Viamedia Invests in Political Advertising

Addition of Industry Veterans Michael Labriola, Michael Bell to Bolster Political Advertising Business Ahead of 2014 Midterms

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Viamedia

May 07, 2014, 12:24 ET

LEXINGTON, Ky., May 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Viamedia, the television industry's leading independent provider of outsourced local television advertising services on behalf of cable companies, today announced the appointments of two key additions to the company's political advertising operation as the 2014 midterm election approaches. Michael Labriola will serve as Manager of Political Strategic Solutions, while Michael Bell will serve as Political Account Manager.

"Cable advertising drives most of the TV eyeballs -- aka voters. Smart, data driven, local cable advertising is a powerful means to ensure political campaigns are reaching the right people seeing their ads at the right time," said Mark Lieberman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Viamedia. "Given the importance of political ad spend, we are fortunate to have landed Michael and Michael, true veterans of the political advertising business who will maximize the success of political advertising for our MPVD partners during the 2014 midterm elections and beyond."

A leading voice in political advertising sales and at the cutting edge of new media, Labriola will serve as Viamedia's lead for all political revenue, both internally and externally, leading daily interactions with NCC, communicating with Area and Market Managers, handling all legal matters and liaising with all VOS properties.

Before joining Viamedia, Labriola held the position of Vice President of Political Advertising Sales at Cablevision Media Sales, where he created and managed the political advertising sales department encompassing the New York Interconnect, Cablevision local sales, Comcast local sales, News 12 Networks and Advanced Platform Sales. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President / Consultant at Enterprise Cable Networks, establishing and leading the Online Video Broadband Advertising initiative with political advertising agencies and consultants in the Washington, DC area. Labriola's experience also includes leadership positions at Fox Sports, Court TV and Great American Country network.

As Political Account Manager, Bell will oversee all Viamedia's Direct Political Business and assist the Manager of Political Strategic Solutions. His day-to-day responsibilities will include handling traffic issues, ensuring proper order entries, maintaining rate cards as well as handling competitive checks and public file coordination.

Bell is a veteran of the advertising industry and brings invaluable experience to Viamedia. Most recently, Bell rose from Political Account Executive to Director of Political Sales at Home Team Sports, a division of FOX Cable Sports, where he forecasted political budgets for HTS RSN partners for the upcoming seasons. Prior to working at Home Team Sports, Bell served as Account Executive at Blair Television handling high-profile political advertising for the 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 election cycles in many swing states.

The appointments of Labriola and Bell come on the heels of a banner year for Viamedia. As the company ushers in a new team and company direction for its dual locations in Lexington, Kentucky and New York City, Viamedia recently announced major changes to its leadership team with new CEO Mark Lieberman and COO Kim Norris. Under this new leadership, Viamedia continues its expansion with digital representatives across 66 markets in the U.S. serving 53 MVPD partners, over 3 million households and more than 12,000 local advertisers. Additionally, the company secured strategic partnership agreements with Vyve Broadband, Metronet, Hawaiian Telcom and Bledsoe. Viamedia was also recognized by CableFAX for Overall Tech Innovation for its ViamediaGO technology platform for small-medium businesses.

ABOUT VIAMEDIA
Headquartered in New York City, NY and Lexington, KY, Viamedia is a leading provider of outsourced local advertising sales services. The company specializes in selling DMA-based advertising to local, regional and national advertisers on behalf of U.S. cable and telecommunications service providers, utility companies and municipalities. For more information on Viamedia, visit www.viamediatv.com

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