Smart Screen Exclusive

Steve Youngwood, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Digital for Nickelodeon, has been announced as a keynote speaker for their upcoming event to be held during CE Week in New York City on June 27^th at the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas. Youngwood leads and manages the network’s digital content businesses and operations. He also oversees Nickelodeon Consumer Products efforts in gaming, book publishing and home video businesses. His oversight includes the number-one kids’ website in Nick.com, the number-one preschool parenting website in Nickjr.com, a growing and leading digital mom-targeted portfolio, as well as gaming, publishing, and video across all retail and digital platforms.

Youngwood has lead Nickelodeon Digital since 2006, a period during which Nickelodeon has rapidly expanded across all digital platforms and become a leading player in kids and family digital media. He expanded their kids’ presence, launched their mom-efforts, and built the gaming division. Under Youngwood’s leadership, Nickelodeon has become a key player in the digital industry. Nickelodeon Group’s portfolio of digital sites closed the first quarter of 2011 in first place among all kids’ and family web destinations, with nearly 30 million average monthly visitors, ahead of all other kids’ and family web destinations. They are also ranked number one in total average time spent per visitor (62 minutes). In addition, Nickelodeon holds leadership positions in each of its key segments including: kids, anchored by Nick.com; gaming with AddictingGames and Shockwave; and parenting with Nickjr.com and Parentsconnect.com.

Through Youngwood’s efforts, Nickelodeon’s websites are number one amongst kids and families, reaching over 30 million people in the U.S.; mobile operations are thriving, with 8 top 10 apps over the past two years, and an app that was number-one for more than a week. In the gaming sector, the Nickelodeon property AddictingGames is the number-one casual gaming site for millennials; and Monkey Quest MMOG became the number-one virtual world for kids’ within its first year. On social media, Nickelodeon and its properties are a leading with over 200 million Facebook fans.

Youngwood lead the launch of Parentsconnect.com in 2008, and in the ‘moms’ sector he most recently led the digital launch of Nickmom, the first cross-platform TV-Digital Mom brand. Combined with NickJr., Nickelodeon is a top five digital player in the ‘moms’ space. Youngwood has been a key driver in Nickelodeon’s expansion and distribution of its content onto new digital platforms – Nickelodeon was one of the first TV brands on Itunes and Netflix, early partners on the Nook, and most recently, the Kindle Fire.

As part of Youngwood’s leadership, he has overseen the acquisition and integration of several companies – including Neopets, Addictinggames, Shockwave, and Babunga – to help accelerate Nickelodeon’s leadership in Digital Gaming and Parenting. Throughout, Youngwood has kept Nickelodeon focused on both extending its TV properties into the digital medium, as well as creating original properties.

In his Keynote conversation Youngwood will explain the network’s 2^nd screen strategy around engaging a younger and family-based audience for increased participation in their unique programming.  Other highlights include leveraging both their brand and consumers to create new opportunities for programming, engagement and monetization.

 The 2^nd Screen Summit returns to New York City with 3 tracks of conference programming that focuses on advertising and brand engagement and will highlight not only the fundamentals of preparing a 2^nd screen strategy but also to dig deeper into the challenges and opportunities facing the emerging 2^nd screen market.

To learn more about the Summit and the extensive list of speakers and topics visit http://www.2ndscreensociety.com/nyc2013 — or register today by clicking here.