Boston -- Robert Sachs and Robert Stengel, former senior
executives and 18-year veterans of Continental Cablevision Inc. and its successor,
MediaOne, have formed a new cable television management consulting firm, Continental
Consulting Group.
The firm will specialize in international and domestic
regulatory and programming consultation, Sachs said.
Until January of this year, Sachs served as MediaOne's
senior vice president for corporate and legal affairs, and Stengel was senior vice
president of programming.
Both men have already begun individual consulting projects.
Stengel is working with programmers and Sachs has worked with MediaOne and the National
Cable Television Association on policy matters. Recently, the city of Boston and
Cablevision Systems Corp. hired Sachs to help facilitate franchise renewal negotiations
between the city and the cable system.
Potential clients for the new firm, Sachs said, include
MSOs, programming companies and "people looking to get into the industry" --
those who need analysis of programming ideas and the business and regulatory environment,
and who want to "identify good potential partners."
Continental would focus more on strategy than day-to-day
management, Sachs said.
He also said the firm would call on a roster of former
Continental Cablevision executives for work on individual projects in their fields of
expertise.
Sachs said he thought legal issues surrounding privacy and
regulation of high-speed Internet access would become an increasingly common problem for
cable operators in the coming months and years.
"It's just starting to percolate now," he
said. "Companies are going to have to anticipate change on the horizon."
Both Sachs and Stengel were close associates of former
Continental Cablevision CEO Amos Hostetter, who resigned from MediaOne last year.
