KARK General Manager Leaves Company

Source: Arkansas Business.com Perry Chester is out as general manager of KARK-TV, Channel 4, as of this Friday, and a search for his replacement is underway.

Brian Jones, senior vice president and regional manager of parent company Nexstar Broadcasting Group of Irving, Texas, confirmed Wednesday that the company has decided to move in a different direction without Chester at the helm.

“The way I would describe it is we’ve been talking, the both of us, about [Chester] doing some different things and [Nexstar] doing some different things,” said Jones. “We worked out an arrangement that Perry is on board with and everybody else is on board with.”

Jones wouldn’t comment on the details of the arrangement, other than to confirm that Chester will no longer be a KARK or Nexstar employee. Nexstar bought the NBC affiliate from Morris Multimedia in August 2003 and shortly thereafter promoted Chester from a company-owned CBS affiliate in Champaign, Ill.

“We wish him well,” said Jones. “He’s been with the company for six years and has done some good things both in the Champaign and Little Rock markets. But he’s going to do some new things now and so are we.”

Jones, who oversees 26 stations in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Montana, said he will be in Little Rock “two or three days a week” until Chester’s replacement is found.