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2012 Forum Forward class graduates during ceremony in Fargo

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The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class and mentors, from left to right: Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock, JobsHQ Employment Specialist/Sales Team Leader Lisa Tillotson, Forum Regional Operations Manager Curt Christensen, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo Customer Service Representative Kari Saylor, FCC Director of Multimedia Sales Operations Amy Fredrickson, Forum Features Editor Heidi Shaffer, Duluth News Tribune Ad Director Roz Randorf, FCC Digital Accounts Manager Chad Jacobsen, RiverTowns Newspaper Group Multimedia Producer Roger Sievers, Echo Press Variety Editor Tara Bitzan, Grand Forks Herald Editor Steve Wagner, WDAY-TV Regional Sales Manager Joshua Rohrer, FCC CEO Lloyd Case, Forum General Manager Aaron Beecher, Forum Reporter Ryan Johnson, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. and Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel.

FARGO, N.D. – Eight Forum Communications Co.employees were feted this week as the 2012 Forum Forward class graduated and became alumni of the company’s leadership training program started several years ago. Graduation was held Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Fargo. Members of FCC’s senior management team were on hand to celebrate, as were each of the graduates company mentors, who are an integral component to the program. “This is a culmination of a year spent visiting various divisions within our company, including Broadcast, Commercial Printing, Digital and Newspaper,” said program facilitator Sonjia Anderson. “This has provided them insights into leadership skills, professional growth, and the opportunity to share best practices.” The graduating class also participated in brainstorming session on company innovation to generate ideas relating to reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Projects coming out of the past innovation sessions include the Forum News Service, the Green Team, and the “We Are Forum Communications” branding video. The 2013 Forum Forward participants and mentors also gathered in Fargo this week to begin their year of training.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Tara Bitzen with her certificate. Her mentor, Grand Forks Editor Steve Wagner stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Ryan Johnson with his certificate. His mentor, Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Joshua Rohrer with his certificate. His mentor, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case gives Forum Forward graduate Heidi Shaffer and her mentor Amy Fredrickson a hug.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Lisa Tillotson with her certificate. Her mentor, Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Kari Saylor with her certificate. Her mentor, Curt Christensen stands at right.

The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class included: – GRADUATE: Tara Bitzan, life/variety/special projects editor, Echo Press, Alexandria, Minn. MENTOR: Steve Wagner, editor, Grand Forks Herald, Grand Forks, N.D. – GRADUATE: Chad Jacobsen, digital accounts manager, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Roz Randorf , ad director, Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minn. – GRADUATE: Ryan Johnson, reporter, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Korrie Wenzel, publisher, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D. – GRADUATE: Joshua Rohrer, regional sales manager, WDAY-TV, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Bill Marcil Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer Forum Communications Co., and publisher, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, N.D. – GRADUATE: Kari Saylor, customer service representative, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Curt Christensen, regional operations manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Heidi Shaffer, features editor, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Amy Fredrickson, director of multimedia sales operations, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Roger Sievers, multimedia producer, RiverTown Newspaper Group, Red Wing, Minn. MENTOR: Aaron Becher, general manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Lisa Tillotson, employment specialist/sales team leader, Jobs HQ, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Harvey Brock, publisher, The Dickinson Press, Dickinson, N.D.

Forum Communications awarded rights to broadcast North Dakota high school activites

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By Tom Mix

VALLEY CITY, N.D. – When TV viewers flip on the North Dakota high school state tournaments next year, they will see new faces in the broadcast booth.
After a three-decade long run of being televised on the North Dakota NBC Network, the broadcast rights for the state’s football, boys and girls basketball and boys and girls hockey state tournaments were officially awarded to Forum Communications in April.
Forum Communications, which owns ABC affiliates WDAY-TV in Fargo, N.D., and WDAZ in Grand Forks, N.D., has already started planning several parts to the upcoming broadcasts, the key one being on-air talent.
“The inner workings are certainly underway,” WDAY sports producer and assistant programming director Stacey Anderson said. “In house we have Dom Izzo and Jody Norstedt, who both have play-by-play experience and we have Pat Sweeney up in Grand Forks at WDAZ.
“We have pretty large stable of broadcasters that can do play-by-play. We are confident in the talent we have already in place.”

