Viacom Promotes Kurz for Wider Insights Role

Multimedia entertainment group Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) has promoted Christian Kurz to the post of Vice President of Research, Insights & Reporting, expanding his current management of Nickelodeon's international research to cover all VIMN brands.

VIMN, a unit of Viacom Inc., comprises a number of multimedia entertainment brands such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, non-premium Paramount Pictures branded channels, and VH1.

The firm's research teams conduct studies to find out more about the attitudes, tastes and behaviors of VIMN's audiences through a wide array of methodologies such as focus and conflict groups, ethnographies, online panels, blog-ographies, biometric research, and social media forums and monitoring.

Kurz, who has more than ten years' experience in research in the media industry, joined VIMN a year ago as Senior Director, Nickelodeon International Research & Insights. Prior to this, he worked at Discovery Networks as Insights Director, Emerging Markets, and as Director of Brand Strategy and Marketing Research in EMEA for Disney-ABC Networks Group. He earlier held research roles at Warner Bros and Interpublic Group.

In his new role, Kurz will continue to develop and manage international research initiatives, while also contributing to the company's increased focus on business intelligence development.

He is based in New York and reports to Willem Schelling, SVP, VIMN Brand Management & Operations, who comments: 'Research is an integral part of everything we do, and the expansion of Christian's role reflects our on-going commitment to knowing our audience and better serving them across every demo and platform around the world.'

Web site: www.vimn.com .