Tom Birch

Megan Reed

email [email protected]
phone 919-341-1804
fax 954-827-0277

Tom Birch brings 45+ years of media, media research and financial experience to Media Services Group, including his ownership of Lakes Media LLC since 2005 and 9 years of ownership of Opus Media Group in the 1990s. Lakes Media is a 9-station group serving southern Virginia and northern North Carolina.  Opus holdings included market-leading clusters in Jackson, MS and Savannah, GA and stations in Monroe, LA and Fort Walton Beach, FL.

Tom served as Chief Financial Officer of Simmons Market Research Bureau from 2001 to 2003, during which he significantly reduced operating expenses and arranged for a refinancing that enabled the company to avoid bankruptcy and find an acquirer, Experian, that paid a premium price to acquire the company in 2004.

Best known as the founder/Chairman and CEO of Birch/Scarborough Research in the 1980s, Tom built a company that at its peak, employed more than 1,200 people nationwide and maintained sales offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas. The company interviewed over 100,000 persons per month in 260 markets (including persons in all continental U.S. counties) and its client base included major radio broadcast groups such as Clear Channel (now iHeartRadio), CBS and ABC, leading national advertisers such as McDonalds, Anheuser-Busch and Delta Airlines, and major national advertising agencies such as BBDO, McCann-Erickson and Ogilvy & Mather. Birch/Scarborough Research was acquired by VNU (which subsequently acquired Nielsen) in 1989.

As a startup and turnaround entrepreneur, Tom has written numerous business and financial plans and has raised millions of dollars in financing through venture capital and lender financing.

Tom is a graduate of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.