Julio, we hardly knew ye!. After only about a year-and-a-half on the job, Julio Marenghi is gone as chief honcho of the company's New England TV triopoly, including Channel 4 in Boston. Marenghi's being succeeded by a guy from Minneapolis while he moves on to become President of Sales at CBS Television Stations. Here's the skinny from the station:
Ed Piette
has been named President and General Manager of CBS’s New England television
stations, which include WBZ-TV (CBS) Boston, WSBK-TV (UPN) Boston and WLWC-TV
(UPN) Providence, R.I., it was announced today by Tom Kane, President and CEO,
CBS Television Stations. Piette who most recently served as Vice President and
General Manager of WCCO-TV Minneapolis, will oversee all operations of the three
stations. He succeeds Julio Marenghi, who has been appointed President, Sales,
CBS Television Stations.
“Ed has
done a phenomenal job leading the turnaround of WCCO, which recently resumed its
rightful place as Minneapolis’ #1 station,” said Kane. “Under his watch, WCCO
has not only grown its ratings and revenues but the quality of the local
programming has improved drastically and the morale is sky-high. He is a superb
leader and station operator, and I think he has what it takes to lead our New
England triopoly.”
Piette
was most recently Vice President and General Manager of WCCO. Before that he was
Vice President and General Manager of KTSP-TV and KSTC-TV in Minneapolis (he
also oversaw the satellite station KSAX, which served the Alexandria, Minn.
area), a position he has held since 1998. Previously, he was President/General
Manager of WDAF, the Fox-owned station in Kansas City (which was formerly an NBC
affiliate owned by New World Television). He also worked for seven years for
Multi-Media Inc. as Vice President/ General Manager, Station Manager and
Director of Broadcast Operations for NBC affiliate KSDK-TV in St. Louis and as
an interim general manager for WZTV-TV, an independent station in Nashville. In
addition, Piette led stations for the American Broadcast Group in Sioux City,
Iowa (NBC affiliate KTIV) and Waterloo, Iowa (NBC affiliate
KWWL).
WBZ, WSBK and
WLWC are part of the CBS Television Stations division, one of the largest
network-owned station groups, consisting of 21 CBS stations, 15 UPN, one WB and
two stations not affiliated with major networks.
Obviously, the big part of Marenghi's job was to try and
turn around the fortunes of the ratings-challenged Channel 4, something that hasn't happened yet. (I'm waiting for the new May "sweeps" numbers) So it's no surprise that the press release (second graph) credits Piette with facilitating a major reversal of fortune at WCCO-TV.