Supowitz followed a media career to Florida, but he hates the humidity

LOS ANGELES — As a media professional, I can attest to the heavy pressures, deadlines and fast-paced culture that absorbs my day-to-day life. For many individuals in my line of work, it’s a struggle to create fresh, thought provoking content on a consistent basis. As a general practice, I refer to my peers for motivation: Time Magazine, The New Yorker, MAD. It’s a tough business, but I’m just one factor in the equation. All that would be impossible without the life support that keeps the media afloat … revenue. That’s where expatriate Pittsburgher Louis Supowitz comes in. A resident of Orlando, Fla., Louis is currently the Director of Regional Advertising Sales in Orlando and Tampa for the cable television division of Advance Newhouse. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the world of media conglomerates, Advance Newhouse owns the magazines Vogue, GQ and Conde Nast, as well as several newspapers and cable systems. (Full disclosure: The Jewish Chronicle is not a subsidiary.) “There’s tremendous pressure in my line of work,” says Louis. “The ad side of anything pays the bills for anything else — that’s the only revenue producer — selling commercial time.” A business that has been significantly affected by the recent economic recession, generating revenue through media advertising has become increasingly difficult, according to Louis who believes it has finally begun to plateau. Of course, as a professional who’s been in the industry for well over 20 years, Louis says he tries to put it all in perspective. “I love the TV business,” says Louis. “Over the years, the growth of the [Orlando] marketplace, in my business has gone from 28th in the country to 19th, and with that came growth in population.” A native of Squirrel Hill, Louis graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School iand earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Ohio University. Originally interested in media production, Louis interned with WQED-TV during his senior year at OU, an opportunity that taught him a great deal about entry level production work. “I was the gofer. I did everything — writing, working with editors, and I got to hang out on the Mr. Rogers set a lot.” Realizing the heavy disproportion between the labor required and pay provided, Louis thought it best to pursue an alternative route in the media industry. His first advertising sales position was with WYDD-FM in New Kensington, later moving on to WTAE radio and then KDKA-TV. In 1981, after a three-year stint working in New York City in Cox Broadcasting’s national advertising firm, Louis transferred back to Pittsburgh’s WPXI-TV to become the national advertising sales manager, a position he held for six years. In 1986, he began working for Cox’s ABC television affiliate in Orlando. “I came down thinking I was going to stay for two to three years … that turned into 24 years,” says Louis, who has spent 14 of the 24 years with Cox and seven years with Newscorp-Fox television before accepting his current position at Advance Newhouse. As an Orlando resident, Louis says he enjoys bicycling and tennis and, of course, loves living an hour from the beach. He also sits on the board of several community organizations including Orlando JCC, Orlando Better Business Bureau, Orlando Ballet (serving as president for two years) and the Festival of Orchestras. As a Pittsburgh native, however, Louis says he mainly misses “the people and the ethnic diversity of the city and seeing [his] mother, who is turning 90 years old, more often.” If given the right opportunity, the advertising mogul says he would absolutely consider a move back to the ’Burgh, especially since the summers in Orlando are “humid like a rainforest. “But I guess that compensates for 80 inches of snow,” he says. (Jay Firestone, web and multimedia editor for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, can be reached at jayf@thejewishchronicle.net.)