Continuing to firm up its senior management ranks, Rainbow Entertainment Services president Ed Carroll has elevated a pair of officials at IFC, naming Evan Shapiro executive VP and GM and Jennifer Caserta, senior VP of marketing.
Shapiro, who joined IFC a year ago as senior VP of marketing from Court TV, will have day-to-day oversight of the network, including program development, scheduling and marketing.
Carroll cited Shapiro’s contributions on both the programming and marketing sides as the reasons behind the promotion. “Evan has already established himself as a strong leader here. IFC had a great year in 2004 with the launch of new series Ultimate Film Fanatic and Henry’s Film Corner,” he said. “Evan was also instrumental in pioneering co-branding partnerships with Target, Heineken, Acura and Loews Theaters.”
In her new role, Caserta, who has been working at IFC for five months as VP of marketing, will report to Shapiro and head all branding, consumer marketing and trade marketing.
Caserta and Shapiro, who worked together at Court, have been collaborating on efforts to provide redesigned on-air looks, which will be further highlighted on Jan. 7 with the debut of new programming and marketing initiative dubbed “Film Fanatic Fridays.”
The block bows at 10 p.m. with a new season of Ultimate Film Fanatic and fresh installments of the network’s signature show, Dinner For Five. They will be followed by IFC’s most-popular movie strand, “Pulp Indies,” featuring the network’s debut of The Usual Suspects this Friday.
Caserta said that IFC, in addition to plenty of plugs on its own air and Web site (www.IFCTV.com), will back this effort with an ongoing marketing campaign, a multimillion dollar initiative that represents the net’s largest to date and encompasses national radio, print and a wide-ranging online push.
“We’re looking at rich media, interactive emails and banners at a variety of sites that our viewers frequent. We’re also going to use a lot of entertainment, TV and film sites” as part of our schedule,” she said.