North Dakota High School Activities Association logo

The North Dakota High School Activities Association Board of Directors officially approved the television contract by a unanimous vote. The contract runs through the fiscal years of 2013-14 to 2017-18 and is worth $680,000.
The last time WDAY-TV broadcasted a NDHSAA state tournament event was 1982, however the station broadcasted the first three Dakota Bowl football championships starting in 1993 prior to that event being added into the NDHSAA television rights contract.
“These North Dakota High School Activities Association state tournaments are some of the top-tier events in North Dakota and we are really excited about having them and putting them on TV,” Anderson said.
“I think it’s a great day for the NDHSAA, WDAY, WDAZ and ABC sports in North Dakota.”
Anderson did not know how the tournament broadcasts would be split up among the on-air talent and said that could depend on which teams qualify for each tournament based on coverage-area regions.
Television stations KBMY in Bismarck, N.D., and KMCY in Minot, N.D., both ABC affiliates and owned by Forum Communications, will air NDHSAA state tournament programming in the western part of the state.
KBMY and KMCY do not produce live news broadcasts so highlights and pre-tournament team feature stories from teams in the west will be funneled to Fargo through several methods.
Anderson said a working agreement with CBS affiliates KXMB in Bismarck and KXMC in Minot will provide highlight footage from the western part of the state. Those stations as well as WDAY and WDAZ will produce features on select teams that qualify for the state tournaments.
WDAY-TV also broadcasts several Minnesota boys basketball section tournament games, which Anderson said the station plans on retaining.
One part of the contract that was discussed Tuesday was that the NDHSAA will not be able to allow other media outlets to televise or internet stream games during a Forum Communications state tournament broadcast.
Anderson said Forum Communications doesn’t recognize the NDHSAA as a media outlet, so as an association, it can stream footage of state tournaments to the Internet. However, it will not be able to hire another media outlet to produce those webcasts.
“That was a big thing for us,” NDHSAA board president Scott Ulland said of the web streaming flexibility. “We want to look into what else we can do for our patrons and our students in regards to webcasts.”

Tom Mix is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He can be reached at tmix@forumcomm.com or at 701.241.5562.

WDAY-TV, WDAZ, KBMY and KMCY and The Forum are all owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, and owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. announces 2013 Forum Forward class

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FARGO, N.D. - Forum Communications Co. has named its Forum Forward class for 2013, company officials announced Friday. This year’s class is comprised of eight individuals, salespeople, reporters, editors and multimedia producers from all over the company’s geographic footprint.

Forum Forward is an internal company leadership program created in 2009 to broaden the leadership skills of the dedicated employees across Forum Communications Co.and to build the company’s next generation of leaders.

This year’s class includes:

Jon Buller, director of finance for the Duluth News Tribune

- Applicant: Jon Buller, Director of Finance, Duluth News Tribune

Phil Frebault, director of advertising for Rivertowns Newspaper Group

Mentor: Phil Frebault, Advertising Director, RiverTown Multimedia

Leah Kastner, supervisor, FCC Media Planning

- Applicant: Leah Kastner, Media Planning Supervisor, Digital

Kirsten Stromsodt, deputy editor of The Forum

Mentor: Kirsten Stromsodt, Deputy Editor, The Forum

Greg Locnikar, customer service representative, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo

- Applicant: Gregory Locnikar, Customer Service Representative, FCP-Fargo

Chris Dorsey, FCC director digital and major accounts sales

Mentor: Chris Dorsey, Director Digital & Major Accounts, Forum Communications Company

Lori Weber Menke, multimedia manager at the Grand Forks Herald

- Applicant: Lori Weber Menke, Multimedia Manager, Grand Forks Herald

Rob Horken, general manager at WDAY TV

Mentor: Rob Horken, General Manager, WDAZ-TV

Jeff Nelson, news director at WDAY TV

- Applicant: Jeff Nelson, News Director, WDAY TV

Mary Jo Hotzler, director of the Forum News Service

Mentor: Mary Jo Hotzler, Director, Forum News Service

Dave Roepke, news editor at The Forum

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Jon Clites, regional sales manager at WDAY

Applicant: Dave Roepke, News Editor, The Forum
Mentor: Jon Clites, Regional Sales Manager, WDAY

Kevin Smith, advertising director at the West Central Tribune

- Applicant: Kevin Smith, Director of Advertising, West Central Tribune

Roger Sievers, multimedia producer for the Rivertowns Newspaper Group

Mentor: Roger Sievers, Multimedia Producer, RiverTown Multimedia

John Svingen, advertising director at The Pioneer of Bemidji, Minn.

