Martha Nelson Takes Over All Yahoo Media During High-Profile Week

Yahoo’s Martha Nelson is officially in charge of all media at the company, including video, Re/code.net reports. After 20 years at Time Inc., Nelson joined Yahoo as global editor-in-chief in August.

Nelson reports directly to CEO Marissa Mayer after previously reporting to CMO Kathy Savitt, who left in September to lead digital at STX Entertainment.

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Former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Martha Nelson Joins Yahoo

Nelson will now oversee Yahoo’s slate of digital magazines and all video efforts. The switch-up comes after Yahoo recently took a $42 million write-down on Community and other digital series in the third quarter of 2015.  

And in addition to the costly Community revelation, Yahoo’s big week also included Sunday’s online live stream of the NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars in London, which the Jaguars won 34-31. Yahoo spent $20 million for the rights to stream the first game that was not available through the NFL’s traditional broadcast partners. 

Yahoo pulled out all the stops to hype the game, including a Katie Couric interview with former Bills quarterback Jim Kelly during pregame. Yahoo boasted that advertising for the game was sold out, but reports indicated that rates were slashed significantly from the $200,000 Yahoo initially asked for spots.  

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Nelson spent more than 20 years at Time Inc. and rose to the position of editor-in-chief in early 2013. She resigned from her position at the company at the end of that year ahead of its spinoff from Time Warner. During her years at Time, she oversaw the launch of InStyle and later served as editor at People.