Cable Center Homes In on New CEO

The Cable Center is expected to name a new chief executive officer this week, after the organization’s board of directors met during Diversity Week in New York to discuss successor candidates to Larry Satkowiak, who is leaving after overseeing the Denver-based center since 2005.

One person close to the process said last Monday (Sept. 28) that the search had led to two finalists. A Cable Center representative confirmed the board met last Thursday and said, if all went to plan, an announcement could come early this week.

Several of the non-profit organization’s directors and honorary directors gathered Monday evening at the New York Marriott Marquis to toast Satkowiak, who is credited with improving the center’s finances, tightening its pro-cable mission and, late in his tenure, writing a short history of the cable-TV industry. The Cable Center published it and it was given out to attendees at the INTX convention in Chicago this past May.

Satkowiak, who was the center’s chief financial officer before taking the helm at the request of the late Bill Bresnan, recalled at the event Monday that he told Bresnan he would be glad to run The Cable Center but that he didn’t know anyone in cable other than Bresnan.

“And [Bresnan] said: ‘If you do the right thing by The Cable Center, you will get to know all the quality people that you need to know.’ And for all of you guys, I will tell you, you are the quality people that made my job maybe not easy, but made it a joy to do.”

Kent Gibbons

Kent has been a journalist, writer and editor at Multichannel News since 1994 and with Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He is a good point of contact for anything editorial at the publications and for Nexttv.com. Before joining Multichannel News he had been a newspaper reporter with publications including The Washington Times, The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal and North County News.