JACKSONVILLE, Fla. ––Cox Media Group said Omesh Somaru will become vice president and general manager of CMG-TV Jacksonville on Jan. 1.
Somaru will leave his role as director of sales to succeed Bob Longo, who is retiring at year-end, and lead CMG’s WJAX-TV and Hoffman Communications-owned WFOX-TV. (CMG manages WFOX under a local management agreement.)
“Jacksonville is an important market for CMG, and we were looking for a strong leader with deep local experience to continue our momentum there,” CMG President and CEO Dan York said. “Omesh was the right choice, and under his leadership, I know our people, our clients and our business will continue to thrive.”
Somaru is a 25-year industry veteran and has been with CMG for 17 years, including stints at its station in Orlando and formerly CMG-owned Memphis and San Francisco stations. Since joining the Jacksonville team, he’s helped CMG’s stations achieve record revenue shares across both core and digital. He also played a key role in launching Telemundo Jacksonville and Action Sports Jax.
Somaru will lead a team at the station that launched the region’s only local all-sports streaming channel, Action Sports Jax 24/7, which delivers 10 hours of original programming a day.
In the last year alone, CMG-TV collected 8,500 books for children, helped save more than 450 lives through its blood drive, provided thousands of school supplies to local students, and awarded $500 every month to a viewer as part of its Doing Good in the Neighborhood program.
Somaru, who completed the National Association of Broadcasters Broadcast Leadership Training Program in 2019, is a University of Central Florida graduate with a TV and broadcasting degree. He lives in the Jacksonville area with his wife, Ailee, and daughter, Sophia.
