases of the show are really what have kept me excited and interested,” Gelman says. “Those moments of change and creating different versions of what we are already doing is what I love.”
Gelman’s concept of Live has always been that it’s about a faux husband and wife chatting in the morning over coffee.
“Gelman has become the third host of the show. Don’t tell him that, he’s going to want a pay bump,” Ripa joked. “I’ve never had a brother, but my relationship with him is very much like how I would imagine what a relationship with a brother would be. We can disagree in a way that is not provocative or upsetting to anyone. We challenge each other and we really believe in each other.”
Said Consuelos: “He has an innate understanding of what our audience needs, what they are looking for and how to keep them happy. He’s really protective over that. It’s funny, a lot of the producers have been there since day one as well, and they keep the show what it’s been for so long.”
Live and Loose
The other constant to Live is that it has always aired live in New York and on the East Coast and live-to-tape in other markets. While live TV can be intimidating to some, the show’s hosts and Gelman wouldn’t have it any other way.
“That last-minute looseness of coming together is what Live does best,” Seacrest said. “The producers’ meetings run right up to the end and you are running out there as the clock is ticking down — three, two, one. But that pace became the pace we were most comfortable in. Anything outside of fast and immediate felt awkward. Gelman always trusted us to take the show where it needed to go.”
This fall, Live With Kelly and Mark started its 38th season as TV’s highest-rated entertainment talk show.
“I’m most proud of the fact that we’ve been able to bring joy and entertain so many people for such an extended period of time,” Gelman said. “I keep it in perspective that what we do is not brain surgery, but we don’t have to feel guilty about being in entertainment and it’s not unimportant. Bringing that distraction, joy and laughter every day is something that people appreciate.”
Melani Griffith
Chief Growth Officer GFiber
By Nancy Lombardi
Boundless energy and a passion to learn are the traits that Melani Griffith has brought to every role of her career.
In 2023, she was named the first-ever chief growth officer for GFiber, Google’s broadband internet-service provider. She sets the course for GFiber’s customer growth, overseeing the customer lifespan, including branding and marketing, sales, digital, customer service and public relations.
Griffith began her career in politics before transitioning to a sales role at Discovery Communications in the late 1990s.
“The decision to hire Melani wasn’t just a choice; it was an investment in excellence,” said Kim Martin, who served as VP of affiliate sales at Discovery at that time.
“Early in her career at Discovery, Melani had this rare combination of an engaging,highenergy personality and a sharp, strategic mind,” said Martin, subsequently founder and CEO of Ascendancy Group. “When I moved to AMC Networks, I knew I needed to build a team of A players. Melani was the first person I called.”
From there, Griffith enjoyed successful stints at cable operator Insight Communications and at Penthera Partners, reporting to Michael Willner in both roles.
“Melani and I have spent countless New Year’s Eves together,” said Willner, former CEO of Insight and current chairman of Q30 Innovations and Penthera Partners. “Sadly, we were not toasting the new year. We were scrambling to finalize programming deals before the
LEADERSHIPTECHNOLOGYAWARD
“Melani is as clearheaded as she is collaborative, always raising the bar while bringing the team along.”
Dirk Wössner, Senior VP, Warburg Pincus Germany
stroke of midnight. Our unique way of celebrating was never a burden. Melani brought a heavy dose of optimism, humor and thoughtful conversation to every interaction.”
Big Moves in Canada
But joining Rogers Communications in 2016 proved to be the turning point in her career. She explained that Dirk Wössner, then president of the Canadian telecom giant’s consumer business unit, had a strong leadership team in place. But he decided to shake things up, moving everyone into different roles.
“He put me in charge of 3,600 people and a $9 billion revenue-generating budget line,” Griffith said. Until that point, she had only led a team of 25 people. But Wössner recognized her leadership ability.
“When I promoted Melani to SVP of sales, despite her not having led a sales organization before, it was a calculated risk that paid off enormously,” said Wössner, now senior vice president of private-equity firm Warburg Pincus Germany. “She stepped into the role with focus, energy and authenticity and delivered beyond expectations. Melani is as clearheaded as she is
collaborative, always raising the bar while bringing the team along.”
Griffith credits her team for her success. “I told them, ‘You know more than I do, so let’s not pretend otherwise,’” she said. “I was there to remove obstacles and help them be successful.”
After the management shake-up, Wössner departed for another company. Rogers attempted to contact Dinni Jain, with whom Griffith had worked at Insight. He didn’t accept the role at Rogers. Instead, he joined what was then known as Google Fiber as CEO and recruited Griffith to join him.
“I love this job,” she said. “I love my team. They are smart, passionate and dedicated. They challenge me in ways that allow me to grow as a leader and as a human being.”
Now seven years into the role, Griffith said each day is different. “I’m in meetings where I have to be massively analytical and then I go to a meeting where I have to be totally creative,” she said.
With the help of the GFiber team, Griffith is this year’s Technology Leadership Award winner, a new category for the B+C Hall of Fame.
Proud Team-Builder
Over the course of her career, Griffith said she is most proud of building teams and of the people who do unbelievable things in their roles each day.
She fosters that with the next generation by mentoring colleagues within GFiber through official and unofficial channels. She also connects with people through her professional network and her alma maters, UCLA and Columbia Business School.
“A lot of people spent time with me and took a chance on me,” she said. “It’s important to pay that forward.”
