Christina Norman finds new home at HuffPost (Image: File)

• Christina Norman Lands HuffPost Black Voices Position

Christina Norman, the ousted CEO of OWN, has found a new home with the Huffington Post, and she’s already busy with overseeing the relaunch of two new women’s sites and the relaunch of Black Voices this week. Norman, whose official title has yet to be released (although “executive editor” has been floating around), is also overseeing video for the company.

Read more at The Atlanta Post…

• Debt Ceiling Bill Becomes Law

President Obama signed into law on Tuesday legislation raising the government’s debt ceiling and cutting trillions of dollars in spending, finally ending a fractious partisan battle just hours before the government’s borrowing authority was set to run out.

Read more at the New York Times…

• Rep Apologizes for Obama ‘Tar Baby’ Remark

GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado has apologized to President Obama for using the controversial phrase “tar baby” in a talk-radio discussion of the president’s economic policies (specifically, “I don’t want to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck”).

Read more at The Root…

President Barack Obama talks Osama takedown on '60 Minutes' (Image: File)

• President Obama Talks Candidly on ‘60 Minutes’

• U.S. Unemployment Rate Bumped Up to 9%, But Economy Adds 244,000 Jobs

• Advertising Age Ranks GlobalHue the No. 1 African American Agency; No. 2 Hispanic Agency in 2010

• For related content, read the stories below:

Former MTV President Christina Norman has been named CEO of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a concept that Winfrey came up with back in 1992.

“This is the job I’ve been working toward my entire career,” Norman says. “To be building a new channel inspired by Oprah Winfrey and backed by Discovery Communications is a challenge I welcome, and I am thrilled to bring their vision for OWN to life.”

As CEO, Norman will oversee all business and creative areas of OWN, the new cable channel and multiplatform media venture. She will work closely with Robin Schwartz, president, OWN Television, in building the new cable network slated to launch in late 2009/early 2010 on what is currently the Discovery Health Channel.

OWN will debut in 2009 in more than 70 million homes, on what is currently the Discovery Health Channel. The venture will also include Winfrey’s Website, Oprah.com.

“I’ve always had the utmost admiration and respect for Christina’s innovative strategies and management style. She is a proven leader. Her shared values, passion and enthusiasm make her a natural fit for OWN’s emerging platforms. We’re thrilled to have her,” Oprah says.

Norman, a veteran of MTV Networks for more than 17 years, was named president of MTV in 2005 and oversaw all aspects of the network’s creative and business endeavors, providing leadership, strategy, and management. Before that, she was president of MTV’s sister network, VH1. Norman began her career in the commercial production business in New York in the ’80s, and began her tenure with MTV as a freelance production coordinator.

Winfrey’s dream of a network has been a long time in the making.

On May 24, 1992, she wrote in her journal that she wanted to create a network called OWN. She transferred her thoughts to a journal that this new network would provide useful, meaningful programming.

In 2007, when her development group asked if she would meet with David Zaslav, Winfrey admitted that she didn’t even know who he was at the time, but admired his work. The recently installed president and CEO of Discovery Communications, which operates a series of cable networks, had been responsible for the Planet Earth series that fascinated her.

The admiration was mutual. Zaslav was a fan of Oprah’s media message, “Live your Best Life,” and proposed a 24-hour opportunity to encourage TV viewers to think differently about health, relationships, and other aspects of their lives.

“I got up from the meeting and said, ‘David, come with me. I want to show you something.’” Winfrey then revealed the prophetic page she had ripped from her journal. Oddly enough, she found it in a desk drawer she was clearing just a few days before the meeting. “Absolute divine order,” she said.

Winfrey’s formula for success, which also includes a solid business team and sound financial controls, has taken Harpo Inc. from a small, five-person production company to a more than 400-employee multimedia conglomerate that grossed $345 million in 2007 and is ranked No. 14 on the B.E Industrial/Service 100 list. She is one of a handful of black billionaires across the globe, with a net worth estimated at more than $2 billion.

Winfrey says: “I haven’t planned one thing—ever. I have just been led by a strong instinct, and I have made choices based on what was right for me at the time.”

Norman was named a “Power 100 Women in Entertainment” by The Hollywood Reporter. She will report directly to the OWN board of directors and will assume her new post on Feb. 17. She will be based in Los Angeles at the network’s headquarters.

Sonia Alleyne contributed to this article.

]]> http://www.blackenterprise.com/2009/01/31/christina-norman-named-ceo-of-oprah-winfrey-network/feed/ 0 http://www.blackenterprise.com/2008/02/15/mtv-president-exits-post/ http://www.blackenterprise.com/2008/02/15/mtv-president-exits-post/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:00:00 +0000 Alexis McCombs http://content.blackenterprise.com/2008/02/15/mtv-president-exits-post/ After 17 years with MTV Networks, the parent company of MTV, BET, VH1, and Nickelodeon, Christina Norman will leave her post as president at the end of the month to pursue other interests. Norman became president of MTV in 2005, and simultaneously became one of the highest-ranked African Americans in television.

The popular cable channel, which boasts a majority of viewers between 12 and 24, was struggling in ratings with other demographic groups, especially during commercials. Under Norman’s leadership, the channel instituted a commercial engagement model, airing interstitials and short-form programming between breaks. Advertisers including Procter & Gamble and American Eagle participated in the experiment, which helped rejuvenate the channel’s viewership and bottom line. MTV has averaged 593,000 viewers in the TV season to date, up from 553,000 viewers in the season prior.

Van Toffler, president, MTV Networks Music & Logo Group, said in a statement, “Christina’s mark on our company is indelible, and it’s worth noting that she reinvented herself and our businesses along the way. She grew from a freelance production manager to lead all of the marketing efforts for MTV, including the successful launch of MTV2. In 2002, she was tapped to architect VH1′s rebirth, gave the world Celebreality along with Hip Hop Honors, and shepherded the network to creative and ratings highs. She brought the same talent and vision when she returned to MTV as president, reinventing our big franchise events—The VMAs and The Movie Awards, ramping up new ways for us to partner with advertisers, and working with all of you to create and define the brand vision for MTV that inspired us and helped liberate our thinking.” Under Norman, MTV launched The Hills and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which helped the network pull in a total of 1 million eyeballs during primetime, up from 557,000 last year.

Toffler added, “It pains me to see Christina go but I respect her decision to want to take the time to explore something new after 17 years, which is pretty much impossible to even think about while running the M.”

In an environment where cable networks are using emerging technologies as platforms for their branding efforts, Norman is credited for acquiring the gaming site, Xfire, and the College Media Network for mtvU. She also launched MTVTr3, the first bilingual mobile channel targeting Latino youth.

Norman started her career at MTV Networks as production manager in 1991, working on popular series’ like Beavis and Butt-Head and The Osbournes. In 2004, the Boston University graduate assumed new responsibilities when she was promoted to president of VH1. The fledgling channel was revived with the launch of I Love the 80s and the celebrity reality programs Surreal Life and Flavor of Love. With the addition of these shows, VH1’s primetime audience jumped from 243,000 to 339,000 viewers and it was the most watched year in the network’s history among primetime and total day viewership.