Nexstar Appoints Business Development Director for New Media

Nexstar Broadcasting has appointed Joseph E. Bixler as Business Development Director for New Media, a new position at the station group.

Nexstar officials said the appointment reflects strong advertiser and consumer response to the company’s new media strategies, which were developed with the goal of increasing the company’s presence in medium-sized markets. Nexstar currently owns, operates, programs or provides sales and other services to 49 TV stations in 29 markets from New York to Montana and its stations cover all major network affiliations, reaching approximately 8.25 percent of U.S. television households.

In the first half of 2007, Nexstar relaunched all of its TV station Web sites into 29 community portals to focus mainly on local communities and advertisers. Nexstar later relaunched these portals, resulting in a 45 percent jump in page views (approximately 71 million), over a two month period. As a result, the company is now positioning its portals to take on national accounts, in addition to its existing local clients.

In his new capacity, Bixler will be responsible for facilitating and expanding the direction and development of new product sales in new media as well as wireless and broadband. Bixler has more than a decade of media sales and management experience. Since 2003, he has held numerous executive positions at Belo, serving in its interactive branch and within its Dallas Morning News online properties. He has a degree in accounting from Bentley College.