Ahead of the mid-term elections, Viamedia has bolstered its political ad sales unit with the addition of two key executives.
Michael Labriola has joined Viamedia as manager of political strategic solutions, while Michael Bell will serve as political account manager.
Labriola, who had been serving as vice president of political ad sales at Cablevision, will head Viamedia’s push for all political revenue, both internally and externally, leading daily interactions with NCC, communicating with area and market managers, handling all legal matters and liaising with all VOS properties.
Bell, who most recently worked as director of political sales at Home Team Sports, will oversee all of Viamedia’s direct political business and assist the manager of political strategic solutions. His day-to-day responsibilities will include handling traffic issues, ensuring proper order entries, maintaining rate cards as well as handling competitive checks and public file coordination.
“Cable advertising drives most of the TV eyeballs -- aka voters. Smart, data driven, local cable advertising is a powerful means to ensure political campaigns are reaching the right people seeing their ads at the right time,” said Mark Lieberman, president and CEO of Viamedia. “Given the importance of political ad spend, we are fortunate to have landed Michael and Michael, true veterans of the political advertising business who will maximize the success of political advertising for our MPVD partners during the 2014 midterm elections and beyond.”