Griffith is also fortunate to have women in her life who taught her to “always go for it.” Her paternal grandmother returned to college at 55. Griffith’s mom went to medical school at 32, when Griffith was 6. She’s a pediatrician who went on to specialize in behavioral psychology.
Today, this Maryland native lives in Toronto with husband Bill Black, a private-client wealth money manager. They have three children. Ella is 10 and twins Zoe and Alex are 15. Zoe was born first. Alex wanted his own birthday, arriving just after midnight.
David Kline President Spectrum Reach/Charter Communications
By Alyson Trager
As a college student, David Kline never expected a door-to-door salesman to change his life. It was at the Ohio State University, where Kline was initially studying landscape architecture, that a QUBE salesman knocked on his door and asked if he wanted a subscription. It was the first iteration of two-way cable television, and Kline wanted in.
“‘How cool is this product?’ I thought. ‘How easy is this to sell?’” recalled Kline, who then interviewed with Warner Cable in New York and got a similar door-to-door job selling cable television subscriptions in Houston. Though Houston was a bit out of his comfort zone, that job proved to be a launching pad for a career in management and the pay TV business.
This pivot from landscaping to television and the media world is the first of many big swings Kline took throughout his career. Ultimately, taking risks would define his industry tenure in a number of ways, including launching pay-per-view at Showtime in the early 1980s and linear household addressability in television advertising.
“David has spent his entire career pushing the boundaries of what advertising can do, pioneering new models using data and technology while integrating traditional, digital and streaming platforms to connect brands with audiences in smarter, more thoughtful ways. He never settles — for clients, for his teams or for the industry,” said Rich DiGeronimo, president, product and technology and one of Kline’s colleagues at Charter Communications.
Risk-Taker
This predilection for taking chances is
I still remember a conversation we had early on about the future of data-driven media — David didn’t just see where things were going. He helped shape the path to get there.”
Bill Koenigsberg, Founder and CEO, Horizon Media
epitomized by the day that Kline — who was working as the general manager of Midwestern regional sports networks at Rainbow Networks, the programming division of Cablevision Systems — was called into the CEO’s office and asked to run the entire advertising business.
“What do I know about advertising?” Kline asked himself, but as his boss took a 15-minute call during their meeting, Kline talked himself into accepting the position. “Why not me? Get out of your comfort zone … Try something that you might not know, but use your skills you’ve learned,” he recalled telling himself.
“It was pretty daunting but … I went from ‘I don’t think I want to do this’ to ‘you know what, why not me?’ and I think that was the most pivotal decision I made in my career,” said Kline, reflecting on the jump from general manager to president of Rainbow
Kline took the position and ran with it, becoming the first at Cablevision to pioneer addressable television advertising, rather than relying on the “spray and pray” method, in which TV advertisers had to hope they were reaching
the right targets because there had been no readily accessible household data. Kline was also involved in developing interactive television advertisements where viewers at home could click on a remote-control button to get a product sample or store gift card sent directly to them.
“It helped us sell a lot of advertising because the advertisers had to buy those 30-second ads to then get their message out there,” Kline said. These industry innovations didn’t go unnoticed.
“His passion, integrity and relentless drive to evolve advertising from a ‘spray and pray’ model to one rooted in addressability and accountability have left an indelible mark,” said longtime acquaintance Bill Koenigsberg, CEO and founder of Horizon Media (and a 2014 B+C Hall of Famer). “I still remember a conversation we had early on about the future of data-driven media — David didn’t just see where things were going. He helped shape the path to get there.”
Political-Ad Pioneer
Kline’s pioneering work in addressable TV advertising caught the eye of New York City mayoral hopeful Michael Bloomberg, who latched onto the ability to segment audiences and use different messaging across demographics. That was Kline’s first foray into political advertising, but certainly not his last, as in 2024 Kline helped innovate programmatic advertisements for political campaigns.
“Television has always been a wonderful place for political advertising,” Kline opined. Beginning with the ability to pinpoint voters based on geography, to targeting specific demographic sectors, such as those who make over $150,000 and voted for Democrats, Kline watched political advertising explode over his career in cable.
Kline’s innovations in the cable advertising industry can be summarized as follows: “You’re going to get ads; might as well get ads that you can act on.”
Earlier this year, Kline announced his retirement, though he will continue to serve as chairman of the board for Comscore. Outside of television, Kline plans to spend more time with his family and travel the world, hopefully hitting the Australian Open.
Mark
Marshall Chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal
By Jon Lafayette
Every year at the Disney upfront, Jimmy Kimmel skewers people in the ad business. This year, Mark Marshall, chairman, global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, floated into Kimmel’s crosshairs. At NBCU’s event the previous day, Marshall had remarked that NBCU had the greatest collection of content ever assembled. Kimmel wondered if Marshall had heard of Pornhub.
“Based on the expression on his face, I feel like he has,” Kimmel cracked. “But listen, Mark’s personal … habits are none of your business, and shame on you for even thinking about them.”
Marshall said he got about 40 texts in 40 minutes letting him know he was being roasted. Marshall ended up sending Kimmel an autographed picture of himself and a gift card for Peacock. “These things are all about fun and entertainment,” Marshall said.
The incident highlighted Marshall’s prominence in the business. “He’s in the big leagues now,” said Publicis Media Exchange U.S. chairman John Muszynski, who called Marshall “one of the best sales guys I’ve ever dealt with … He is just an astute businessman. He really gets it, but his personality and his presence set him apart.”
