About ABC Owned Television Stations
Disney Entertainment’s eight owned ABC stations are multiplatform leaders in local news and information. Collectively No. 1 across all U.S. television, reaching 23% of households and more than 34 million Total Viewers and 62 million digital visitors a month, the eight stations are comprised of WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KGO-TV San Francisco, KTRK-TV Houston, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham and KFSN-TV Fresno. The stations also deliver locally sourced storytelling to more than 17 million viewers across America through its multiplatform lifestyle network, Localish. In 2020, the stations received five Broadcast & Cable awards, including in the 2020 Best in Local TV Awards category as Station Group of the Year for its innovative and next-generation news reporting, and in the major market category for 2020: Best News Coverage, Best Digital Multiplatform or Website, Best Investigative Reporting Station Group and Best Public Affairs Programming, illustrating the group’s strength and ever-increasing growth and reach in the multiplatform space.
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Presidents and GMs
Chad Matthews, president, ABC Owned Television Stations, has chief management responsibility for the eight ABC-owned television stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno.
Matthews was previously president and general manager of WABC-TV, and had overall management responsibility for ABC7/WABC-TV and its ancillary businesses, including operation oversight of “Live with Kelly and Ryan.”
Matthews was also the news director of WABC from 2018-2021. In that role, he oversaw the overall function of exclusive content creation and operations for WABC’s television and digital channels and the launch of connected TV apps on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV and Roku. In 2020, he successfully transitioned the station to a remote workforce to produce Eyewitness News without interruption during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, finishing the year with the largest audience of any television station in the nation and carrying a wider margin of success than it had in 2019. During his tenure, He has been pivotal in growing the station’s digital presence, and shepherding record growth across digital platforms. In the last year, WABC grew its digital unique viewers more than 20 percent prior-year growth in viewers across platforms, most notably experiencing tremendous gains on connected TVs, including a 41.5 percent increase in unique viewers and 215 percent increase in total minutes watched.
Matthews is a multi-award-winning news executive, receiving nine Emmy® Awards. In 2020, under his leadership, WABC-TV New York was awarded 17 Emmy® Awards and three regional Edward R. Murrow awards for Overall Excellence, Best Newscast and Best News Documentary, including a national Murrow award for Best Newscast. At the close of 2021, Broadcasting and Cable named Matthews GM of the Year for 2021.
Matthews has an extensive background in local TV journalism and significantly in the tri-state region. He started his career at WABC in 2000 and later promoted to senior executive producer in 2002. He spent 12 years in senior roles for Eyewitness News and won both a Peabody Award in 2001 as the live control room producer for the station’s 9/11 coverage and an Emmy Award in 2007 for Best Evening Newscast. In 2012, Matthews temporarily left WABC for a five-year stint as assistant news director at NBC-owned WTVJ in South Florida. At WTVJ, he won another Emmy Award in 2017 for breaking news coverage during the Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting incident before returning to WABC as the assistant news director later that year.
Matthews has a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication from Westfield State University. In 2020, he proudly served as a board member for the nonprofit organization Dance to Unite, which provides free dance instruction and promotes diversity for inner-city children. He’s a member of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists and serves as a senior adviser and executive champion on PRIDE at ABC News and ABC Owned Television Stations Business Employee Resource Group.
Marilu Galvez is president and general manager of ABC7/WABC-TV New York, the No. 1 station in the country, and has overall management responsibility for WABC-TV and its ancillary businesses.
Galvez most recently served as vice president of Community Engagement and Development for WABC-TV and committee lead for the Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution Networks’ Diversity Equity and Inclusion team. She was responsible for community outreach efforts and for growing relationships with key service organizations in the tri-state area. She successfully aligned news, programming, marketing and on-air talent with cause-related events and campaigns, and leveraged opportunities with advertiser support. Through strategy and innovation, her leadership has helped expand and elevate a multicultural presence at the station.
