Coast to Coast

CBS is moving KOVR Sacramento) General Manager Justin Draper across the country to Bean Town.

Start a week from tomorrow, Draper will be the new GM at WBZ in Boston.

An all hands on deck meeting was called at 11 AM on Friday and KOVR and shortly after that this memo when out from CBS O&O boss Adrienne Roark to the staff in Boston:

From: "Roark, Adrienne"
Date: Friday, October 15, 2021 at 11:16 AM
To: "@CBS Boston"
Subject: Justin Draper

Dear CBS Boston colleagues,

I am pleased to announce Justin Draper will be our next President and General Manager of our Boston businesses, including WBZ, WSBK, CBSN Boston and CBSBoston.com

Justin is a 26-year veteran of the CBS Television Stations group and no stranger to Boston, having served as the controller there from 2006 to 2010. Most recently, Justin has served as the Vice President and General Manager of the CBS Television Stations’ Sacramento properties, KOVR-TV, KMAX-TV and CBSSacramento.com. While there, he successfully led the KOVR team to #1 in late news for the first time ever in September! He also modernized and transformed the traditional broadcast news operation into a multi-platform content engine.

Justin is a thoughtful, caring leader, who is clearly aligned with the vision and values of CBS Stations and is committed to producing best-in-class content, promoting and preserving a positive workplace culture and making a daily impact on the diverse communities we serve.

I want to thank all of you for the great work you’ve done to keep things running smoothly and successfully while we conducted our search for Mark’s successor. We look forward to having Justin work with you to build on the solid journalism and foundation already in place at WBZ and WSBK.

Justin starts October 25th.

Please join Wendy and me in congratulating Justin.

Adrienne

CBS News boss Wendy McMahon followed up with this email:

From Wendy McMahon:

CBS News and Stations colleagues,

As you will see in Adrienne’s note and the press release below, we are pleased to announce Justin Draper has been named President and General Manager of our local businesses in Boston.

Justin is a 26-year veteran of our station group, who most recently has done a terrific job of leading our local operations in Sacramento. He’s also done stellar work for us at our stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boston, where he served as WBZ and WSBK’s financial controller from 2006-10.

I know he is excited to have this opportunity to return to Boston and work with the great team there to build on WBZ’s outstanding legacy.

Please join Adrienne, Neeraj and me in congratulating Justin and giving him our full support.

Wendy