Shelly Leslie
WRAL-TV Creative Director Shelly Leslie is celebrating 30 years with the station with a significant promotion. Effective Friday, June 2, 2017, she is now general manager of audience development — a new Capitol Broadcasting Company division focused on growing the company’s digital video footprint.
This division will run like a startup inside the company, creating a video distribution engine across digital platforms including CBC’s websites, apps, OTT, and social media for the purpose of creating new audience and new revenue. The team will experiment, adapt and innovate. The purpose is to recruit audiences and monetization of video across all digital platforms.
“Shelly’s drive, creativity, and grasp of the ever-evolving digital platforms make her a perfect fit for this position,” said James F. Goodmon, Jr., CBC Vice President. “She will grow and lead a team that will curate, acquire, and produce digital video programming that recruits audience and gives us more unique ad inventory to sell outside of traditional television programming and news.”
Goodmon said the opportunities include original digital content, uniquely repackaging TV content for digital consumption, and buying programming that recruits new digital audience and creates new revenue opportunities.
The new division will sit outside of TV, Radio, and New Media but will collaborate closely with those divisions to innovate content, the way people consume it, and the client partnerships created around it.
CBC New Media will remain focused on the core digital platform infrastructure, digital product development such as apps, OTT channels, and websites, original digital reporting, and continue digital sales and marketing solutions.
WRAL-TV announced another promotion in addition to Leslie’s. Jay Yovanovich, an 11-year veteran of the station, has been promoted to director of marketing for all on-air and multiplatform messaging for WRAL-TV and WRAZ-TV.
“We are thrilled about celebrating Shelly’s 30 years with WRAL-TV and delighted that she is being promoted within the company,” said Steven D. Hammel, vice president and general manager of WRAL-TV and FOX 50. Hammel added, “I am also pleased that someone with Jay’s talent is being promoted within WRAL-TV and FOX 50.”
The station has started a nationwide search for its next creative services director who will lead creative for both WRAL-TV and FOX 50.
Thanks to WRAL-TV’s Steve Hammel for this capcom story.
