NBC hires Plata for strategic role

NBC Super Channel has appointed former Burkitt Weinreich Bryant media director Rick Plata head of strategic planning, and has recruited seven additional staff to its in-house sales operation.

The move comes at a time of increasing competition in the pan-European TV market, following the January launch of BBC World, the BBC’s advertising-supported 24-hour news service, and the arrival of European Business News, which begins broadcasting next week.

Plata, who left Burkitt Weinreich in November, will co-ordinate strategic direction and commercial planning at NBC Super Channel, working within the sales department on programming, research and marketing.

Meanwhile, NBC Super Channel head of sales, Peter Bullard, has created a new business development team and a London-based agency sales team.

Working in new business development will be Alison Farmerly, former sales representative for The International Herald Tribune and Time Magazine in London; Julia Jordan, business manager at Channel 4; and Graeme Ferguson, who has worked in sponsorship development at Media Sales & Marketing.

The agency sales unit comprises George Sakkalli, sales manager at TSMS for S4C, Christopher Marston, group manager at Newspaper Publishing and John Litster, group sales head at Laser for Yorkshire Tyne Tees.

“The appointments reflect terrific increased demand in both the TV market as a whole and the pan-European TV market in particular,” Bullard says.

Airtime sales business in the first six weeks of 1995 has been buoyant, he claims. New advertisers on air include Toyota brand Lexus and Nokia, the channel’s first cellular phones advertiser. Dutch airline KLM has renewed its use of the channel for the first half of the year.

Marina Palmerio joins the NBC Super Channel sales team in Amsterdam from Turner International Far East where she was sales manager, Hong Kong.