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Executive Profiles: Sean McManus (CBS Sports)

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 , Posted by Christopher Byrne at 12:27 PM, under , , , ,

Athens, GA (Dec 4, 2007) - Sean McManus is serving as both the president of CBS Sports and CBS News. Here is is profile as published by CBS Sports.

headshot_SeanMcManusSean McManus was named President, CBS Sports, in November 1996 and President, CBS News, in October 2005. He is only the second person to hold both Division titles simultaneously; Roone Arledge held both at ABC from 1977-86.

As president of CBS News, McManus has undertaken a restructuring and retooling of the Division, both in front of and behind the camera. Most notable on the on-air side was the April 2006 announcement that Katie Couric would join CBS News as the new anchor and managing editor of the CBS EVENING NEWS and a correspondent for 60 MINUTES. Additionally, a new state-of-the-art newsroom at CBS News headquarters in New York and EVENING NEWS set were built. A new primary control room will be complete by spring 2008.

McManus has also aggressively worked to build a strong corps of reporters, as well as to develop the next generation of CBS News correspondents. He has designated and assigned key beats--Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan, Chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod, Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian, National Correspondent Byron Pitts and Capitol Hill Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson among them-and has signed distinctive young talent, including Nancy Cordes, Seth Doane, Jeff Glor, Maggie Rodriguez and Daniel Sieberg. McManus has also added strong veteran correspondents to round out the group, including Jeff Greenfield and Dean Reynolds. He announced that CNN's Anderson Cooper would contribute several stories to 60 MINUTES and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta would contribute to the CBS EVENING NEWS.

McManus put in place a new management team, as well, including a new senior vice president, four new vice presidents, four new bureau chiefs, a new foreign editor and a new executive producer of the CBS EVENING NEWS. He also led the Division through the tragedy of crew members Paul Douglas and James Brolan being killed by a car bomb in Baghdad on Memorial Day 2006 and correspondent Kimberly Dozier critically injured.

On the sports side, McManus led the CBS Corporation's efforts in acquiring broadcast rights to the National Football League in January 1998 and, in November 2004 with Leslie Moonves, re-negotiated the contract to retain the rights for CBS until 2011. Along with Tony Petitti, he serves as executive producer overseeing all aspects of CBS Sports' coverage of the NFL, including production, on-air talent, advertising and promotion.

During McManus' more than 10 years as President of the Division, CBS Sports has become the year-round leader in network sports television. In November 1999, he led CBS to an unprecedented landmark agreement with the NCAA which extended the exclusive over-the-air broadcast rights, as well as rights to the Internet, marketing and corporate sponsorship, merchandising, licensing, cable television, radio, satellite, digital and home video to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship until 2014. The 11-year pact is the most comprehensive sports agreement in history.

McManus reached a new multiyear agreement with the PGA TOUR to extend its broadcast rights through 2012 and to remain the TOUR's dominant broadcast partner. He also recently extended broadcast rights to the PGA Championship through 2011. In addition, McManus extended CBS's agreement with the United States Tennis Association to broadcast the U.S. Open through 2011, extended the agreement with the Big Ten to broadcast the conference's basketball games through 2010 and extended the Southeastern Conference (SEC) football and basketball agreements through 2008.

Complementing the on-air talent roster that already included Jim Nantz, John McEnroe, Billy Packer and Ken Venturi, McManus was responsible for adding Greg Gumbel, James Brown, Dick Enberg, Verne Lundquist, Phil Simms, Dan Dierdorf, Lesley Visser, Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe, Dan Marino, Nick Faldo, Bill Cowher, Randy Cross and Clark Kellogg to CBS Sports' announcer lineup.

In addition, McManus led CBS's efforts in securing a partnership with SportsLine USA that created CBS SportsLine, one of the most successful sports Internet sites.

Prior to his CBS Sports tenure, he was Senior Vice President of U.S. Television Sales and Programming for Trans World International, the television division of International Management Group, the world's largest sports marketing firm (1987-96).

Before that, McManus was Vice President, Program Planning and Development at NBC Sports (1982-87), becoming the youngest vice president in the history of the network at the age of 27. He was responsible for all programming and was instrumental in the rights negotiations for the Olympics, the NFL, Wimbledon, the Breeders' Cup, the Orange Bowl, auto racing and NCAA college basketball. McManus joined NBC Sports in 1979 as an associate producer assigned to the NFL, Wimbledon, the PGA TOUR, "Sportsworld," auto racing and the Tour de France.

He began his career in 1977 at ABC Sports as a production assistant and associate producer.

McManus is the son of legendary sports broadcaster Jim McKay. He was graduated cum laude from Duke University in 1977 with a degree in English and history.

Photograph Courtesy of CBS Sports.


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