Comfortable on Center Stage
This year wasn’t the first time Marshall was in the spotlight. When his predecessor, Linda Yaccarino, suddenly left to become CEO of X just days before the 2023 NBCU upfront, Marshall stepped onto the Radio City Music Hall stage and crushed it.
“It was a wild few days,” Marshall recalled. “No one’s really prepared to walk on in front of 6,000 people, but we got through it.”
Marshall grew up outside Chicago and went to Valparaiso University in Indiana. His
People were really rooting for him to succeed, and they’re still rooting for him. That doesn’t happen by accident. That happens over decades of delivering results.”
Matt Strauss, Chairman, NBCUniversal Media Group
grandfather had been in the advertising business. “I always just assumed I was going into advertising,” he said.
A Valpo alum was hiring at The Family Channel and Marshall got his first sales job in Chicago. He soon moved to Turner Broadcasting System.
Marshall displayed attributes that showed he was destined for the big time, said his former boss at Turner, Jon Diament, now executive VP, ad sales at Warner Bros. Discovery.
“He was super-creative as well as good with numbers,” Diament said. “You don’t usually get both in the same person. He also developed amazing relationships because he had great Midwestern values.”
Marshall moved to Los Angeles (where he listened to Kimmel on the radio) to run Turner’s West Coast sports-sales operations. He returned to Chicago with Turner before following Yaccarino to NBCU. “No one moves back to Chicago from Los Angeles other than the Marshalls,” he said.
Marshall moved to New York in 2018, first as executive VP, NBCU Entertainment
Sales, then as president, Advertising and Client Partnerships.
Marshall focused the NBCU sales team on meeting client needs. “I want us to wake up every day and figure out how to make our clients’ marketing more effective,” he said. “I think they will take care of us if we take care of them.”
Buyers believe Marshall takes that approach to heart.
“He’s always been very client-focused,” Maureen Bosetti, chief investment officer at IPG Mediabrands, said.
“He’s always someone that you can call,” she continued. “He’s willing to help you out and find a solution. He deals with a lot of difficult circumstances but I enjoy working with Mark. He’s a great partner.”
Relationship Builder
Matt Strauss, now chairman of the NBCU Media Group, observed that connection when Peacock was being created. Unlike other streamers, which were commercial-free, Peacock was designed to be ad-supported.
“We didn’t have a product,” Strauss said. “We didn’t have any subscribers. We weren’t even clear on exactly what the programming lineup was going to be. And Mark and the team were still able to bring those partners to the table. It really speaks to the relationships and the trust that he has with the advertising community that they saw the vision.
“He’s a very relatable person for such a senior executive,” Strauss added. When Marshall was named chairman, “people were really rooting for him to succeed, and they’re still rooting for him. That doesn’t happen by accident. That happens over decades of delivering results.”
Marshall met his wife Maura at Family Channel when he was a sales planner and she was a sales assistant. “She has been along for the ride the whole time,” he said. Marshall doesn’t expect his son or daughter to follow him into the family business, though he says he comes home from work most days with a smile on his face.
“I love my job,” he said. “One meeting might be with the CMO of an oil company. The next one is with Walmart. The next one is with Nike. It’s the best job ever because you get to learn about all these different industries and all these different clients. That’s my favorite part.”
Jimmy Pitaro
Chairman ESPN
By R. Thomas Umstead
When Jimmy Pitaro took over as ESPN president in 2018, the onceunquestioned TV sports leader was struggling. The network, along with the rest of cable, was losing subscribers to emerging streaming platforms while fighting off competitors bidding for rights to high-profile live sports content such as the NBA, NFL and UFC.
Now, as ESPN chairman, Pitaro — a selfproclaimed sports aficionado and lifelong New York Yankees fan — has clearly secured ESPN’s position as the preeminent distributor of sports content in a very crowded marketplace.
Under Pitaro’s tutelage, the network has reached new rights deals with the NFL, NBA, UFC, SEC and NHL, as well as the upstart UFL spring pro football league and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, while positioning the brand as the preeminent destination for sports fans across multiple platforms.
A Powerful Partner
“Jimmy Pitaro’s leadership has not only elevated ESPN but has also deepened the powerful partnership between ESPN and the NFL,” said Brian Rolapp, who was the league’s chief media and business officer until June, when he was named CEO of the PGA Tour. “His commitment to innovation and excellence continues to shape the future of sports media. But perhaps more importantly, Jimmy is a person of integrity and of the highest moral character.”
That’s high praise for Pitaro, who grew up in Westchester County, New York, believing he
CHAIRMAN’S AWARD
His commitment to innovation and excellence continues to shape the future of sports media.”
Brian Rolapp, CEO, PGA Tour and former Chief Media and Business Officer, NFL
would be a professional sports star. “I thought I was going to be an athlete,” said Pitaro. “I played just about every sport as a kid and I dreamed of nothing but being a professional athlete when I was younger, but obviously that didn’t work out.”
Pitaro played football at Cornell Universary, but after a series of injuries, he shifted his focus and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He’d go on to earn his law degree from St. John’s University School of Law in 1994 and, after practicing for several years, would get his first taste of the business side of sports when he was named head of Yahoo Sports in 2006.
“That was really a defining moment in my life and my career,” he said. “I went from a lawyer managing a few people to running one of the most successful businesses at the time. I woke up every day saying, ‘We have to beat ESPN,’ and we did. Before too long, we were No. 1 in Comscore, in terms of digital reach in the sports category.”
