NEW YORK—Todd Mokhtari has been named president and general manager of Telemundo 52 / KVEA and NBC 4 Southern California / KNBC, NBCUniversal’s local television stations that serve English and Spanish-speaking audiences in the Los Angeles DMA.
In the new role, he will oversee operations for both stations across the news, digital, sales, marketing/promotions, community affairs and operations/technology departments.
Mokhtari appointments brings in a new era for KVEA and KNBC by bringing together two stations to better serve Southern California’s diverse audiences. He will report to Valari Staab, chairman, NBCUniversal Local and will work closely with Manuel Martinez, president, Telemundo Station Group.
“Todd is an exceptional General Manager for our San Diego NBC & Telemundo stations,” said Staab.”He understands both the English and Spanish language television markets and has long been one of our most innovative managers. Todd is from LA and once led our KNBC newsroom. He understands the power of bringing KVEA and KNBC together to serve the entire Los Angeles area with its large Latino population and ever increasing diversity, in a way no other television operation can.”
Staab also said “I also want to publicly thank Steve Carlston for taking KNBC from a place where it was significantly under-resourced and therefore, struggling to compete, to the great station it is today. Steve is known for his culture-driven leadership style and the driving force behind assembling an impressive diverse leadership team and talented staff. Today, we take that great individual work to the next level by combining these two very strong stations to be one station serving a large and diverse population in two languages.”
Manuel Martinez, president of the Telemundo Station Group also congratulated Mokhtari and thanked “Celia Chavez for the 27 years of service she dedicated to our company. She has served KVEA and our Los Angeles Spanish-language communities for over a decade. She put together a great management team and experienced many ratings, revenue and community successes with KVEA.”
In the new role, Mokhtari returns home to Southern California and brings with him more than 30 years of experience in broadcast that includes leading NBCUniversal’s Telemundo/NBC San Diego stations and helping them innovate on the way that news is presented to Spanish and English local audiences.
He also has extensive local experience from working in the country’s top 20 TV markets including Los Angeles where he worked as vice president of news for KNBC. He has spent fifteen years working with Telemundo and NBC stations in California including KNTV where he was Assistant News Director and helped to create a more diverse newsroom and oversaw the launch of new digital channels.
In addition to working for NBCUniversal’s California TV stations, Mokhtari has worked as news director for KIRO-TV and KCPQ-TV in Seattle. He launched his career in local broadcasting as an intern at KCRA-TV in Sacramento and held various roles with increasing responsibility including newscast producer.
Mokhtari earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Rhetoric Communications from University of California, Davis.