Galvez will remain the Diversity Equity Inclusion executive champion and continue to help unify DEI efforts across Networks – ABC, ABC Owned Television Stations, Disney Channel, ESPN, FX, Freeform and National Geographic – with a focus on the company’s key strategic pillars. Prior to serving as Networks’ DEI lead, she was the committee lead for OTV Belong, the diversity and inclusion team for ABC Owned Television Stations.
She is an active member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and was named one of the Top 10 Latina Corporate Executives of the Year by LATINA Style in 2019.
Prior to joining WABC in 2001, Galvez worked as a production assistant and assignment editor at Telemundo, an assignment editor at WNYW and an assignment manager at WNBC.
Galvez received her Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland University College in 2021. She is a board member for the nonprofit humanitarian organization American Red Cross and the nonprofit STOMP OUT Bullying. She is also a strong supporter of the Boys & Girls Club, WABC anchor Sade Baderinwa’s Get Reel Foundation and all of Disney’s VoluntEars program initiatives.
Cheryl Fair is president and general manager of ABC owned television station KABC-TV, Los Angeles, where she has overall management responsibility for ABC7 and all of its ancillary businesses. She reports to Wendy McMahon, president, ABC Owned Television Stations.
Fair has had a long and distinguished career as vice president and news director for KABC, the No. 1 local news and information source in Southern California. In her role as news director, she supervised production of local news across all platforms, overseeing 53 hours of live newscast production weekly. She is known for her successful track record in broadcast, digital, and social media, as well as for identifying emerging talent and developing them into key players. Fair was an early adopter of new technologies to make the operations of KABC contemporary, cost-efficient and consumer-focused, and is a strong advocate for diversity as a cornerstone of enterprise success.
Fair is a Philadelphia native and previously served a 20-year stint at ABC owned station WPVI-TV, Philadelphia, beginning as a producer and moving up to managing editor and executive producer. She began her career at KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh, as a producer and writer in 1973.
She received her Bachelor of Arts in speech from the Pennsylvania State University and was named as one of the Distinguished Journalists for 2014 by the Society of Professional Journalists Los Angeles Chapter.
John Idler has overall management responsibility for the top-rated station in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest television market. Under his leadership, ABC 7 continues its news ratings dominance and claims the strongest social media presence in Chicago with more than 2.3 million Facebook followers. Idler also oversees additional businesses, including the Localish Network on 7.2, abc7chicago.com, as well as its mobile and other new media businesses. This is the third time Idler has called ABC 7 home, after serving in key sales positions at the station earlier in his career. He has served as president and general manager of ABC 7 Chicago since 2012.
Idler began his broadcast career in Chicago in 1991. He has been active in various industry associations and community groups. He is chairman of the board of directors for Illinois Broadcasters Association. In that role, he initiated the Illinois Broadcasters Uniting Against Hunger campaign, which raised more than $1.5 million for Illinois food banks during the COVID-19 crisis.
In 2019, he co-chaired the American Cancer Society’s Real Men Wear Pink of Greater Chicagoland campaign to raise awareness and funds to save lives from breast cancer. He also serves on the boards of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, USO of Illinois, 100 Club of Chicago, Greater Chicago Food Depository, as well as the Executive Club of Chicago. Idler received a mayoral appointment to serve on the State Street Commission. Additionally, he is active with the American Red Cross and spearheaded a partnership that has resulted in the collection of more than 1,800 units of blood, making it the largest single day Red Cross blood drive in the country.
Prior to joining ABC 7 Chicago, Idler served as president and general manager of WTVD-TV in Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville since December 2007.
He has held local TV management posts in Chicago and Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville since joining ABC Owned Television Stations as a WLS-TV sales account executive in 1998. He moved to WTVD-TV as a sales manager in 2000, and subsequently returned to WLS-TV as a sales manager in 2002. Idler was named WLS-TV vice president and general sales manager in 2004 before his promotion to president and general manager at WTVD-TV in 2007.