Yahoo tapped Pitaro to head its media division in 2009, before Sheryl Sandberg, a Disney director and the wife of Pitaro’s mentor and former boss, Dave Goldberg, reached out to him about a potential opportunity.
“Sheryl said [Disney] was unhappy with the Disney Digital leadership, so she asked me to meet with Bob Iger, and the rest is history,” Pitaro recalled.
After joining Disney Interactive as co-president in 2010 and then being named
chairman of Disney’s consumer products and interactive media division in 2016, Iger would again tap Pitaro — this time to take over as ESPN president, replacing the departing John Skipper.
Pitaro pointed to Iger as one of his most influential mentors. “I’ve learned a ton from him: being optimistic even during tough times, to be decisive, to analyze and to debate, but ultimately, not to be afraid to make decisions,” he said.
Iger, who will retire at the end of 2026, lauded Pitaro for his visionary leadership and relentless work ethic. “Jimmy doesn’t just see where the sports media landscape is heading — he actively shapes it,” he said. “Under his guidance, he has secured the most formidable portfolio of sports rights in the industry while positioning ESPN as the preeminent digital sports platform.”
Indeed, Pitaro’s ascension to ESPN president in 2018 and chairman in 2020 provided him with the opportunity to apply a visionary approach to the evolving television business. His dogged push to innovate culminated on Aug. 21 with the launch of ESPN’s direct-toconsumer streaming service. The $29.99 service will for the first time feature every linear ESPN channel, as well as 47,000 live events a year, including the NBA Finals, the College Football Playoff and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals.
Keeping Focused on Fans
“What I wanted to do very quickly was to give clarity on our mission and our priorities,” he said. “If you rewind to my first few weeks on the job, our mission and priorities are still the same seven and a half years later — to serve the sports fan, audience expansion, quality storytelling and innovation. Even now, I don’t feel the need to change those.”
Pitaro attributed his success at ESPN to the talented executives who work with him and believe in his vision for the future. Just this year, ESPN enjoyed its highest-rated second quarter in its 45-year history and has continued to successfully navigate through the massive disruption the television industry has endured.
“We’ve been able to grow our leadership position in the sports industry, expand our brand, grow our reach, engagement, digital, social and traditional linear ratings,” Pitaro said. “In this chaotic world, where we’re seeing massive disruption, we’ve been able to stay the course and grow.”
Sheryl Lee Ralph Award-Winning Actress And Advocate HUMANITARIAN AWARD
By R. Thomas Umstead
Sheryl Lee Ralph has already had quite a momentous year. Along with her upcoming induction into the B+C Hall of Fame, this past April she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, celebrating her six decades in show business. In July, she garnered a fourth-straight Emmy nomination for her role as teacher Barbara Howard in ABC’s hit comedy Abbott Elementary .
Not too bad for the Emmy, Peabody, Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awardwinning actress, producer, writer and singer who, even as a young child with entertainment aspirations, couldn’t have imagined the success she has enjoyed.
“I always go back to that little girl sitting in front of that 10-inch screen dreaming about coming to California and driving by the beach in a Mustang,” she said. “It’s such a clear image for me, but I never had any idea that it would become everything that it is still becoming today.”
Born in Connecticut, Ralph resided in Jamaica before moving to Long Island, New York. After graduating from Rutgers University, she made her film debut in the 1997 movie A Piece of the Action alongside one of her mentors, Sidney Poitier.
Ralph’s big-screen appearances include roles alongside Eddie Murphy in The Distinguished Gentleman, Robert DeNiro in Mistress, Denzel Washington in The Mighty Quinn and Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
From Broadway to Hollywood
Ralph said her breakthrough came in 1981, when she was cast on Broadway as Deena
To be around her is to be around Hollywood history, grace and legend. … She commands the room and gives you a show.”
Quinta Brunson, Creator, Executive Producer and Co-Star, Abbott Elementary
Jones in the musical Dreamgirls. “Deena Jones was a character that is now a part of Broadway history but a character that went on to be in the body of Beyoncé (in the 2006 film version),” she said. “For many people that was their introduction to theater, and for me to be connected to that has been wonderful.”
Ralph’s more memorable roles also include Dee Mitchell, the fictional stepmother of singer/actress Brandy in Moesha (1996-2001).
“To this day, I’ll have young people and people young at heart say through that character you taught me how to raise children,” she said.
Other television credits include Nick at Nite’s Instant Mom (2013), Showtime’s Ray Donovan (2013) and Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem (2020), where she played the president.
Arguably, her most iconic TV role is as Abbott Elementary’s Barbara Howard, a no-nonsense, committed kindergarten teacher. That portrayal made history in 2022, when Ralph won the primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, just the second Black actress to win the award.
“For me and especially for young Black actresses and others of color, it’s important to know that you must not stop believing in yourself and you must keep it moving,” she said of the role, which arrived late in her career. “For women of a certain age, what’s been important is that they are seeing the worth of an actress no matter how old she is.”
Commanding Presence
Quinta Brunson, creator, executive producer and Ralph’s co-star in Abbott Elementary, said at Ralph’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in April: “She is an experience. To be around her is to be around Hollywood history, grace and legend. She is a master class in what it means to be an eternal and consistent diva. She commands the room and gives you a show.”
Ralph, the 2025 B+C Hall of Fame Humanitarian Award Winner, is also very active philanthropically. Her Diva Foundation empowers vulnerable communities to achieve better health outcomes through the transformative power of the arts. Its signature event, the DIVAS Simply Singing! concert, marks its 35th anniversary in November.
