Michael Gay Joins Hearst-Argyle Television as Executive Producer, Digital Media Content

NEW YORK, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. today announced that Michael Gay, manager of the award-winning web operation at WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned and operated television station in Chicago, will join Hearst-Argyle in the newly created position of Executive Producer of Digital Media Content.

The appointment, effective January 2, 2007, was announced by Terry Mackin, Hearst-Argyle Executive Vice President and head of the company's growing Digital Media Group, and Jacques Natz, Hearst-Argyle Director of Digital Media Content, to whom Gay will report. Gay will coordinate and execute Hearst- Argyle digital content initiatives and will be based at the headquarters, near Minneapolis, of Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc., which produces, manages and hosts Hearst-Argyle's 29 TV-station websites and in which Hearst-Argyle holds a 38% equity interest.

"This new role is the latest in many steps signaling Hearst-Argyle's increased commitment to the development of content for the web and digital devices," Mackin said. In 2006, the company added several digital-media executives, including Natz, who joined from WTHR-TV in Indianapolis, where as news director he oversaw the station's market-leading web news operations; Eric Koepele, director of digital media sales, who joined the company from CNet; and Felix Banuchi, director of digital media development, who joined the company from NBC, where he played key roles in the launch of Weather Plus, which was co-developed with Hearst-Argyle, and other digital services.

Under the stewardship of Gay and his colleagues, the WBBM-TV website's pageviews have grown from 60,000 to 3.5 million per month, and the site was selected as this year's Edward R. Murrow Best Website in regional competition and as a finalist in the Online News Association's Online Journalism award. Gay also served on the beta team as part of the recent online re-branding of all of the CBS websites. Prior to WBBM, Gay was part of a team that overhauled and re-launched newly independent television station KRON-TV's website in San Francisco. He is a graduate of Michigan State University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunication.

"Michael understands the important role of hyper-local content to a successful digital news operation," Natz added. "In Chicago he and his team helped make the WBBM-TV site a premier digital news brand, and with the KRON-TV site he helped build a powerful new media voice in the Bay area that aimed to maintain KRON's strong journalistic standards while instilling an around-the-clock news gathering operation."

The "network" of local-TV web sites managed by Internet Broadcasting (IB), to-date in 2006 has served an average of more than 12 million monthly unique visitors, according to Nielsen NetRatings. The IB sites also served a total of more than 4.8 billion pageviews - of which the Hearst-Argyle sites accounted for more than 1.2 billion -- and a monthly average of more than 11 million video streams, according to WebTrends. IB this year celebrated its tenth anniversary and has grown from serving 11 million page views in all of 1996 to serving nearly 11 million page views per hour in 2006; it consistently ranks #3, behind MSNBC.com and CNN.com, among video-centric web news-content providers, and among the top 50 of all web "brands", both per Nielsen NetRatings.

The sites of seven of the 10 largest Hearst-Argyle stations consistently are the #1 TV-station sites in their markets. The Hearst-Argyle sites are also at the leading edge in providing wireless application protocol (WAP) content, podcasts, web-based newscasts, web-based video and blogs in a broad cross-section of markets.

Hearst-Argyle's NBC-affiliated stations have launched digital broadcast carriage of Weather Plus, with widespread cable and satellite carriage, while a number of the company's ABC affiliates also have launched digital weather channels.

About Hearst-Argyle

Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. owns 26 television stations, and manages an additional three television and two radio stations, in geographically diverse U.S. markets. The Company's television stations reach approximately 18% of U.S. TV households, making it one of America's largest television station groups. Hearst-Argyle owns 12 ABC-affiliated stations, and manages an additional ABC station owned by Hearst Corporation, and is the largest ABC affiliate group. The Company also owns 10 NBC affiliates, and is the second- largest NBC affiliate owner, and owns two CBS affiliates. Hearst-Argyle also is a leader in the convergence of local broadcast television and the Internet through its partnership with Internet Broadcasting, and in the application of digital broadcast spectrum for new local informational services through its Weather Plus partnership with NBC and various NBC affiliate groups. Hearst- Argyle Series A Common Stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "HTV." HTV debt is rated investment grade by Moody's (Baa3), Standard & Poor's (BBB-) and Fitch (BBB-), each with a stable outlook. The Company's Web address is http://www.hearstargyle.com/.