PBS to Take National Approach to Sponsorship Sales
ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 10, 2003 - Ellen Flahive, executive director of the PBS Sponsorship Group, has been appointed vice president, Sponsorship Sales for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Ms. Flahive will be based in New York City and will report directly to Judy L. Harris, executive vice president, PBS Businesses & Development, beginning May 1.
"We are thrilled to have such a seasoned media sales veteran join the staff at PBS," said Ms. Harris. "Ellen has served public television well as the executive director of the PBS Sponsorship Group and has helped secure significant partnerships with national corporate sponsors. In her new role, she will be instrumental in identifying new corporate partnerships for PBS national programming, working closely with advertising agencies to provide integrated marketing solutions for their clients."
Ms. Flahive will be responsible for cultivating national strategic partnerships with major corporations and advertising agencies to enhance revenues for the entire public television system. She will spearhead the development of unique partnership opportunities to secure the corporate underwriting needed to ensure the delivery of PBS' mission-driven programming by providing underwriters the opportunity to connect with the PBS brand.
Prior to joining PBS, Ms. Flahive led the PBS Sponsorship Group, an independent sales organization. In her new role, she will work with the multiple sales groups that represent underwriting opportunities for public television. Producing-member stations as well as independent producers will be able to leverage their association with the PBS brand and to have their programs represented through this model to the corporate sponsorship community.
"Creating a sponsorship team at PBS to manage a national presence for public television is a terrific idea," remarked Al Jerome, president of KCET in Los Angeles. "Our corporate clients and our producers will benefit from a more unified, coordinated, and market-oriented approach to securing national underwriting for our prestigious programs."
Ms. Flahive has served as the executive director of the PBS Sponsorship Group since May 2002. She joined the organization in December 2001 as national sales director. Prior to that, Ms. Flahive worked at Meredith Corporation, where she was publisher of the American Park Network, a collection of 21 magazines for America's premier national parks. Ms. Flahive went to Meredith after her tenure at Parade, where she served as vice president/advertising sales director for the weekly Sunday newspaper magazine. She spent 1989 to 1993 as publisher of Inside Media at Cowles Magazines and held sales and sales management positions from 1984 to 1989 at Advertising Age and City & State, publications owned by Crain Communications. Ms. Flahive began her career at Family Circle magazine, where she was a broadcast publicist.
A summa cum laude graduate from Siena College, Loudonville, NY, Ms. Flahive currently serves as immediate past president of Advertising Women of New York.
PBS, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a private, nonprofit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 350 public television stations. Serving nearly 100 million people each week, PBS enriches the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services on noncommercial television, the Internet and other media. More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, the leading dot-org Web site on the Internet.
Contact:
Lea Sloan
703/739-5021
Jan McNamara
703/739-5028