Larry Kramer Named President, CBS Digital Media

Larry Kramer Named President, CBS Digital Media

Founder of MarketWatch To Oversee A Newly Created Division Encompassing All Online Operations and Developing New Media Business

Responsibilities To Include CBS SportsLine.com, CBS.com, CBSNews.com and UPN.com, Among Others

NEW YORK, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Larry Kramer has been named President, CBS Digital Media, it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, Chairman, CBS and Co-President/Co-Chief Operating Officer, Viacom.

Kramer, who founded Dow Jones' MarketWatch, Inc. (formerly CBS MarketWatch), will now oversee all developing new media operations for CBS, including CBS.com, CBS SportsLine.com, CBSNews.com and UPN.com, among others, as well as a new sales operation that will serve them. CBS Digital Media becomes a newly-created division within CBS headed by Kramer and reporting directly to Moonves.

"Larry brings an impressive track record of innovation, creativity and business savvy to what just might be our highest area of growth in the future," said Moonves. "Throughout his career, he's demonstrated he has what it takes to envision new enterprises and to make them profitable in the real world. In CBS SportsLine, we have one of the most successful Web destinations in the business, and CBS.com is the #1 broadcast network website. I'm confident that under Larry's leadership we will greatly expand our existing digital businesses and pursue new ventures in the video and broadband sector as well."

"This is an exciting opportunity to launch an entrepreneurial enterprise within a company that is home to some of the strongest brands in all of media," said Kramer. "By bringing all of the CBS's Internet and digital assets together, we will be able to move more quickly into creating new forms of programming and new tools for our advertisers. This new unit already has nearly 20 million users and is already profitable. That is a terrific foundation for the programming and advertising juggernaut we intend to create."

As he incorporates existing digital and new media operations into this new CBS division, Kramer will work closely with Nancy Tellem, President of the CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group; Sean McManus, President of CBS Sports; and Andrew Heyward, President of CBS News, each of whom has been instrumental in developing and operating the various online content destinations that serve the Company, and who will continue to be integrally involved in ongoing new media strategy and content development.

Kramer will also work with Jo Ann Ross, President of CBS Network Sales, to bring together existing online sales operations and build new resources to maximize sales opportunities for CBS in the digital space.

Kramer added: "I look forward to working with Nancy, Sean, Andrew and Jo Ann and their respective teams as together we build on their exciting efforts to date. We've got some of the best online content there is, and great brands. There's a tremendously talented group of people in place across this company who are already dedicated to this effort, and we're in a perfect position to move things to the next level."

Kramer further noted that the existing operations of CBS SportsLine and other new media properties will remain in their current locations, and will not be relocated.

Larry Kramer is the founder of MarketWatch, Inc. He first proposed the creation of the joint venture between Data Broadcasting Corp. and CBS and launched the company in Oct. 1997. He also managed the company through its successful IPO in January 1999. He joined Data Broadcasting Corporation in 1994 following its acquisition of DataSport to run a Sports and News Division. There he created DBC News, the predecessor company to MarketWatch, Inc. and served as Vice President of News, Sports, & Marketing for DBC.

As founder, President & Executive Editor of DataSport Inc. from 1991-1994, he created SporTrax, a hand-held sports information monitor, launched under a marketing agreement with The Sporting News.

Prior to founding DataSport, Kramer spent more than 20 years in journalism as a reporter and editor. He started his career in 1974 as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. In 1977, he became a financial reporter for The Washington Post. In 1980, the Post promoted him to Executive Editor of The Trenton (NJ) Times. In 1982, he returned to the Post to serve first as assistant to Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and later as Assistant Managing Editor and Metro Editor. In 1986, he returned to the San Francisco Examiner as Executive Editor. In 1991, he left the Examiner to start DataSport.

During his distinguished career in the newspaper business, he has won a National Press Club Award, Gerald E. Loeb Award and Associated Press Awards for reporting. His staffs have won the Pulitzer Prize, Overseas Press Club Award, Seldon Ring Investigative Reporting Award and National Headliners Award.

Kramer was Guest Lecturer at the Harvard Business School for 10 years. He holds an MBA degree from Harvard and a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism and political science from Syracuse University. He was committee chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Jury for a two-year term in 1987 and 1988. In 2000, he was named to the list of the 100 most influential business journalists of the 20th Century. Kramer was a founding board member of the Online Publishers Association in 2001 and has been Chairman of that organization since 2003.

Source: CBS

CONTACT: Press - Gil Schwartz, +1-212-975-2121, gdschwartz@cbs.com, or Dana McClintock, +1-212-975-1077, dlmcclintock@cbs.com

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