“Back when we started, they didn’t want to pay attention to AIDS, but we did,” she recalled. “We opened ourselves up to COVID, and there will be something after COVID. Now we concentrate on all life-threatening diseases … which racism and poverty are a part of.”
On-screen, Ralph says she still has much more to accomplish, including a desire to take on some specific, dynamic roles. “I really want to go back to being the president, and I really want to play a criminal with a heart of gold,” she said. “I also want to play a superhero — you’re never too old to be a real superhero.”
Arthur Smith Chairman
& CEO, A. Smith & Co. Productions; Chairman, Tinopolis USA
FBy R. Thomas Umstead
ew television producers have been more successful and prolific over the past quarter-century than Arthur Smith. Since launching A. Smith & Co. Productions in 2000, the Canadian-born producer has put his fingerprints on more than 200 reality and documentary shows, including successful and longrunning series such as American Ninja Warrior, Trading Spaces, Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen Smith’s keen attention to viewing trends and quality entertainment has attracted such titans of television as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Chef Gordon Ramsay, Ellen DeGeneres, Paris Hilton, Dennis Miller, John Cena and Rob Lowe. Johnson, in particular, described Smith as the perfect partner to accomplish his dream of allowing people to showcase their best athletic self, which led to the launch of The Titan Games in 2018.
Varied and Successful Career
Smith’s diverse and successful entertainment career stems from his experiences as a Canadian teen actor, a high-profile sports executive, a nonfiction series producer, and, most recently, a book author.
“I’ve come a long way from being the king of a disco in a very bad movie called Pinball Summer,” Smith remarked. “I have this kind of eclectic background, which is why I think I’ve loved working in the nonfiction space because it’s such a broad genre.”
Smith’s early production roots in the television industry go back to his days as a sports producer at Canada’s CBC, where he produced the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics. Smith, an avid golfer, would then serve as head of programming and production for Fox Sports Net in the early 1990s, where he would help launch the company’s
Unsung allows us to honor the artists that have helped shape the soundtrack of our lives and to preserve the richness of our musical history in a way that is authentic, respectful and long overdue.”
Susan Henry, VP of Original Programming and Production,
TV One and Cleo
TV
then-emerging regional sports networks.
Smith’s initial foray into entertainment production came after he wrote an introductory letter to legendary producer Dick Clark, inquiring about working with Clark’s company. He would eventually work with his mentor as senior VP of Dick Clark Productions in 1990.
“Dick Clark was the master of variety television, as it was called back then, but I was more impressed with Dick as an entrepreneur,” Smith said.
It would be Smith’s entrepreneurial spirit that would lead him to launch A. Smith & Co. Productions in 2000. Smith said the secret to his longevity is his dedication to making quality content that entertains viewers and also inspires them.
“Every one of our shows has to have four things: a great idea and format, an interesting subject matter, tremendous execution and a freshness of concept,” he said. “You can’t have only two or three
of the four — if it doesn’t check those boxes, then we don’t even pitch it.”
Smith would eventually sell A. Smith & Co. in 2011 to Tinopolis Group U.S., where he serves as chairman, overseeing the Emmywinning company Magical Elves, which produces such popular unscripted shows as Nailed It! and Top Chef. He still remains very active as a producer.
“I’m still the only person who talks in Gordon Ramsay’s ear on the Hell’s Kitchen set after 24 seasons,” he said. “I’m still there. I’ve been there for every episode, and I love doing it.”
Fostering Diversity
Along with A. Smith & Co.’s signature programs, Smith has also found success in creating content that features diverse characters and stories, including BET Plus’s docuseries American Gangster: Trap Queens and TV One’s long-running music documentary series Unsung “Unsung allows us to honor the artists that have helped shape the soundtrack of our lives and to preserve the richness of our musical history in a way that is authentic, respectful and long overdue,” TV One and Cleo TV vice president of original programming and production Susan Henry said. “Through their tireless dedication and shared passion, Arthur and the A. Smith & Co. Productions team have been integral in bringing each episode of the show to life.”
In 2023, Smith added published author to his list of accolades with the release of his book Reach: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television. Smith has donated all proceeds from the book to the REACH Foundation, which he created to benefit charities that support individuals in need, enabling them to reach for their dreams in
“I realized that everything goes back to some moment when I was really young, when I had to reach beyond myself, and it changed my life,” Smith said. “It’s funny how you look back on your life and when you start tracing your steps, and for me, whenever I reached beyond what I thought I could do, that’s when I had my best chance for success.”
Jon Steinlauf
Former Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer Warner Bros. Discovery
By Jon Lafayette
Picture the head of sales for a TV network. You’re thinking of Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati and his loud jackets. Or maybe Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross
Despite two decades running sales at Scripps Networks Interactive, Discovery and Warner Bros. Discovery (he departed as chief U.S advertising sales officer in April), Jon Steinlauf doesn’t fit the stereotype.
“Jon is not a typical salesperson; he’s not the glad-handing type,” said Kathleen Finch, a top programming executive who worked with Steinlauf at Scripps Networks Interactive, Discovery and WBD, retiring in 2024 as WBD’s chairman and CEO, U.S. Networks. She means that as a compliment. “He’s brilliant with numbers. He always had such a strong grasp on the entire business, not just ad sales.”
