ATLANTA --April 28, 2015 -- The Weather Company (Weather) is unifying its television organization to better suit the evolving TV ecosystem. Its newly formed, fully integrated division, The Weather Channel Television Group, will encompass programming, distribution, broadcast operations, video technology, and addressable TV advertising platforms.
Weather has tapped Dave Shull to lead this new division as Group President, The Weather Channel Television. Shull joins the company on May 4 and will report to David Kenny, chairman and CEO of The Weather Company.
In this newly created role, Shull will oversee all aspects of The Weather Channel network and its content distribution. His appointment comes as the network expands into new forms of citizen news gathering such as Periscope and Burst; explores and leverages new platforms and business models with distributors, such as Sling TV and a la carte services; and increases coverage of local content such as traffic and news. He will also work with Weather’s ad sales leadership to identify the best solutions for driving both the technology and selling efforts for the network’s advertising as it evolves, including addressable TV advertising solutions.
“The landscape is changing, and we are evolving with it. This new structure is what we need to win,” said Kenny. “Dave’s breadth of experience will help unite these sometimes disparate disciplines to ensure we’re connecting the dots and leveraging all of our assets to the best of our ability.”
Reporting to Shull will be David Clark, The Weather Channel network president; Jennifer Dangar, chief strategy officer and president, distribution; George Lott, senior vice president, television technology; and their respective television, distribution and technology teams.
Shull most recently served as chief commercial officer and executive vice president at DISH Network, where he drove the revenue and gross profit for the corporation. He led the groups that created all consumer packages, promotions, and marketing messages for DISH Network. HIs teams developed the award-winning consumer features on the Hopper set top box, launched the dishNET satellite broadband service to rural America, and developed a nationwide addressable advertising model. Shull also successfully negotiated the first grant of rights for over-the-top (OTT) rights to broadcast ESPN/Disney/ABC Channels over the Internet directly to consumers (Sling TV).
Prior to this role, Shull served as senior vice president of content acquisition and programming at DISH. He joined DISH in 2004 as director and assistant to the chairman and CEO, Charlie Ergen. He served in several leadership roles at DISH’s headquarters in the U.S. and also spent three years in Hong Kong working on mobile video and wireless spectrum opportunities as the managing director of EchoStar International.
Shull will relocate from Denver and will be based at Weather’s Atlanta headquarters. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and an MBA from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
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The Weather Company: Where the World Gets its Weather
Through The Weather Channel (weather.com) and Weather Underground (wunderground.com) brands, The Weather Company provides millions of people every day with the world's best weather forecasts, content and data, connecting with them through television, online, mobile and tablet screens, as well as third-party publishing partners via API. Through WSI, the company delivers superior professional weather services for the media, aviation and energy sectors. The Weather Company is owned by a consortium made up of NBC Universal and the private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. For more information, visit www.theweathercompany.com.
Twitter handles:@weatherchannel, @daveshull, @davidwkenny
