Abud named President of Telemundo Station Group.

Telemundo Media announced that Manuel Abud has been named President of the Telemundo Station Group. Effective January 1st, Abud will report to Emilio Romano, President, Telemundo Media, replacing Ronald Gordon, who has been named Chairman at ZGS Communications, which owns and operates the largest group of independent stations affiliated with the Telemundo network. In his new role, Gordon will work closely with the Telemundo network to grow and strengthen the company’s affiliate relations strategy.

Abud, who most recently was President and General Manager of Telemundo Dallas KXTX, will have oversight of the 15 owned Telemundo local stations located within the United States, as well as Puerto Rico. A long-time Telemundo executive, Abud will be responsible for leading the Telemundo stations with a hyper focus on localism through developing and producing local content, strengthening the stations’ commitment to their local community and ensuring local advertisers benefit from the best value in the market.

“Manuel is an accomplished media executive and has been a vital part of our success for many years,” said Romano. “His impressive track record at Telemundo, together with his strong operational skills and deep management expertise, make him the ideal candidate to continue the great work Ron has done at our stations.”

Added Romano, “Ron’s new role at ZGS will be instrumental for the continued growth of our affiliates as we work together towards our goal of reaching every Hispanic household with our compelling content. He is a great entrepreneur and is perfectly suited to help us take our already strong partnership with ZGS to the next level.”

Gordon joined Telemundo in 2009 as President of Telemundo Station Group. During his tenure, Gordon lead the growth of the Telemundo Station Group as he oversaw the implementation of key initiatives including a strategic recommitment to localism with the development of more than 1,000 hours of additional local news and public affairs programming, and a renewed focus on the production of high quality and relevant local news content that lead the Miami (WSCV) and New York (WNJU) Telemundo stations to the #1 place in their respective markets. Prior to joining Telemundo, Gordon was President and Chief Executive Officer of ZGS Communications. ZGS owns and operates 10 Spanish-language television stations, representing the largest group of independent stations affiliated with the Telemundo television network.

Concurrently with Abud’s role as President and General Manager of Telemundo Dallas KXTX, during 2010 he served as interim General Manager of independent Spanish-language television station KWHY in Los Angeles. Prior to that, he was Vice President and General Manager of Telemundo Los Angeles, which included oversight of Telemundo’s signature station KVEA. Previously, he was President of Telemundo Cable and was responsible for the launch of mun2, the preeminent voice for young bicultural Hispanics in the U.S. Abud was President of CBS Telenoticias and then successfully re-launched the network as Telemundo Internacional. He has also held various top management positions including Chief Financial Officer of Mexico’s media company Grupo Medcom, Director of Investor Relations at Grupo Televisa and General Treasurer of Grupo ICA.