SAGINAW, Mich.—Meredith Corp. has promoted Ken Frierson to vice president and general manager of WNEM-TV 5, Meredith’s CBS affiliate in the Saginaw-Flint, Mich., market. He is currently WNEM’s general sales manager.

In a statement Meredith Local Media Group President Patrick McCreery said, “He has successfully led the WNEM sales team and helped the station consistently grow its market share, a pattern I’m confident will continue in his role as general manager.”

Frierson started his career at WSMH FOX66 in Flint and then joined WNEM-TV 5 and Meredith in 1991. He worked at WEYI in Flint as regional sales manager before being promoted to national sales manager. Frierson has also held various Sales and Business Operations positions at local television stations in Peoria, IL, Syracuse, NY, Detroit, MI, and Troy, MI. He returned to Meredith in 2010 as WNEM-TV 5’s local sales manager and was promoted to general sales manager in 2018.

Frierson currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.

PORTLAND, Ore.—ATSC 3.0 is on its way to Portland, Ore., as Meredith Corporation and Nexstar Media Group have announced their plans to launch the city’s first NextGen TV services.

Meredith and Nexstar, along with local TV station owners Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tegna, have filed applications with the FCC for the commercial transition of the Portland market to ATSC 3.0. Pending FCC approval, Meredith’s KPDX-TV (MyNet) and Nexstar’s KRCW-TV (CW) will serve as NextGen TV host stations for the market, enabling network programming from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CW and MyNetwork to be available via NextGen TV broadcasts. KPDX will host Meredith’s KPTV (Fox) and Tegna’s NBC (KGW), while KRCW will help broadcast signals for Nexstar’s KOIN (CBS) and Sinclair’s KATU (ABC).

Oregon Public Broadcasting also plans to file its application for participating in the ATSC 3.0 transition in the near future. Both KPTV and KRCW will broadcast certain PBS programming.

Broadcasters are expected to collaborate on the launch of the NextGen TV service as well as maintaining existing digital TV over-the-air ATSC 1.0 signals in Portland.

Meredith, Nexstar, Sinclair and Tegna are all members of Pearl TV, a group collaborating on the build out of ATSC 3.0 station launches in the top 40 U.S. television markets. Portland is the 22nd largest U.S. TV market.

“This transition in the Portland market is a significant milestone on the road toward full deployment of NextGen TV,” said Brett Jenkins, executive vice president and CTO of Nexstar Media Group. “This is the next step, beyond experiments and trials, as broadcasters move forward with actual commercial deployments of NextGen TV in 2020. Nexstar is excited to be a part of this cooperative effort. It demonstrates that the entire industry is driving forward with technology that will bring new benefits to our viewers and additional opportunities for growth across the entire television industry.”

The ATSC 3.0 rollout is beginning in earnest in 2020. At the 2019 NAB Show it was announced that new TV transmission technology aimed to be in the top 40 markets by the end of 2020. In addition, TV manufacturers have announced they will begin to rollout TV models with ATSC 3.0 receivers this year.

No timeline was provided for when Portland's NextGen TV stations would go live.

TVT has everything you need to know about ATSC 3.0 in one place.

NEW YORK—Meredith Corporation has named Andrew Snyder Senior Vice President/Head of Video, reporting to Stan Pavlovsky, President of Meredith Digital. In this new role, Snyder now oversees the company’s digital video business, including digital programming and production, business affairs and studio operations, as well as video revenue strategy.

"A digital media veteran, Andrew is a talented and seasoned leader with a proven track record of growing video businesses," said Pavlovsky. "With a keen understanding of the marketplace, Andrew is the right choice to extend our premium brands to this platform in ways that will deliver unmatched consumer experiences."

Snyder replaces Ian Orefice, who will leave Meredith at the end of the summer to focus full-time on television and film development. Until he leaves, Orefice will continue working on select television projects and help with the transition. He continues to report to Bruce Gersh, Executive Vice President, President of “People” and

“Entertainment Weekly,” who also oversees Meredith's National Media Group television and digital video entertainment production.

[Read: Meredith Promotes McCreery To EVP Operations For Local Media Group]

With a 115-year history in service journalism, Meredith states that its National Media Group now reaches nearly 200 million Americans per month, including 85% of U.S. millennial women, and delivers content pertaining to celebrity, food, lifestyle, home, parenting, beauty and fashion via broadcast television, print, digital, mobile and video platforms.

Lauren Mikler, Executive Producer, Video, Entertainment Group, which includes the soon-to-launch daily live show, "Chatter on Twitter," will now oversee the group's digital video programming, reporting to Will Lee, Senior Vice President, Digital, Entertainment Group.

According to Lee, "Lauren is an immensely talented creative producer for short- and long-form video and will be instrumental in the growth of our entertainment video programming.”

DES MOINES, IOWA—Meredith Corporation is going with a familiar face to take on the position of Executive Vice President of Operations for its Local Media Group, as the company has announced Patrick McCreery has been promoted from his position as vice president of news and marketing. In his new position, McCreery will oversee all station operations and general managers will report directly to him.

Patrick McCreery

McCreery has been with Meredith since 2003. He has worked his way up through positions at KPHO in Phoenix and more than 10 years at KPTV-TV/KPDX-TV in Portland, Ore.

McCreery will be based out of Meredith’s duopoly in Phoenix and report to Meredith Local Media Group President Paul Karpowicz.

ATLANTA—NewsON has added to its stable of local news broadcasters as part of its distribution across multiple platforms with the addition of Meredith Corporation. Three of Meredith’s 17 owned or operated TV stations will be part of the NewsON roster, including KPHO and KTVK in Phoenix and KMOV in St. Louis; more may be added in the coming months, per NewsON’s press release.

NewsON provides live and on-demand local newscasts, as well as local clips, on mobile and connected TV devices. Users can search by market with an interactive map and for curated content linking coverage of breaking news from multiple stations.

With these new stations, NewsON says it now features video content from 141 stations in 99 markets covering 48 of the top 50 markets and 80 percent of the U.S. population.

Users can download the NewsON app for the iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet, and on Roku platforms. The app is available via iTunes, Google Play, and Roku Channel Store.

PITTSBURGH—Meredith Corporation has announced that it has installed Matrix Solutions’ CRM & Sales Intelligence platform for Meredith’s Local Media Group’s sales organization. The cloud-based system will provide full sales visibility and management functionality to the Local Media Group, allowing sales data and analytics to be accessed by enterprise users across Meredith’s 17 owned and operated stations.

With the CRM & Sales Intelligence system, data from the Local Media Group is aggregated and delivers insights with proactive alert notifications through an intuitive dashboard. Matrix also now has full mobile functionality for the platform. This allows Meredith to monitor its sales for content across broadcast television, print, digital and mobile.

Matrix Solutions is a provider of web-based media specific platforms for TV, radio and electronic advertising.