Analytical Bent
Media buyers also said Steinlauf was unique. “The way he reads the market is very, very different,” Maureen Bosetti, chief investment officer at IPG Mediabrands, said. “He has an analytical mindset, which is becoming increasingly critical. With Jon, it wasn’t just going to be an emotional negotiation. You better have your numbers ready to go to be able to go toe to toe with him.”
After earning a marketing degree from Duke University, Steinlauf returned to Yonkers, New York, and in 1980 landed a TV buying job at ad agency Young & Rubicam. He decided he’d be more valuable to a TV network generating revenue than servicing clients at an agency and looked for a sales job.
Steinlauf’s father owned Herman’s World of Sporting
With Jon, it wasn’t just going to be an emotional negotiation. You better have your numbers ready to go to be able to go toe to toe with him.”
Goods. He grew up loving sports. “The only way I was going to break into sales was going to be in sports, because I had the passion to offset some of my unorthodox value to a sales organization.” He landed a job at a little network called ESPN, starting a long career selling cable.
“It was 40 years in the trenches,” he said. “I give myself some credit for the respect cable got from advertisers.”
John Muszynski, chief investment officer at Publicis, said that since he added buying responsibilities for clients that wanted to be on HGTV and Food Network, he’s worked more closely with Steinlauf.
“Jon was able to articulate the incremental value that those two networks brought to the table,” Muszynski said.
“He’s a student of the marketplace and I like to think of myself the same way, so we’ve had a lot in common in that regard,” Muszynski continued, calling Steinlauf a great listener. “He’s not this big, outgoing personality. When you sit down and talk to him, he’s a great guy and also a really good person.”
Beyond supply and demand, Steinlauf understands market psychology, which helps get deals done, Muszynski said. He also brought a
calm demeanor to negotiations, even when the pressure was on at WBD to get bigger price increases for its cable networks. During tough talks, “Jon kept his cool and he was able to put the emotions aside and find a solution.”
Steinlauf said he succeeded in an industry where $70 billion moves between the agencies and networks annually in deals that are largely lawyer-free, because of integrity. “If you’re not as good as your word, you don’t survive,” he said.
He rose to head sales for one of the five biggest TV companies. “I didn’t get there by being the loudest voice in the room,” he said. “I’m an intense listener and I built trusted, long-term relationships with authenticity, with substance.”
As an ad salesperson, Steinlauf respected the creative side of the business, killing what could have been money-making ideas if they didn’t serve viewers, Finch said. But he was also early to sell sponsorships and integrations in branded content and digital platforms.
Survival Skills
Finch also saw Steinlauf survive a series of ownership changes. “It wasn’t a matter of surviving. It was more a matter of thriving. [WBD CEO David] Zaslav knew he was the right person for the job and he just worked incredibly hard,” she said.
Steinlauf said managing through one acquisition, a pandemic and then another merger was a remarkable part of his career. “That comes with the challenges of cost-cutting, restructuring and layoffs, but blending cultures might be the hardest part,” he said.
He said he’s proud of the impact he’s had on people who have worked for him, “inspiring them, empowering them, elevating them, especially in challenging, uncertain and disruptive times.”
Now, Steinlauf is spending time in the Hamptons, not far from Finch’s place there. “It’s funny not to see him in a suit,” Finch said. “With Jon, what you see is what you get. He’s just a nice human being.”
Can a guy who has numbers running through his brain and who breathes and lives the TV business stay on the beach? “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “It’ll be interesting to see if he finds [being on the sidelines] relaxing or not.”
Sandra Stern Vice Chairman
Lionsgate Television Group
By Alyson Trager
As a self-proclaimed “intellectual snob,” Sandra Stern, vice chairman of Lionsgate Television Group, found her way into the entertainment industry through a rather circuitous path. In college, she studied comparative literature and had a knack for reading and speaking foreign languages, but she wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
“At a certain point, I realized I actually like to eat three meals a day,” said Stern, and that pushed her to go to law school, where she was surprised by how engaged she was with that work. She landed her first job in Columbia Pictures Television’s legal department, followed by some time at the law firm Bloom, Hergott, Cook, Diemer & Klein LLP.
Stern, though, missed taking lunch breaks on the Warner Bros. lot, where she’d walk around watching actors in their costumes eating on the set of Little House on the Prairie On top of that, she craved a broader view of the television industry and discovered her passion lay less in client interactions and more in telling stories.
A Calling to Creativity
“I had a well-developed right brain, as well as a left brain, and I was looking for something that would allow me to combine my love of character and story … with my sort of organizational business sense,” Stern said. Stern hit her stride in 1986 when she was introduced to Jon Feltheimer, who became her mentor, sounding board and, eventually,
network when it became clear that one of the shows ordered — the 1990s version of Zorro, which aired on The Family Channel — didn’t have enough funding.
She is an expert deal-maker who understands that negotiating deals with talent and business partners is the start of long-term relationships.”
Jon
Feltheimer, CEO, Lionsgate
business partner. Through conversations with Feltheimer over the years, Stern developed a strong confidence in arguing and defending her position on any given issue.
