CW Parent Nexstar Parting Ways With Chief Revenue Officer Michael Strober

Nexstar Media Group, which hired Turner veteran Michael Strober as EVP and Chief Revenue Officer in 2022, has eliminated his position.

In an SEC filing Friday, the company said Strober had been notified that his role had been discontinued “in favor of a more streamlined organizational structure.” He will leave Nexstar on October 30, “pursuant to the terms of his employment agreement, unless otherwise mutually agreed,” the filing added.

Strober was hired after Nexstar acquired The CW and ramped up its national sales efforts. Nexstar owns 75% in the broadcast network, with previous 50-50 partners Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each retaining 12.5%.

From 2016 to 2019, Strober helped lead the overhaul of Turner Broadcasting’s ad sales division, holding the title of EVP, Client Strategy & Ad Innovation. He was also co-head of Turner Ignite, the company’s portfolio solutions division. He formed Turner’s Client Council and was a co-chair of Turner AdLab, an industry-wide initiative dedicated to improving the consumer advertising experience.

Strober also served as a founding board member of OpenAP and a board member for advanced media analytics firm datafuelX. Since 2019, Strober has run Topwater Advisory Group, a strategic consultancy focused on digital transformation that counts a number of media and advertising tech companies as clients.

The overall advertising outlook at Nexstar, which owns cable network NewsNation and the largest portfolio of local TV stations in the U.S., has grown a bit cloudy of late. “We are currently pacing down in the low single digits in the third quarter year over year,” COO Mike Biard told Wall Street analysts on the company’s second-quarter earnings call last August, citing the impact of the Paris Olympics. He went on to describe the ad market as “challenging,” even in a presidential election year. “As political advertising increases through Election Day, especially in September and October, we expect to see some displacement or crowd-out of non-political revenue,” he explained.

When Strober’s hiring was announced in 2022, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook noted a run of acquisitions, which helped the company offer advertisers “both nationwide reach and unparalleled local activation.” By “reimagining our sales strategy, our team of 1,500 sales personnel, and the management of our 40,000 advertiser relationships, will better align our sales efforts with the company we are today.”