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Disney Hires Cindy Davis of Walmart, John Frelinghuysen of AOL to Executive Posts, Improves Its TV Division

Sep 17, 2015 05:46 AM EDT | By Jean-Claude Arnobit

Walt Disney Co. has announced that it will be hiring Cindy Davis and John Frelinghuysen to executive posts as it pushes its TV division, according to a report from The New York Times.

Davis was an executive vice president at Walmart while Frelinghuysen was senior vice president at AOL, Inc.

Davis, who was in charge of tracking and analyzing the behavior of Walmart's customers, will be assigned to the Disney-ABC Television Group as executive vice president for consumer experience, The New York Times adds.

Disney said that she will be tasked to improve the division's research across the company's television network with the goal of developing new "product opportunities."

Frelinghuysen, who was in charge of strategy at AOL, will be assigned as the executive vice president for digital media, strategy, and business development, according to The New York Times.

He will be helping fill a void left by Albert Cheng who led the Disney-ABC Television Group's digital efforts for 10 years.

The New York Times reported that Disney assigned Frelinghuysen to be in charge of "defining and executing plans to effectively monetize both new and existing short-form and long-form content and distribution."

Frelinghuysen said that he saw "opportunity for creating new content experiences and driving revenue growth in digital video."

The New York Times also stated that Davis said she would "champion the consumers' voice within Disney-ABC in a way that drives innovation for viewers and value for the business."

Davis and Frelinghuysen will be reporting to Ben Sherwood, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group and co-chairman of Disney's media networks division.

Bloomberg adds that TV programmers, like Disney, has been analyzing its audience beyond the traditional ratings of Nielsen.

Just like how the Internet does it, they are looking for ways to deliver specific sets of viewers to advertisers.

Sherwood told Bloomberg that the company's focus still remains on the pay-TV subscription bundle.

"We have a real need to know the audience as it's moving between platforms and devices and deliver more targeted ways to reach them," he said in an interview. "We believe that consumers have more choice than ever. Our goal is to super-serve them with the best stories and the most clearly-defined brands."

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