“I’ve been fortunate to work closely with Sandra at three different companies, and I value her as a partner and a friend,” said Feltheimer, now Lionsgate CEO. “She is an expert deal-maker who understands that negotiating deals with talent and business partners is the start of long-term relationships, and her negotiating skills, talent relationships and understanding of where the
One of the first deals Stern worked on under Feltheimer at New World Entertainment was also one of the most innovative at the time. Pushed by what she called “complete production by a U.S. television
“I went to school in France so I told Jon, ‘Maybe I can find some money there,’” Stern recalled. “And Jon said, ‘That is a great idea.’ It was actually a terrible idea, but it turned out I could, and I did.” Stern drew up the co-finance agreement in France, applied for extra funding to film in Spain and came back to the U.S. with a check for $2.8 million.
This problem-solving mindset characterized Stern’s knack for creating “win-win” deals at Lionsgate Television Group. For Stern, making deals is all about honesty, open communication and a strong partnership, not rivalry.
Forging Relationships
“Every deal we make is the start of a relationship … and I don’t know any relationship that starts with one person feeling that he’s being taken advantage of,” Stern said. Going into each deal, Stern asks her potential partners what they need and what is most important to them. That attitude, along with consistent check-ins and catch-ups, allows Stern and Lionsgate to maintain long-term relationships with clients, like for Weeds, which ran on Showtime for eight seasons from 2005-2012, and Orange Is the New Black on Netflix, which streamed on Netflix for seven seasons from 2013-2019.
Though she may give a different answer if asked again, Stern cited Orange Is the New Black as her favorite project to work on. Back when Netflix was still in the early stages of offering original content, Stern sat down with then-VP of original content Cindy Holland for a conversation based, more or less, on the question, “Well, what do you think?” It’s these ultra-collaborative dialogues that keep Stern’s partnerships strong, landing her deals even when the industry goes through growing pains.
“I think the challenge and the motivation is to do better work than anybody else,” Stern said of her drive to continue pushing into the future of television. “How can we be smarter and more thoughtful and come up with something that everybody else is not doing?”
Rob Weisbord
Chief Operating Officer and President, Local Media, Sinclair
By Jon Lafayette
After acquiring Fisher Communications, a group of Sinclair executives met with Fisher staffers. One Sinclair exec stood out from the other suits.
“There was this guy at the end without a tie on,” said Ryan Moore, now senior VP and chief revenue officer at Sinclair. “He had bright red socks and that kind of stuck out. I could tell right there he was already bucking the traditional trends.”
That guy was Rob Weisbord, then head of Sinclair’s digital unit. Twelve years later, Weisbord is Sinclair’s chief operating officer and president of local media. “He came in with an open mind and he really wanted to learn about what [Fisher] did that Sinclair didn’t,” Moore recalled. “Rob likes to be looking further ahead.”
The first time Jonathan Bingaman, president of domestic multiplatform licensing and distribution for Paramount, met Weisbord, Bingaman was selling syndicated shows and meeting station general managers in Las Vegas. Both men were running late, and Weisbord offered to meet at the airport. They grabbed a beer and have worked together and been friends for 20 years.
Always Looking Ahead
Bingaman said Weisbord has always been obsessed with the future. He saw people getting their news from their phones and the web and knew Sinclair had to be in those businesses.
“He was always looking at what the next thing is, but never at the detriment to broadcast or to the local stations,” Bingaman said.
Weisbord’s leadership qualities stand out,
He was always looking at what the next thing is, but never at the detriment to broadcast or to the local stations.”
Jonathan Bingaman, President, Domestic Multiplatform Licensing and Distribution, Paramount
Bingaman said. And though they’re friends, they don’t always agree.
“Our negotiations are a lot like our tennis matches,” he said. “There’s always a little bit of drama, always a little bit of back and forth. But like tennis, you shake hands at the end, and then you do it again another time.”
Growing up, Weisbord wanted to be a tennis player. He was on the team at the University of Tampa, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees.
His first TV job was with WTVT Tampa, where he rose to national sales manager. He joined Sinclair in 1997, running its Las Vegas stations.
Taking a risk on the future, Weisbord moved to Sinclair’s digital unit. “When I said that I was going to give up my TV responsibilities to launch the digital business, a senior executive asked me if I was nuts because, at the time, digital was 1% of the revenue of the company,” he said.
As an early adopter, he and Sinclair laughed last. Sinclair’s digital division grew from five people to 800 and broadcasters that failed to adapt to digital found themselves up for sale. “Without the foundation built a couple decades ago, there’s no way we would have been in position to do what we’re doing today,” Weisbord said.
Weisbord said he’s proud of his role transforming Sinclair from a broadcaster to a multiplatform media business.
He is still bullish on broadcast, which remains at Sinclair’s heart. Broadcast reach enables the station group to launch businesses in digital advertising, podcasting and social content.
Weisbord continues to regularly visit Sinclair’s local stations. “We want a highperformance culture, so the only way to feel if it’s a high-performance culture is to visit,” he said. “You actually have to go let your employees know we care about them.”
Moore said that Weisbord makes time to mentor anyone at Sinclair who’s interested. “I wouldn’t be here for this long if it wasn’t for him,” Moore, who considers Weisbord a mentor, said.
“When it’s all said and done, what do you have?” Weisbord said. “You have your legacy of who’s going to carry on that you’ve touched. And I think that’s the only thing that matters, whether it’s mentoring employees or my kids.”
Fostering Community
The visits also confirm how the stations connect with their communities. That connection differentiates broadcast from competitors like streaming and radio and is a reason Weisbord has focused on creating local content.
Some Sinclair stations are testing announcing on a Monday that the following Friday’s newscast will originate from somewhere in the community, rather than the studio. “I want our talent to be touched, felt and really be content creators versus news people,” he said.
