New President for Pappas

Peter Chrisanthopoulos has been named president and chief operating officer at Pappas Telecasting Cos., the group TV owner owned by Harry Pappas.

Chrisanthopoulos, who will remain based in New York, was previously head of sales and marketing for the Pappas Spanish-language stations that are affiliated with emerging Hispanic-TV network Azecta America.

Prior to joining Pappas three years ago, Chrisanthopoulos was president of national broadcast and programming for ad buyer Mindshare and, before that, he held a similar post at Ogilvy & Mather.

Earlier, he served stints at ABC, the Network Television Association and RJR Nabisco.

Howard Shrier, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Pappas’ TV-stations division, remains in that post but now reports to Chrisanthopoulos.

Pappas’ 20 TV stations, affiliated with six different networks, cover 15% of the United States. The company operates three additional local-market-area stations and construction permits to build another 29 stations.