• by Fern Siegel , November 5, 2019

Entertainment Studios has tapped company veteran Todd Johnson as Chief Content Officer for The Grio, a digital news platform that provides news, opinions and video packages for an African-American audience.  

Previously, he served as editorial director of NBN BLK, a division of NBC News Digital. Before that, he had a long tenure at The Grio.

Johnson joined The Grio shortly after its launch in 2009. As a reporter, he covered key news events, such as Haiti’s earthquake, the Ferguson, Missouri protests and the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. He has also served as Grio’s sports editor and managing editor.

NBC News bought The Grio in 2010. In 2016, it was purchased by Entertainment Studios, which owns 15 U.S. broadcast television stations and nine 24-hour HD television networks, including The Weather Channel, Pets.TV, Recipe.TV, Cars. TV and the Local Now streaming service.

Parent company Entertainment Studios says Grio has more than 20 million annual visitors.

Separately, TVEyes recently appointed Daren Benzi to the new post of global head of partnerships. He is charged with growing strategic partnerships for the company’s broadcast data for media monitoring, AI and social-media applications, as well as its new podcast monitoring service.

Prior to TVEyes, Benzi, worked as an executive in content partnerships at Meltwater, ran global business development and marketing at Plastic Logic, a technology startup, and was vice president of sales development and strategy at DirecTV.