Brisco

0

Robert Brisco

Senior Vice President

Los Angeles Times

Robert Brisco has a special challenge in the Internet Age: He has to develop popular Web sites, but without stealing customers from his company’s core business in the process.

Brisco, 35, is senior vice president for advertising, marketing and new business development at Times Mirror Co.’s Los Angeles Times. Among his responsibilities are overseeing the paper’s Web sites, including latimes.com, the newspaper’s online version; Hollywood Online, which focuses on Hollywood and the film industry; and CareerPath.com, a national job listing service.

Sometimes, Brisco concedes, it’s almost as if he is competing against himself. The Web sites he oversees provide much of the same information already found in the Los Angeles Times and other Times Mirror publications and much of it is for free. His challenge is to make the information different enough so that readers don’t abandon those publications.

“Digital media for us is both a threat and an opportunity,” Brisco said. “In either case, our view is that we need to be extremely aggressive in exploiting the medium in its own way. So even in those areas where we view the Internet as a threat, our response is to just be that much more aggressive in making sure we own the business online.”

Although he has a bachelor’s degree in the dual fields of broadcast journalism and economics from USC, Brisco’s background is in management, not journalism or multimedia.

While working toward his MBA at UCLA during the mid-’80s, Brisco helped write the business plan for Iwerks Entertainment Inc. a company that makes 3-D movie equipment, and was founded by Academy Award winner Don Iwerks.

After graduating from UCLA, Brisco worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. during which time he frequently served as a consultant to Times Mirror.

Brisco said it is not unusual for Internet sites to be headed up by someone without a background in either technology or journalism. “I think you see a fair amount of that in these Internet start-up companies,” he said.

Rohit Shukla, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, said Brisco brings a strong business sense to Times Mirror’s Web sites a sense not always found with companies headed up by someone with a background in computers.

“The guy can hold his own on both the business side and the technical side,” Shukla said. “He understands the business side. At the same time, he understands the investments that you need to make to keep the technology current.”

Daniel Taub

No posts to display