Industry Moves: Former NBCU Digital Exec Kliavkoff To Handle Interactive For Hearst Entertainment
This story was written by David Kaplan.
NBC Universal's former chief digital officer George Kliavkoff, often billed as the main brain behind Hulu, has landed at Hearst, MediaMemo's Peter Kafka reports. Kliavkoff will work under another NBCU alum, Scott Sassa, president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication. The group is responsible for Hearst's interests in cable television networks, including ESPN (NYSE: DIS), Lifetime, A&E and History. Sassa's unit also oversees television production and distribution, newspaper syndication and merchandise licensing.
Kliavkoff's role will consist of helping Sassa manage the digital components of those businesses. In particular, he tells Kafka that he'll be looking into developing and acquiring properties for Hearst, and that he has some M&A possibilities already in mind. While other companies have been laying off left and right, this is Hearst's second high profile hire in the past month; Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) News head Neeraj Khemlani left his post at the portal company in February to take on the new role of VP and digital media special assistant to CEO Frank A. Bennack, Jr.
By David Kaplan