TVB Promotes Abby Auerbach To EVP, CMO

Abby Auerbach

Abby Auerbach, who has spearheaded the Television Bureau of Advertising's development of an electronic buying and selling system, will take on the added duties of CMO at the trade group. The move is one of the first major ones made by new TVB president Steve Lanzano.

Auerbach joined the TVB nearly a decade ago; she had been executive vice president under previous head Chris Rohrs.

The new position should give Auerbach a more prominent role in working through a contentious industry issue that has TVB siding with Nielsen, but against large media-buying shops and advertisers. TVB supports Nielsen's plan to jettison a "live-only" overnight ratings stream for local markets as soon as April in favor of "live plus same day" reports. Agencies believe this move could have them paying for ads that were skipped via DVRs.

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Lanzano, who took over the helm at TVB this month, stated that Auerbach can "oversee the evolution of TVB into a more externally focused, 'selling' organization."

The TVB ePort system for electronic buying and selling -- which Auerbach has supervised since its conception --- has gained some traction since its 2007 launch.

Earlier this month, TVB said stations have received orders valued at $584 billion-plus through the system.

TVB believes that a widespread e-business platform will free station and rep-firm executives from having to needlessly monitor paperwork, while making the buying process easier and more attractive to agencies.

Auerbach joined TVB in June 2000 as senior vice president of marketing and became executive vice president months later.

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