• by Joe Mandese , November 24, 2004

Betsy Frank, the former Madison Avenue media research guru who became MTV's head of research and planning in 1997, has expanded her portfolio to include oversight of Showtime, BET, Paramount Pictures and Simon & Schuster, as part of a longer-term restructuring of the management team of parent Viacom. The move mirrors the ascendancy of Tom Freston, who became co-president and co-COO of Viacom along with CBS' Leslie Moonves when former Viacom chief Mel Karmazin left the company.

While that restructuring has left many speculating on who might ultimately get the top job running Viacom, the elevation of Frank sets up a equally interesting competition between her and Dave Poltrack, who as executive vice president-research and planning of CBS, oversees research for Viacom's other properties, including CBS, UPN, Infinity Broadcasting.

In her new post, Frank will report jointly to Freston and to MTV Networks Chairman-CEO Judy McGrath, and will expand her role in tracking consumer attitudes about media more deeply into entertainment and leisure time. As such, Frank will be expanding work she began right after joining MTV, which includes one of the most comprehensive consumer media, entertainment and leisure time tracking studies, and one which has revealed keen insights into consumer media behavior, including the incredible amount of multi-tasking people do simultaneously across media - particularly young people.

That research mirrors much of the leading edge work being embraced by Madison Avenue, including big media shops like Frank's former employer at Zenith Media, who are engaged in a various forms of new consumer research stemming from the push toward "communications channel" and "consumer context" planning.

"The consumer is at the heart of everything," says Frank, adding that in her new role she will continue to work closely on the advertising sales strategy of the MTV Networks, as well as BET, including the advertisers and agencies that buy them, to come up with new insights on "the implications of new technologies."

"We will be doing a lot of work with advertisers trying to figure out the things that are either most promising or threatening about the future of media."