Bob Gives His Executive Prediction in Streaming Media Magazine

January 27, 2016 Chris Huppertz
In this month's issue of Streaming Media Magazine, Bob gave a look into what he and our clients will be watching this year in media. Read on to see what Bob has his...

Viamedia Promotes Three Executives to Vice President

January 21, 2016 Chris Huppertz
Viamedia, the television industry’s largest independent cable TV ad management company, announced today the promotions of three senior operational management team members to vice president positions: Wendell Decker, Chad Dobson and Jim O'Neill. “We heartedly congratulate Wendell, Chad and Jim on their newfound promotions,” stated Mark Lieberman, president and CEO, Viamedia. “Each of these executives have demonstrated a combination of innovative thinking, team leadership and ability to achieve results – they are shining examples of what we strive for at Viamedia.” Chad Dobson is promoted to Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller. Since joining Viamedia in 2013, Chad has transformed the finance organization by consolidating all finance functions, creating unmatched operating efficiencies, as well as creating new enhanced internal and external reporting. Chad is a seasoned financial professional with over 15 years of finance and accounting experience managing SEC reporting, global consolidation, accounting and regulatory compliance Wendell Decker is promoted to Vice President, Technical Services. Wendell most recently served Director of Technical Operations, where he played a pivotal role in the company's growth and technical innovation. He joined Viamedia in 2005. Wendell specializes in technical operations, having spent over 16 years working in cable advertising with companies like AT&T Media Services and Adelphia. Jim O’Neill is promoted to Vice President, Client Services. Since joining Viamedia as Director of Client Services in 2011, Jim has made a significant impact in customer service, operational efficiency and the company’s overall structure and approach to client services nationwide. Prior to joining Viamedia, Jim was the Area Director of Ad Sales Operations for Comcast Spotlight in California, where he oversaw traffic, inventory, information technology, systems development, facilities, master control and engineering operations. About Viamedia Headquartered in New York City, Viamedia is the largest independent cable TV ad management company for local, regional and national advertising, programmatic and ad tech solutions, responsible for more than 1.2 million 15 and 30-second spots per day on behalf of 10,000 advertisers. The company specializes in selling advertising on behalf of almost 60 U.S. cable and telecommunications service providers, utility companies and municipalities, and employs over 400 people across the country. The company also operates placemedia, a programmatic data-driven platform, representing over 30 billion advertising impressions monthly across 210 DMAs on nearly 100 TV networks. For more information, please visit www.viamediatv.com and www.placemedia.com.

At ISE 2016 ZeeVee Launches Next Generation Video Distribution Products

January 8, 2016 Chris Huppertz
Visit ZeeVee AT BOOTH NUMBER N151 Demos will include the latest 4K Video over IP solutions from ZeeVee ZeeVee, Inc. (Zv) a global manufacturer of video and signal distribution technology, will be demonstrating its new video distribution solutions, ZyPer4K™ CATx and ZyPerMX at the ISE 2016 Show in Amsterdam, February 9 – 12 in hall 10 at stand N151, at the Amsterdam RAI. The new ZyPer4k CATx expands upon the ZyPer4K platform, the only solution today that switches and distributes uncompressed Ultra-HD (4K) video, audio and RS232/IR control signals leveraging off-the-shelf 10Gb Ethernet switching products, with support for CATx infrastructures. “The ZyPer4k CATx delivers all the functionality of the ZyPer4K for clients who haven’t made the upgrade to fiber cabling,” said Danny Barr, vice president, new product business development for ZeeVee. In addition, the ZyPerMX will be showcased at the event. Using industry standard H.264 (MPEG4) encoding technology, the ZyPerMX HD IP video encoder, provides a bridge between the current high definition iSeries and the 4K/UHD ZyPer4k products. As many new buildings have been wired without traditional COAX cabling, the ZyPerMX provides an affordable IP video encoding solution enabling customers to deliver live TV and archived content over their Ethernet networks. “The new ZyPerMX truly bridges the divide between today’s HDBridge/COAX products and the new generation of high capacity ZyPer4K/network based products,” Barr added. With the addition of these new products, Zv’s multi-source to multi-screen video distribution platforms continue to deliver on its promise of any source, over any network to unlimited displays. Visitors to ISE 2016 will also be see demos of Zv’s extensive product family of RF/Coax encoders and modulators.  

