Turner Broadcasting Hires Nielsen's Shimmel

In the US, Turner Broadcasting Systems (TBS) has appointed former Nielsen exec Howard Shimmel as SVP of Advertising Sales and Sports Research.

Time Warner-owned TBS creates programs on TV and other platforms for consumers around the world, including CNN news, entertainment, cartoons and sports.

Shimmel (pictured) worked at Nielsen for the past seven years, latterly as VP of Nielsen Media and Advertising Analytics. Particular areas of focus included program promotion, optimization and measurement, and cross-platform usage behavior. Before joining the research giant, he was VP of Marketing Research at America Online (AOL), and earlier he spent ten years at MTV Networks, initially as VP, Audience Research and later as VP of Ad Sales Research.

In his new role at TBS, Shimmel will oversee research analysis and strategy support for all ad sales units, including news, entertainment, animation, young adults and kids media, sports, and sports research for both TV and digital.

Shimmel replaces Gregg Liebman who left the company in July. He reports to Jack Wakshlag, Chief Research Officer, who comments: 'We are pleased to have a senior executive of Howard's caliber join the Turner Research team. His multifunctional expertise in advertising sales, programming and marketing research is a great fit with our world-class ad sales and sports organization.'

Web site: www.turner.com .