Tennis remains important to Weisbord, who pushed for Sinclair to acquire Tennis Channel.
“I would joke that as long as we have tickets and I get some swag, we should buy it and I can figure out how to monetize the thing,” he said, adding that the acquisition has been accretive to Sinclair.
Weisbord plays tennis a few days a week, but recently built a pickleball court at his house. He said he isn’t slowing down. “That [the court] is only for my wife,” he said. “It’s under the happy wife, happy life syndrome.”
He and his wife Terri, who owns an ad agency in Vegas, have two children who both earned postgraduate degrees. One, Lindsay, is senior marketing manager at Sinclair’s Sports Group.
‘Days of our Lives’ Daytime Drama Peacock ICONICSHOW AWARD
By Robert Edelstein
In early November 2015, a special proclamation arrived at the Burbank, California, offices where Days of our Lives is filmed five days a week for two out of every three weeks.
As Ken Corday, longtime producer of the series and son of the show’s two creators, recalled, a “key to the city” was presented to the show from the town of Salem, Illinois — the actual city that matches the name of the fictional town where the show is set. “Salem honored us for our 50th anniversary,” Corday said. “There are, I think, nine [other] cities in the United States named Salem, and we got the keys to those nine cities that day, too.”
Ten more years have passed, and they still take Days very seriously in towns named Salem, but they take it seriously everywhere else as well. The daytime drama, which aired for nearly 57 years on NBC before moving to Peacock in September 2022, is one of the longest-running scripted programs in the history of the world.
Characters with the last names of Brady, Horton, DiMera, Kiriakis and Hernandez have fascinated, irritated and captivated generations of fans. That its
Story is all that matters. My mother used to call that the big bass drum that beats underneath the show.”
Ken Corday, Producer, Days of our Lives
legacy is now approaching the 60-year mark is a testament to the enduring power of three things: story, family and loyalty.
“Days of our Lives is kind of like the Christmas tree ornament that you hand down through the generations,” said Emmy winner Eric Martsolf, who has played the role of Brady Black since 2008. “It’s just amazing to see the impact.” Added Susan Seaforth Hayes,
who began playing Julie Williams on the soap opera in 1968: “The excellence of the show and the devotion of the fans who’ve fallen in love with it is what’s kept it on the air, and what has led us to streaming. It was a jewel that was not cast aside.”
Family Matters
Days was the brainchild of husband-andwife team Ted and Betty Corday, and it premiered Nov. 8, 1965. Its uniqueness was not
Days actor Eric Martsolf
Dick Colla (l.) as Tony Merritt and Maree Cheatham as Marie Horton in the first season of Days of our Lives.
Producer Ken Corday
Actors Susan Seaforth Hayes and Macdonald Carey with the iconic hourglass in a season eight promo photo.
THE HONOREES
limited to that iconic hourglass opening shot and its title that makes a nod to the 23rd Psalm. “When my father and mother created the show, all of daytime was, for lack of a better word, vertical,” Corday said. “The shows took place in cities with big buildings — the penthouse on top down to the tenements at the bottom, and what happened in that building and in these cities.” His parents preferred a series that stressed the hominess of a small middle-class town where everyone knows everybody else and anything can happen. A hospital element was later added, with the series concerning families of doctors.
Ted Corday passed away before the show’s first anniversary, and Betty then ran the ship for years. Ken grew up wanting to be a composer but, as he recalls, “In 1975 the show was 10, and I walked through an airport and saw it on the cover of Time magazine, and I went, ‘Well, gee, Mom and Dad’s little idea seems to have gained some traction here.’”
That’s about when Days grew from 30 to 60 minutes. He joined the staff and by 1986 was in charge of production.
The Plots Thickened
Ken Corday learned well how to keep fans present. “Story is all that matters,” he said. “My mother used to call that the big bass drum that beats underneath the show.”
That beat has been a loud and amazing one. Days broke social barriers and kept fans’ necks strained toward the TV for years with enduring,
astounding plots, from paternity and custody battles to love triangles, and from the first gay marriage in daytime to strange supernatural themes. We were all bedeviled in 1993 when Marlena Evans (played by Deidre Hall for over 45 years) was possessed by Satan, then relieved when her then-priestly husband John Black (Drake Hogestyn) helped cast him out. Said Corday, “That story really set us apart.”
Like the best of families, the show has also faced death with great compassion. Hogestyn insisted that the show film his character’s funeral even as he was succumbing last September to pancreatic cancer. Longtime star Bill Hayes received a touching tribute upon his January 2024 death, and Seaforth Hayes — his wife on and off screen — was able to embrace final moments that brought fans in. “When we have a loss,” she said, “everybody feels it.”
ropes in the hopes that Days has much more life.) Martsolf remembers an incident a couple of years ago when a woman threw an avocado at his head in a grocery store.
Indeed, fans continue to be very involved as the show preps to move past its 60th anniversary date on Nov. 8. (Two of Corday’s adult children are already on board, learning the
“She was not happy about how I was handling my current marriage on the show,” he said with a laugh. He introduced himself as Eric, but the woman knew him only as Brady. “‘You’d better get your act together,’ she told me. I’ll never forget it. This woman was living and breathing the show. I took it as the ultimate compliment.”
A plot revolving around the possession of Marlena Evans (Deirdre Hall) bedeviled viewers in 1993.
An all-cast portrait taken for the series’ 55th anniversary season in 2020.
