Lifetime Names Bibb, Goldstein Co-Chief Marketing Officers

Duo Worked with Entertainment President Daniels at The WB

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/21/2007 12:11:00 PM

Lifetime Television hired former Fox/The WB marketing executives Bob Bibb and Lewis Goldstein to fill its long-vacant chief marketing role.

The pair, which has been consulting for the women's network for months, was brought in by Lifetime Networks President/CEO Andrea Wong and entertainment president Susanne Daniels. Bibb and Goldstein worked with Daniels at The WB, where she was also entertainment president.

They will be based in Los Angeles, reporting to Wong.

With their appointment as co-chief marketing officers official, some of Lifetime's marketing team will relocate to Los Angeles, as will its entire scheduling team. Senior vice president of planning, scheduling and acquisitions Leslie Chesloff is leaving the company as a result. She was offered the option to move to Los Angeles but declined, according to a statement from Daniels.

The company's senior marketing structure has been uncertain since former McCann Erickson executive Martha Pease left Lifetime in March, after nearly one-quarter of her staff of about 70 people had done the same, insiders said.

Since being brought over to consult in the meantime, Bibb and Goldstein have overseen the launches of Lifetime's successful trio of summer originals: Army Wives, Side Order of Life and State of Mind.

The duo met at NBC in 1985 and went on in 1986 to help launch the Fox TV network as its first heads of creative marketing. They joined The WB in 1994 and became co-presidents of marketing in June 2001.

"This is a huge coup for Lifetime," Wong said in a statement. "From their remarkable careers spanning the start-up of two young-adult networks, Fox and The WB, Bob and Lew have become synonymous with innovative marketing techniques."

Lifetime is determining how much of the marketing department will relocate to Los Angeles, according to a network representative. Moving marketing, as well as the smaller scheduling department, to the West Coast is an effort by both Wong and Daniels to more closely pair those teams with the programming team currently based there.

Chesloff, said Daniels in a statement, "made significant contributions to Lifetime," including helping to acquire Reba and Grey's Anatomy and developing the “New Movie Monday” franchise.

"While it was very tempting to move to Los Angeles and continue working with Susanne and Andrea, relocating from New York would've been difficult for a variety of personal reasons," Chesloff said in a statement, adding that she was leaving Lifetime "with great reluctance" after four years at the company.