Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 20, 2009 at 09:39:21:
Marketing guru joins WBBM as VP
RADIO | Corboy, who formerly worked with WMAQ, brings a lengthy resume
August 20, 2009
BY LEWIS LAZARE Sun-Times Columnist
Ratings-challenged WBBM-Channel 2 has quietly added another weapon to its arsenal of staff working to turn around the station's fortunes.
Jim Corboy, 53, has filled the newly created position of vice president of marketing at WBBM. He comes to the job with an unusually long and varied resume, including stints in radio ad sales and a role as advertising and promotion director at WMAQ-Channel 5 from 1985 to 1990. During those years, WMAQ was trying hard to dethrone WBBM as the city's No. 1-rated TV news station. Corboy also has worked as an assistant to former Coca-Cola Chief Marketing Officer Sergio Zyman and as a top marketing exec at cable music channel VH1. More recently, Corboy ran his own Chicago-based marketing firm, Quiet Man Marketing.
Corboy said he got the WBBM job, in part, because of his enthusiastic assessment of the station and its potential, which he shared with WBBM General Manager Bruno Cohen over lunch. Now Corboy is focusing on a couple of key tasks. Along with getting as many WBBM viewers as possible to sample the station's newscasts -- which News Director Jeff Kiernan is busy revamping -- Corboy wants to boost the ratings and the revenue-generating potential for CBS' new prime time fall season lineup in the Chicago market, where network programming, like WBBM's local news- casts, has lagged in the ratings. Corboy is concentrating on two prime time shows in particular, "The Good Wife," which stars Julianna Margulies and is set in Chicago, and "NCIS: Los Angeles," which co-stars local native Chris O'Donnell.
As for marketing WBBM's newscasts, Corboy said no major brand campaign is likely in the near future. Rather, he is working with Kiernan on "topical" news promos that specifically spotlight newscast content in a way that differentiates WBBM's news product from that of competitors.