Orlando’s Shawn Bartelt Announces Retirement, Paul Curran Named Successor

Orlando TV VP and General Manager Shawn Bartelt has announced her retirement from the company after 15 years with Cox Media Group, effective June 19.  With Bartelt’s retirement, CMG is promoting CMG VP of Sales Paul Curran to Orlando TV VP and GM.

“We will miss Shawn’s leadership, insights, experience, and energy and wish her the utmost success in her future adventures,” said CMG Executive VP of TV Jane Williams.  “Shawn has enjoyed an impressive decades-long broadcast career and has been tireless force in the Orlando community, endearing Orlando to WFTV/WRDQ.”

Bartelt’s esteemed career began in television news at WWSB (Sarasota) and WMBB (Panama City) as a reporter and weekend anchor. In the mid-80's, she moved into sales, first in local cable and then back to WWSB as an account executive and later National Sales Manager. Other career highlights include being National Sales Manager of WESH (Orlando) and WTOG (Tampa) and General Sales Manager at WPBF-TV (West Palm Beach). In 2000, she joined Cox at WSOC/WAXN (Charlotte) as Director of Sales for the duopoly. She was promoted to VP and GM for WFTV and WRDQ in 2006.

Her many legacies include launching MegaTV, a Hispanic station as one of our digital subchannels to provide more programming to our local Orlando community.  Thanks to Bartelt’s leadership, the team is now adding news inserts and launching a local Mega website that will include local news and weather in Spanish from the Eyewitness News and weather team. Additionally, WFTV launched Central Florida Spotlight, a weekly half-hour news and public affairs show.  Orlando expanded Eyewitness News to 7-9 a.m. and 10:30-11 p.m. on WRDQ and from 4-5 p.m. on WFTV, now producing over 58 hours of news per week.     

“I have so many opportunities and projects I want to pursue now, including time with my family and world travel,” said Bartelt.  “I will miss working with such a talented group of media professionals, all of whom contribute so much to the success of our stations, each and every day.”

Paul Curran Named New Orlando TV VP & GM

“CMG is thrilled to tap a great internal talent like Paul Curran to fill the critical leadership position at WFTV/WRDQ,” added Williams. “He is a proven leader and will build on Shawn’s and the CMG Orlando leadership team’s success to take the stations to the next level of success.”    

Prior to his new role, Curran has been CMG’s VP of Sales since May 2011 where he has strategically managed and overseen all sales revenue across CMG TV, Radio, Newspaper, and Valpak properties.  His other career highlights include GSM for CMG Pittsburgh, including WPXI-TV, the Pittsburgh Cable News Channel, WPXI.com and Retro Television Network.  He joined Cox as an Account Executive at KTVU Television in San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose in 1995 after working as an Account Executive for Blair Television in San Francisco. He became National Sales Manager in 2001 and was promoted to Local Sales Manager in 2003.  Curran’s broadcasting career began as an Account Executive at KSBW Television in Monterey/Salinas, Calif.

“It is an honor to be entrusted with leading CMG’s two Orlando television stations WFTV and WRDQ,” said Curran. “The dedicated people there exemplify the very best qualities in broadcasting every day.  Combined with our amazing CMG Radio cluster in Orlando, we are uniquely positioned to serve the viewers and clients of Central Florida.  I look forward to building upon the great history of WTFV and WRDQ.”

About Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps.  Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings.  The company’s operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 59 radio stations, seven daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services.  CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 31 million TV viewers, more than 3.5 million print and online newspaper readers, and more than 14 million radio listeners.  For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com. 

For further information: Tony Getts (407) 822-5614 Tony.Getts@coxinc.com