Idler earned his Bachelor of Science degree in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his Master of Business Administration from the University of New Haven. He and his wife have two children.
Bernie Prazenica is president and general manager of WPVI-TV/6abc in Philadelphia. The top-rated news and entertainment television station in the Delaware and Lehigh Valley, WPVI-TV is an ABC owned television station in the country’s fourth largest television market. It is nationally recognized as one of the preeminent stations in news, local programming and community involvement, with a ratings dominance that spans nearly 45 years.
Under Prazenica’s leadership, the station completed construction of a state-of-the-art, 110,000-square foot, all-digital facility next to its previous home on City and Monument Avenues in 2009. He also oversees 6abc.com, its mobile applications and two digital channels. The station’s website is the most popular television website in the Delaware Valley.
Prazenica’s career in television spans 40 years and across a number of stations and markets. Prior to current role, which he assumed in 2007, he served as president and general manager of WTVD-TV, ABC’s owned station in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he guided the station in construction of the market’s first street-level studio, started a 10 p.m. News segment, and brought a new commitment to local programming. In 1994, Prazenica was appointed as director of Sales for WPVI-TV, after representing ABC Owned Television Stations in the mid-Atlantic region in their ABC National TV Sales department. He began his career at Pittsburgh’s WPTT-TV as an account executive, before transitioning to WXEX-TV in Richmond, Virginia, and then returning to his college town of Philadelphia to begin a long stand with WPVI-TV.
Since returning to Philadelphia, Prazenica has continued a long tradition of WPVI-TV community involvement. He is actively involved on various boards such as Pennsylvania Visitors and Convention Bureau, Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Corporate Council and Castleman’s Disease Collaborative Network Board of Advisors. He is also immediate past chairman of the Police Athletic League, chairman of Temple University’s Klein College Board of Advisors and chairman of City Avenue Special Services District.
In 2009, Prazenica was the proud recipient of the Lew Klein Alumni in the Media Award. In 2014, Temple University also inducted him into its Gallery of Success in the School of Media and Communication. That same year, he was recognized by Philadelphia Magazine as one of the City’s 75 Most Influential People.
Prazenica graduated cum laude from Temple University with a Bachelor of Arts in communications, radio-TV-film.
Tom Cibrowski is president and general manager of KGO-TV, where he has overall management responsibility for KGO-TV/Channel 7 and all of its ancillary businesses. He reports to Wendy McMahon, president, ABC Owned Television Stations.
Cibrowski previously served as senior vice president of ABC News Programs, News Gathering and Special Events, since in August 2014. Prior to that role, he served as senior executive producer of “Good Morning America.” He joined the program as senior broadcast producer in 2002 and was later promoted to executive producer in 2006. Under his leadership, the newscast won the Daytime Emmy® Award for Outstanding Morning Program three times and was nominated six times. The week of April 9, 2012, “Good Morning America” became the No. 1 morning newscast for the first time in 16 years, snapping NBC’s historic 852-week winning streak.
Cibrowski is a seasoned international producer. He was with Diane Sawyer in Iraq immediately before the war started and returned with Robin Roberts six months after combat began. In 2003, he traveled to Bahrain and Kuwait with Charles Gibson to produce a series about the generals leading the war effort.
He began his career at ABC News as a desk assistant in 1990 in the Washington bureau. He has covered a wide range of major domestic and international news events as an ABC News producer, including the Bosnian war and Oklahoma City bombing, the downfall of dictators in Indonesia and Haiti, and the Clinton administration’s cruise missile attacks on Iraq. He won an Emmy for reporting on the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
Cibrowski attended Boston University and graduated with a degree in journalism.
Wendy Granato is president and general manager of ABC13/KTRK-TV, where she has overall management responsibility for ABC13 and all of its ancillary businesses. She reports to Chad Matthews, president, ABC Owned Television Stations.
