Weigel Broadcasting realigns execs

Bob Ramsey

Bob Ramsey

After two and half years as vice president and general manager of WCIU-Channel 26, Bob Ramsey was promoted Friday to executive vice president of local media for parent company Weigel Broadcasting.

The move puts Ramsey in charge of all local broadcast operations in Chicago, Milwaukee and South Bend.

In accepting the new role, sources said, Ramsey turned down an offer to become general manager of Tribune Broadcasting WGN-Channel 9, where he previously worked as station manager from 1998 to 2002. He joined Weigel Broadcasting in 2011 after stints as general manager at KSWB-TV in San Diego and KTXL-TV in Sacramento.

Weigel Broadcasting chairman Norman Shapiro announced Ramsey’s promotion as part of a corporate management reorganization at the privately owned Chicago-based company. He said the moves were designed to “position us for continued growth and strength.”

Neal Sabin, a 20-year veteran of the company who most recently has been president of content and networks, was promoted to vice chairman of Weigel Broadcasting. He will continue his current creative and management responsibilities for all of the company’s networks and work with Shapiro on the strategic growth of its properties.

Praising Sabin for his “nationally recognized reputation as a brilliant, creative programmer and broadcaster,” Shapiro said: “We are enormously fortunate to have his passion and efforts to count on and to continue to lead us forward in ways that have revolutionized not just Weigel but an industry.”

Shapiro said of Ramsey: “Bob is well suited for these responsibilities with his background in all levels of management at stations throughout the country, his deep knowledge and experience, his enormous skill set as a manager who is both sensitive to human resources and financial ones, and the respect he has garnered from all of who who have worked with him at Weigel these past couple of years.”

In other appointments at the company:

  • Jim Hall, general manager of WDJT-TV in Milwaukee, was named vice president of business development.
  • Kyle Walker was named vice president, technology.
  • Molly Kelly was named corporate director of media strategy.