Jay Switzer
Former President and CEO of CHUM Limited.
Last Contribution:
Hit the Digital Pause Button
Contributor Biography
A twenty-five year veteran of Canada’s media industry, Jay Switzer is the former President, CEO, and Board member of Canadian television and radio broadcaster CHUM Limited.
Mr. Switzer started his long career at CHUM in 1983 as Program Manager for the company’s innovative Citytv and worked his way up through positions of increasing responsibility to become President and CEO of CHUM Limited in 2002.
Among his many accomplishments, he was instrumental in the creation of CHUM's leading specialty channels dating back to the launch of MuchMusic in 1984, in addition to establishing a distribution division that took the company’s original programming and channel formats worldwide. A proud champion of independent Canadian feature film and television production, he led CHUM’s support of over 200 new Canadian feature films.
In 2007, Mr. Switzer helped execute the eventual sale of the publicly traded CHUM Limited, which had grown to be one of Canada’s leading media companies with over 3,200 employees to CTVglobemedia for $1.7 billion.
Active in many industry, cultural, and community groups, Mr. Switzer has been awarded numerous leadership, diversity and broadcast industry awards including the prestigious Canadian Council of Christians and Jews/Canadian Centre for Diversity Human Relations Award and the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for significant contribution to Canada.
Mr. Switzer is a former Vice Chair of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, a former Governor of the Banff World Television Foundation, and a two time former board member of the U.S. content industry trade association NATPE. Currently, he is a board member of Canadian media companies William F. White International Inc., Glassbox Television Inc. and OUTtv. He is also a board member of the Canadian Centre for Diversity.
Mr. Switzer holds a B.Comm from the University of Toronto and an MBA from Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. In addition to his long tenure at CHUM, he spent two years as media research analyst at The Financial Post in the early '80's and happily worked through high school and university as a cable television installer for Maclean Hunter Cable TV.
He is known for speaking candidly about what is on his mind. He is married to actress Ellen Dubin.
