FEED Autumn 2021 Newsletter

Broadcast strategist Howard Homonoff has watched the evolution from old school transmission to cable, and now the web of digital media. He talks to us about what came before – and what’s coming next

FEED: You have extensive experience with operations of content platforms. Now you advise major media companies on strategy, and write for Forbes. But your start was in the heyday of cable networks.

HOWARD HOMONOFF: I’m a lawyer by education. I grew up in the Boston area, the home of the Kennedys, in an era influenced by that family and the idea of public service. After law school, I was counsel on Capitol Hill to the subcommittee in the House of Representatives, overseeing the communications, media and securities markets. So, I came at the issues concerning broadcast and cable television – and the early days of online – from a macro-policy perspective. I wasn’t just asking about business problems, but what the marketplace should look like. Also, how do you balance the hand of government in a free enterprise and creative world? And I still like to think of issues from that perspective. I went from Capitol Hill into the business world. I acted as counsel to Continental Cablevision – at the time, the third-largest cable operator in the US.Then, I became general counsel for NBC’s cable networks.When we were dealing with, what I would call, Internet 1.0, my job shifted to head of strategy and business development. My role started to be about how to exploit CNBC and MSNBC content on these new platforms that no one really understood yet. For the past decade, I’ve been working on behalf of big media companies and their partners.

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