Meredith To Hub Marketing For Its TV Stations

Meredith Broadcasting announced a new initiative called the Meredith Creative Group that will take over the marketing and creative services of its 17 TV stations across the country.

In September, Meredith eliminated 130 jobs at its local stations companywide.

Gary Brown, Meredith’s SVP of content, said the company is consolidating and will have two creative groups that will handle the image promotion for the stations. The two groups will be located in Phoenix and Nashville, where Meredith owns CBS affiliate KPHO and NBC affil  WSMV, respectively.

“Our footprint on affiliations are almost half are Fox, and half are CBS, so what we decided to split it along affiliation lines,” Brown said. “Phoenix will handle all the CBS affiliates plus a couple of our independents, and Nashville will handle all the Fox affiliates.”

Meredith has seven stations in the top 25 markets — including Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis and Portland — and 13 in the top 50.

The Meredith Creative Group in Phoenix will be led by Danielle Ray, the one in Nashville by Bob St. Charles. Each group will be staffed with a creative group manager, producer/editors, social media producers and assistants.

Both Ray and St. Charles have deep and extensive backgrounds in local TV marketing and creative services.

The decision to establish two marketing hubs for its 17 stations was partly a result of COVID-19 and partly a result of staff reductions.

“COVID gave us a chance to look at how we are doing things we never thought we could do remotely,” Brown said.

“And then part of it was, if you are going to make reductions — that is always a tough thing — how do we change the workflow? How do we adapt and change? So then [came] the opportunity to try something new and try to get the best and the brightest to handle that. But I don’t want to diminish what the folks at the stations do.”

Brown envisions the groups will be able to produce spots that can be customized by each station, like for a mobile app. But when it comes to branding weather for markets as diverse as say Phoenix and Hartford, Conn., that may call for more customization.

Some of the Meredith stations will continue with the local marketing staff handling topical news promotion, community events, sales and nontraditional revenue spots that need to be done, Brown said, “but the goal of the creative group is to handle image promotion, TSRs and some proof of brand spots.”

While there will be collaboration with the stations, the initiative will be focused by using a strategic approach that is research-based. “We want to make sure that we are strategic and regimented in our approach to how we do our marketing,” Brown added.

He said he doesn’t know of any other broadcaster that has tried a similar approach “but we really believe we probably won’t be the only ones doing it.”

In 2009, the NBC O&Os laid off their creative services staff and hired a boutique agency in New York, Mother, to handle station promotions.

Brown said: “It is an initiative and we are hiring people for it. We do believe that it has a lot of potential. But we also are promising that there is also going to be a learning curve and potential hiccups along the way, too. But with any new thing there is and you work through, you learn and you make it better.”

Brown anticipates the two groups to be up and functioning by Dec. 1.

Here are some examples of Danielle Ray’s work:

Here are some examples of Bob St. Charles’ work:

The Meredith Creative Group in Phoenix, Arizona is looking for a creative group manager, creative group producers, and social media producers for a new initiative at Meredith Broadcasting. Click here for more specifics and how to apply.

The Meredith Creative Group in Nashville, Tennessee is looking for a creative group manager, creative group producers, social media producers, creative services producer editor and promotion coordinator for a new initiative at Meredith Broadcasting. Click here for more specifics and how to apply.