As the general manager at ABC13 for the past three years, Granato spearheaded the launch of KTRK’s 24/7 news stream, featuring the most live, local coverage in the Houston market. Granato also led the station’s introduction of two new premium content franchises, “Unsolved” and “Texas True Crime,” so popular they have been picked up by Hulu. Under Granato’s leadership, ABC13 produces 75+ hours of community specials and events each year. She has led the station through numerous emergencies and big breaking news events such as the Texas Freeze, the Astroworld concert tragedy, and the Santa Fe and Uvalde school shootings. As a leader who is passionate about innovation and investing in skills of the future, Granato is a founding director of OTV-University, an educational program for all 8 ABC Owned Television Stations.
Prior to becoming general manager at ABC13, Granato served as the vice president of News for ABC13 for eight years, as an executive producer of special projects and executive producer of the daily talk show “Debra Duncan.” Before joining ABC13, Granato was the news director for KNWS Houston. Earlier in her career, she was a news reporter and morning news anchor for KATC in Lafayette, Louisiana. She studied at the Manship School of Mass Communication where she received a degree in broadcast journalism from Louisiana State University.
Rob Elmore is president and general manager of ABC11/WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham where he has overall management responsibility of the station’s operations and its ancillary businesses. He reports to Wendy McMahon, president, ABC Owned Television Stations.
An award-winning local news executive, Elmore brings extensive experience leading teams in the multiplatform space including ABC7/KABC-TV Los Angeles, which serves the second largest market in the United States. As the vice president of KABC’s news division for the past five years, he has helped cement the station’s status as Southern California’s leading source for local news and information, expanding coverage to serve audiences across broadcast, digital and social platforms. Prior to KABC, Elmore spent 17 years at WTVD where he held the position of news director serving the Research Triangle Region of Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Fayetteville with the most trusted news information, entertaining content and inspiring storytelling.
At KABC, Elmore specialized in creating and executing content and format strategies to increase multiplatform viewership and engagement, helping to secure ABC7’s position as the No. 1 station in the country on digital and social. Most recently, KABC was honored in 2020 with four Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for Overall Excellence, Breaking News Coverage, Excellence in Video, and Best Newscast in large-market television in Region 2 of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
As news director of WTVD, Elmore spearheaded the opening of the first and only downtown Raleigh street-level studio, The Raleigh Eyewitness News Center, in 2005. In 2008, his team was the first in the country to deploy a live broadband mobile unit, Breaking News 1, for spot news and severe weather coverage. In 2011, he and the team created the Happening Now at 5 p.m. format, which has been replicated at local stations across the country.
Before joining ABC Owned Television Stations, Elmore was news director and assistant news director at News 10 NBC in Rochester, New York. Earlier in his career, he was a news producer at WSMV in Nashville, Tennessee, where produced the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts; and WHAM-TV in Rochester, New York, where he produced the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. He began his television career as a reporter at WWNY-TV in Watertown, New York, during summer and college breaks.
Elmore graduated magna cum laude from SUNY Geneseo with a Bachelor of Arts in speech communication.
Michael Carr is president and general manager of KFSN-TV, where he has overall management responsibility for KFSN-TV ABC30 and its ancillary businesses.
As the news director for KFSN for the past eight years, Carr oversaw the overall function of content creation and operations for KFSN’s television, digital and social media platforms. He led the redesign of ABC30’s studio; expanded the newscasts at midday, 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., and led the creation of the digital content team. Under his leadership, the station significantly increased television ratings, attained four regional Emmy® Awards and increased its social media audience.
Carr has an extensive background in local TV journalism. He began his career as an intern at KFSN and has worked as an assignment editor, producer and executive producer prior to news director. In addition to Fresno, he has also worked in newsrooms in San Francisco and Sacramento.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and journalism from California State University, Fresno, where he also played football for the Bulldogs. In 2017, Carr was named as a Fellow to the Fresno State Media, Communication and Journalism Department Hall of Fame. He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.