Publicists of the Caribbean: Bob Gold & Associates Chosen to Captain Caribbean Broadcasting Network’s PR Program

January 8, 2016 Chris Huppertz
U.S. Based Caribbean Broadcaster Chooses Industry Leading Public Relations Agency Caribbean Broadcasting Network, a U.S. broadcasting company that owns and operates five television stations in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, today announced it has chosen Bob Gold & Associates, a nationally recognized boutique cable and telecommunications-focused public relations agency to lead its PR activities. “Our diverse programming activities are increasing dramatically with new exclusive Caribbean content acquisitions for North American audiences. We have seen Bob Gold & Associates’ proven experience across the industry and are impressed by the agency’s track record of successfully bolstering independent TV networks’ visibility and value,” said Keith Bass, president and CEO for Caribbean Broadcasting Network. “The agency will be a valuable addition to our team, helping us publicize our future efforts and position us in front of distribution and consumer audiences.” Led by cable veteran Bob Gold, the agency will promote the Caribbean Broadcasting Network’s expansion of its program offerings to maximize the network’s value to distributors and further its reputation among viewers. Bob Gold’s team will focus on establishing this emerging independent television network group’s unique programming, highlighting the network’s fast growth and recent deal in acquiring exclusive rights to televise new Caribbean programming in the U.S. “The team and I are looking forward to diving into the colorful world of Caribbean entertainment and culture to bring this network to life as it expands its offerings. We’re excited about what the network has planned,” said Gold, president and CEO of Bob Gold & Associates.

Traditional PR vs Digital PR

January 4, 2016 Chris Huppertz
At the Digital Growth Summit, Bob moderated a panel discussing topics all about traditional PR and digital PR and how to tackle each of these PR worlds. See what Janette Rizk of Phelps Agency, Kathleen Dunleavy of Sprint and Victoria Green of Business Wire have to say about the differences between traditional PR and digital PR below. Find more topics covered by the panel in the full post on MediaLeaders. What are your tips on any of the topics discussed? Traditional PR vs digital PR What is the difference between the two PR worlds? “Bite-sized” news and animated GIF will make your news more appealing and accessible via social media. – @KateDunl The idea of whether or not to kill the press release is a common discussion amongst PR specialists. There are people on both sides of the debate and there isn’t one definitive answer. At Sprint, we started making our news “bite-sized” so that our news pieces are more appealing and accessible via social media platforms such as Twitter. Journalists are out there constantly patrolling the Internet and social media looking for news and we want our content to be digestible. For example, we recently announced our earnings and to help avoid the confusion over the finer details in our financial report, we presented our earnings as a fun, animated GIF. It’s probably about seven or eight slides and it talks to viewers about what Sprint did this quarter. It’s quick, bite-sized news and more accessible. We add our full-length detailed press release to the GIF so that journalists who want to research specific questions can do so. – Kathleen Dunleavy Follow-Up: Where do you post your bite-sized news GIF? What is your most popular social media channel? We post the GIF on our site as well as social media channels. Our most popular social media channel is Twitter. We love Twitter. Our CEO is on Twitter all of the time. We also use Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook. – Kathleen Dunleavy Difference between traditional PR and digital is that now we have more ways to reach people. – @JRizk The 24-hour news cycle changes things. There used to be rules that PR people lived by such as “Don’t send out a press release on Friday” or “Wait until the beginning of the day to send out the press release.” Now we time things much differently. For example, Whole Foods Market opened a store in downtown LA on Wednesday. Instead of sending out a release on Tuesday, the day before, we sent out a release last Thursday. Then we did a press event, closer to the opening, where we announced exciting news including that we were opening a restaurant with a celebrity chef in the store. At this press event, all of the journalists were present. We then set out a final push the night before to get the traditional media to show up for the opening the next day. We tried to use snackable news bites and a tiered approach to ensure that we would reach journalists and influencers, such as bloggers and instagram stars. I think the biggest difference between traditional PR and digital media is that we now have all of these ways to reach people and we can time things differently. You can break news differently. – Janette Rizk Watch and read more here.
Share this: