NAB Technology Awards
About the Awards
The Radio and Television Engineering Achievement Awards are presented to individuals for their outstanding accomplishments in the radio or television broadcast industry, respectively. The Digital Leadership Award honors an individual at a broadcast station, group or network who has transformed a traditional broadcast business to succeed on digital media platforms.
2023 Winners
Lora Dennis
Digital Leadership Award
Lora Dennis serves as the executive vice president of Digital Media for NBCUniveral Local, where she leads the editorial, design and product development strategy, audience development, marketing coordination and business operations for all NBCUniversal station and local networks’ websites, mobile apps, social media and distributed platforms. Additionally, she oversees the division’s multiplatform news team that supports the company’s broadcast TV stations, regional sports networks and New England Cable News (NECN) network. Since joining the division in 2012, she has helped the group grow its digital footprint to 17 platforms, more than quadruple its audience, and recently launched new, best-in-class designs for desktop and mobile web sites on a unified content management system for the nation’s only local English and Spanish language news product.
With more than 25 years of local news experience in her career, Dennis has been recognized with several journalism awards, including the Alfred I. duPont Silver Baton Award and The Alliance for Women in Media Gracie Award, and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting.
Dennis is a mentor/advisor for the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator and a member of the NAB Digital Officers Committee.
Doug Lung
Engineering Achievement Award for Television
As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, Doug Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings.
Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Lung is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He received a Tech Leadership Award from digital media publisher Future in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
Michael Cooney
Engineering Achievement Award for Radio
Michael Cooney is the chief technology officer at Beasley Media Group, which he joined in 2007. A member of the company’s Executive Committee, he is responsible for the supervision and oversight of all engineering and technology matters related to Beasley’s 61 radio stations, as well as assisting in the management of the company’s capital and operating budgets.
Cooney is well-known in broadcast radio as a stakeholder and leader on numerous industry working groups. He is a former chairman of NAB’s Radio Technology Committee, a member of the NAB Automotive Initiative Committee, a member of the Technical Committee for the Broadcast Traffic Consortium and a former radio representative for the NAB FASTROAD Committee.
Cooney received the 2016 Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award and was named by Radio & Television Business Report as a Top Technology Leader in 2022 and 2023. He has presented at several NAB conferences over the years.