NBC News Digital Restructures Sales Marketing Department, Johnson Named VP

by Gavin O'Malley @mp_gavin, May 8, 2013

Peter-Naylor Continuing to restructure its sales team after the acquisition of the MSNBC Digital Network last year, the NBC News Digital Group announced several hires on Wednesday.

Eric Johnson has been named vice president of sales marketing at the digital group, while Joy Robins and Joe Damiano have both been named senior directors of ad sales.

Peter Naylor, executive vice president in charge of sales for the NBC News Digital Group, said the hires were critical “as we take over full sales responsibility from MSN in the coming months.”

Johnson most recently served as vice president of client solutions for USA Today and USA Weekend, where he focused on cross-platform ad strategies.

Joy Robins was previously national vice president of digital ad sales for the BBC, while Joe Damiano was most recently vice president of West Coast ad sales for TheStreet, Inc.

The new hires are intended to round out the digital group’s sales management team from previous positions across NBCUniversal, Naylor said.

The team already includes David DeRobbio, vice president of ad sales, who previously served with the MSNBC Digital Network; Leslie Prentice, senior director of ad sales, who came over from iVillage; and Brian Matthews, who did time at NBCUniversal Digital Entertainment, CNN and the BBC.

Last summer, NBC News acquired full control of MSNBC.com, which ended a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft. At the time, management partially attributed the move to brand confusion between NBC News’ broadcast property and the MSNBC cable news network.

The NBC News Digital Group’s portfolio -- including NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com (launching later this year), TODAY.com, iVillage.com, and BreakingNews.com -- now reaches 73 million unique visitors per month, according to internal estimates.

broadcast networks, digital, sales, web sites

2 comments about "NBC News Digital Restructures Sales Marketing Department, Johnson Named VP".

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Mark Mclaughlin from McLaughlin Strategy, May 8, 2013 at 7:16 p.m.
Reading this I found myself wondering what happens when a CMO says to his digital team, "we do a lot of business with NBC, what's the best way to integrate their digital offerings in order to align with our marketing objectives?"
Should be a natural question to ask, but oh boy, how long will take to come up with an answer.
Reply

John Vail from PrizeLogic, May 10, 2013 at 1:45 p.m.

Mark, and the reality is the question will go beyond Digital to include all assets...I guess it would be a good problem to have for the likes of NBC and other big media players, provided it's being asked by marketing versus procurement folks?