Adam Stotsky, the former president of NBCUniversal's E!, and longtime casting director Melissa Chusid are helping Bloomberg navigate the worlds of entertainment and pro sports, sources close to his presidential campaign said.

The goal is to get late-night hosts like Jimmy Fallon to work campaign themes into their monologues and get pro athletes to share unpaid pro-Bloomberg messages, the sources said.

Bloomberg has already enlisted a who's who from politics, advertising, and tech to help him get elected.

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An earlier version of this story stated that Kent Alterman, the former head of Comedy Central, was also an unpaid adviser to the Bloomberg campaign. We have since learned this to be untrue and the story has been corrected. We regret the error.

If you hear Stephen Colbert mentioning Mike Bloomberg more often in the coming weeks, it may not be by accident.

Mike Bloomberg has already enlisted a who's who from the worlds of politics, advertising, and technology to help elect him president. Now Business Insider has learned that former network-television executives are helping the campaign develop unpaid relationships with comedians, late-night talk-show hosts, and professional athletes, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter, including two people who identify as current campaign advisers.

All the sources interviewed for this story are known to Business Insider but spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their professional interests.

One source called it "unprecedented" for a presidential candidate to bring on such established media executives as advisers.

The move comes as Bloomberg reels from a poor debate performance February 19 in Nevada, accusations of sexism and racism, and a maligned series of paid memes and billboards trolling President Donald Trump.

Former executives from NBC and Nickelodeon are helping Bloomberg make connections with tastemakers in entertainment and sports

Business Insider wasn't able to learn how many people are involved in the media effort but confirmed its recruits include Adam Stotsky, the former president of NBCUniversal's E!, who is an informal, unpaid, campaign adviser; and Melissa Chusid, a former Nickelodeon executive who recently worked on talent and casting efforts for Bleacher Report, Kevin Hart's LOL Network, and other sports and comedy properties, and who is working on a paid basis.

Chusid is leading what the campaign calls a "surrogate team" effort to enlist professional athletes to share pro-Bloomberg messages, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The surrogate team recruits top business leaders to publicly support the billionaire. CNBC reported that these surrogates include former executives at financial companies like Morgan Stanley and American Express and the cofounder of BET.

Stotsky and Chusid declined to comment.

Bloomberg's national press secretary has denied Stotsky was on the team.

The FEC describes volunteer activity this way: "An individual may volunteer personal services to a campaign without making a contribution as long as the individual is not compensated by anyone for the services. Volunteer activity is not reportable."

The campaign hopes influential hosts like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel can shape the narrative in a friendly way

Stotsky, who left NBCUniversal in September after 18 years, expanded "E! News" and the Kardashian empire.

One person close to the campaign said Stotsky was brought on as an expert in his field to "tell Bloomberg what he's doing wrong." Another person compared Bloomberg's media strategy to the 1998 satire film "Bullworth," in which an aging senator played by Warren Beatty reenergizes his campaign by embracing hip-hop culture to appeal to young voters.

The source said the idea is to make connections with talk show host producers, writers, and talent to get them to talk about Bloomberg the candidate and the issues he backs.

One person said the advisers wanted to leverage the political influence that hosts such as Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Colbert have gained in the past five to 10 years and reach their audiences in a natural way.

"Some folks would argue that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert [have been] some of most influential political voices on the planet," this person said. "It only makes sense to try and utilize those platforms."

The person added that one reason these efforts are not official campaign work is that Federal Communications Commission fairness-doctrine rules that require broadcasters to provide equal airtime to opposing candidates.

As for Chusid, she is expected to use her professional athlete contacts to solicit unpaid pro-Bloomberg content, a source said.

Bloomberg wants to reach moderate voters who aren't intensely focused on politics

A fourth source with ties to Bloomberg executives and a politics and cable news background said he thought the media strategy was directed at reinforcing the candidate's paid strategy and helping him appeal to moderates and voters who don't closely follow specific policy proposals or issues like the sexual-harassment lawsuits filed by former Bloomberg employees and reported by Business Insider.

He added that this behind-the-scenes work, which he described as "crisis comms on steroids," could help temper negative headlines.

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