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Manish Jha became senior vice president and general manager, emerging media and data services in March of 2003. In this position, Jha is responsible for overseeing development of ESPN’s broadband initiatives, ESPN Wireless, the editorial operations of SportsTicker and interactive and on demand television. Previously, Jha served as senior vice president, sales strategy and new media in the ESPN Affiliate Sales and Marketing group. In that capacity he spearheaded ESPN’s distribution efforts for advanced interactive services, syndication sales, special markets distribution, affiliate sales strategy and affiliate operations. In addition to growing ESPN’s video on demand and pay-per-view businesses, in 2002, he led ESPN’s launches of ESPN Broadband, a service designed for high speed internet networks, and ESPN Today, a sports virtual channel with extensive on demand audio and video features. While overseeing ESPN’s syndication sales efforts, Jha drove sales and business development efforts by leveraging ESPN’s extensive live and archival content to regional sports networks and cable affiliates around the US, and coordinated development of original and proprietary programming for ESPN’s regional partners. Through the special markets division, Jha expanded ESPN’s television reach by millions of incremental viewers per week. He was also responsible for managing non-linear (interactive TV, ESPN Braodband,VOD, etc.) content distribution to hotels, bars, airplanes, college campuses, retail stores and other non-traditional market segments. Jha joined ESPN in January 1991 as a commercial sales analyst in the ad sales department and has held numerous positions throughout the company, before being named director, affiliate operations and planning in ESPN’s affiliate sales and marketing group. In 1999, he was elevated to the position of vice president of affiliate sales development and operations, overseeing affiliate operations, managing national accounts and contributing to growing ESPN’s affiliate businesses. In 2001, he was promoted to lead ESPN’s new media distribution initiatives as vice president, broadband and interactive television sales. Jha received his bachelor’s of arts degree in philosophy and religion from Colgate University in 1990. |