WCPO-TV (Channel 9) Vice President and General Manager Jeff Brogan is no longer with the station as part of an E.W. Scripps leadership restructuring.
The Cincinnati native, who served as WCPO's vice president and general manager for 13 years, learned Wednesday, Sept. 9, that his position was being eliminated as part of a "broader effort to consolidate general manager roles across the company,"WVXU reported. Brogan was among 27 E.W. Scripps managers whose positions were eliminated that day.
“I am deeply grateful for the opportunities Scripps provided over the past 26 years. I am also incredibly proud of what we accomplished together with the talented teams I had the privilege to work alongside at WCPO, WPTV and the Scripps corporate office,” Brogan
told WVXU.
Brogan, an Elder High School and University of Dayton graduate, started his career at Fox 19 (WXIX-TV) before joining WCPO as a newscast producer in 2000. He was promoted to executive producer in 2004, assistant news director in 2008 and news director of Scripps' WPTV-TV (Channel 5) in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2010.
He returned to Cincinnati in 2012 to oversee news strategy at Scripps' corporate headquarters before taking over WCPO in 2013.
WCPO's leadership change is part of E.W. Scripps' new "Local Media leadership structure," announced Wednesday. The new structure replaces individual station managers with 11 regional general managers who will oversee two to four markets, according to a press release.
As part of the restructuring, Scripps is eliminating 27 jobs across its local market and sales leadership divisions.
However, each market will still have a "local news operation led by the station’s news director, allowing news decisions to remain with the journalists and newsroom leaders closest to the communities they serve," per the announcement.
Although the company has named 10 of the 11 managers, it said the general manager for the Northeast region, which includes stations in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Buffalo, will be appointed later.
The company said the 11 regional divisions are "the latest step in its companywide transformation to reorient the business around consumers' changing media habits."
Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson said the structure is part of the company's "proactive transformation plan" to "align its local television operations with the way audiences watch, discover and rely on news today."
Wednesday's announcement follows other recent changes at Scripps’ stations, including 24/7 news streaming and AI and automation usage, the company said.
“Local television is changing, and the way we operate local stations has to change with it,” Symson said in the announcement. “Through this transformation, we are rethinking outdated operating models built for a different era while creating a more technology-forward media company to sustain local journalism and bring more consistency, scale and support across our markets.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: WCPO GM Jeff Brogan out after 13 years amid Scripps leadership shakeup
