Dynamic Dealmaker

For NBCU’s Dana Zimmer, Responsibilities and Peer Respect Grow Year By Year

By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 1/30/2012 12:01:00 AM

Imagine being a top distribution executive, negotiating deals for a stable of cable networks generating $2 billion in annual revenue from affiliates. Now imagine that portfolio, and responsibility, more than doubling after a complicated merger with a bigger group of networks.

Add a major role integrating two affiliate staffs into one — moving one group from Philadelphia to New Jersey, knowing there weren’t enough jobs to go around — and you have a sense of what the last couple of years have been like for Dana Zimmer, the 41-year-old executive vice president of TV networks distribution at NBCUniversal.

She’s also the mom of “two beautiful, well-adjusted children,” as friend Jennifer Dangar, executive vice president of distribution at The Weather Channel Cos. and a longago colleague at Discovery Networks, says. And a thoughtful friend: “No matter how busy she is, she always takes the time to help a friend and is incredibly supportive of her colleagues, teammates, etc.”

‘HUMAN EMPATHY’

Her peers always underscore her people skills in addition to her business stamina, which Zimmer herself credits largely to powerful teammates and partly to caffeine-fueled insomnia.

Sandy Wax, president of preschool network Sprout, which Zimmer represents, says she “always has time for a phone call, ‘how’s it going, what’s happening, where are we?’ She’s a unique mix of human empathy and razorsharp business skills.”

With an across-the-table perspective, Cox Communications vice president of content acquisition Kathy Payne says: “So often in deal-making, you have to negotiate against people who seem focused on making a deal difficult, contentious and painfully slow as possible until you get to the 11th hour, when everything has to be finalized or the channels go dark. That certainly is one way of negotiating, but I think Dana’s way focuses on reaching a deal that is more creative and benefits both parties more. It is rare to find that talent in the business today.”

Fittingly, Zimmer entered the distribution arena via sports. “I love sports, I played sports all through growing up” in small-town Dunmore, Pa., she says. (You can Google Dana Iannielli for some of her softball and tennis clips.)

Her first cable job was as an intern at Home Team Sports, now Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, in 1993. She later worked on the extremely challenging launch of the New York Yankees’ YES Network and the smoother launch of the New York Mets’ SNY. In between came stints at Discovery Communications and Fox Cable Networks.

Recruited to Comcast by Jeff Shell, then head of the MSO’s network group, for the SNY launch in 2005, she’s taken on distribution duties for USA, Bravo, Syfy, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC and mun2, in addition to such Comcast legacy networks as E!, Golf Channel, Style and NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus). She reports to Bridget Baker, TV networks distribution president for NBCU Television Networks Distribution. Baker reports to EVP Matt Bond.

When time came, after the Comcast-NBCU merger, to combine affiliate staff s, Zimmer’s team on the 31st fl oor of One Comcast Center in Philadelphia had to re-apply for jobs in Englewood Cliff s, N.J.

With Baker in Los Angeles and Bond in New York, “Dana was the person everyone went to” for advice on the family- and job-related issues involved, Sprout chief Wax notes.

“The most stressful part for me was making sure that the people were treated fairly, and we were trying to find good homes for everyone, including those that didn’t make the move,” Zimmer, who now works in New York and New Jersey, says. Fortunately, Comcast helped nearly all keep or find jobs, she says. Not 100%, but “in the high 90s.”

Zimmer’s to-do list for 2012 includes strategizing on a new Houston-based regional sports network, going to market with the rebranded NBC Sports Network and distributing and authenticating the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

RESPECT FOR AFFILIATES

That’s, of course, on top of the usual (and maybe unusual) array of renewals, and the rising challenges presented by operators looking to contain video expenses while adding online rights and packaging flexibility.

“There’s always a hot button when deals are up for renegotiation, and ‘TV Everywhere’ is it right now,” she says. “That maybe feels more complicated because of rights sensitivities and also how it’s going to affect the overall digital model, because everyone has a way that they want to roll out digital products.”

Zimmer says she has a lot of respect for the affiliates she deals with who are coping with rising costs and declining video margins amid competition. “They’re really put in a tough spot with trying to maintain the programming that’s on air and control the cost.”

With all she has going on at work, Zimmer also is thankful that her husband, Clay, who teaches fourth grade in public school, has a job with consistent hours and not a lot of travel. “I always say he has the job that really matters in society.”

And daughter Ava, 8, and son Chase, 4, “definitely keep me humble. I love being a mom.”

DANA ZIMMER

Hometown: Dunmore, Pa.

Age: 41

Current job: EVP, TV networks distribution, NBCUniversal

First job: “Worked the counter at Sheeley’s Drug Store, still independently owned by my Dad”

Favorite TV shows: Enlightened, Chelsea Lately, After Lately

High praise: “Dana embodies all the qualities of a ‘Wonder Woman,’ from her tenacity at the negotiating table to her creativity in closing key distribution deals.” — Bridget Baker, president, TV Networks Distribution, NBCUniversal Television Networks Distribution