- Applicant: John Svingen, Director of Advertising, The Bemidji Pioneer

Carmen Wallander, customer service manager at Forum Communications Printing-Fargo

Mentor: Carmen Wallander, Customer Service Manager, FCP-Fargo

Each year, FCC employees have the opportunity to apply for Forum Forward and company executives choose the finalists who undergo a year of site visits, leadership studies and mentoring. Each graduate is assigned a mentor from inside the company, someone who has demonstrated leadership and the ability to help build the skills of their employees. The class then spends a year traveling to various FCCsites and learning from respected leaders in all aspects of the company’s ventures.

Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, N.D. Forum Communicationsowns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. debuts video-only website InforumTV

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Robin Huebner goes through a test run of an InforumTV webcast in the video studio of The Forum building in Fargo. InforumTV launched today at InforumTV.com. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

By Shane Mercer
FARGO, N.D. – The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and WDAY-TV and radio today launched the InforumTV website with three live morning news webcasts anchored by Robin Huebner.
Plans are to eventually offer top-of-the-hour updates throughout the workday.
Huebner’s webcasts will air at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. Monday through Friday on Inforumtv.com. The site will also have the capacity to deliver news live from the field.
InforumTV will be a separate site from The Forum’s Inforum.com website, and focuses strictly on video.
There are plans to develop a morning show for InforumTV, said media manager Jim Manney, who heads up the video department at The Forum.
Manney said InforumTV will also produce and webcast live talk shows in the future.
“It’s a place for us to deliver news, information and entertainment to readers, viewers and listeners,” Manney said.
He has big dreams for the site.
“I can see it becoming, at some point, a 12-hour-a-day network,” Manney said. “It’s very ambitious, I know, but it’s something that I think will definitely happen over the course of the next few years.”
In addition to the live offerings, the site will be home to “the nearly 27,000 videos that Forum Communications Co. has shot,” Manney said.

Multimedia developer Ryan Babb works behind the boards in the video studio at The Forum building. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications is the parent company of The Forum, WDAY and other media outlets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. New video from these various outlets will be added to InforumTV’s searchable archive as it is created.
“What we want people to do is explore; to jump on the website and search the stories that they’re interested in,” Manney said. “And we want you to kind of get lost and explore and have some fun and see what we have available.”
WDAY News Director Jeff Nelson said the site will enhance what WDAY.com is already doing.
“InforumTV is going to allow us another avenue to get those stories out to people,” said Nelson, who described it as “an opportunity for Forum Communications as a company to really go out and be everywhere with everybody.”
While The Forum has already been producing video for the Web, Forum Editor Matthew Von Pinnon believes the InforumTV venture marks a new emphasis on video newsgathering for the staff.
“If there’s a news event happening, we’ll bring it to people, and we’ll stream it, and we’ll show it,” he said. “It could be a press conference; it could be breaking news, fires, weather, whatever. We can be out in the field and sharing that information with people in real time.”

Bill Marcil Jr. publisher of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Publisher Bill Marcil Jr. sees InforumTV as a “big part” of the company’s future.
“We will still provide the very best platform for news and advertising with Inforum, but by separating the two, we will have a better user experience for the person that just wants video,” he said.
“We will provide not only news updates but local news stories, weather and original content with the ability to go live any time of the day or night,” Marcil said.

Shane Mercer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.

The Forum, WDAY-TV and InforumTV are all owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Bill Marcil Jr. named chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co.

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Bill Marcil Jr. has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co.

FARGO, N.D. – Bill Marcil Jr. has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co., which publishes The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.

Marcil will continue in his role as publisher of The Forum.

“The election of Bill as chief operating officer has been in our succession plans for a number of years,” said William C. Marcil, chairman of the board of Forum Communications Co.

“Bill is the fifth-generation publisher of the family-owned Forum,” he added. “The (Marcil) family’s committed to a locally owned newspaper company, and this succession will enable us to do that.”

Lloyd Case remains president and chief executive officer of Forum Communications.

Forum Communications Co. President and CEO Lloyd Case

The board also re-elected company vice presidents heading divisions:

- Paul Amundson, vice president of digital.

- Dennis Hall, vice president of commercial printing.

- John Hajostek, vice president of finance.

- Steve McLister, vice president of newspapers.

- Mark Prather, vice president of broadcast.

Dennis Hall

Paul Amundson

Steve McLister

John Hajostek

Mark Prather

As the diversity of divisions and delivery platforms indicates, “we’ll deliver the information any way the consumer wishes to receive it,” William Marcil said.

Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications Co. owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.