A group of six cable and connectivity trailblazers, including top programmers, cable-system operators, a high-profile business anchor and innovative technologists — one of whom is known as “the father of the cable modem” — will be honored April 18 with induction into the Cable Hall of Fame. 

That’s when the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center will stage its 27th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, a red-carpet event at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. 

The 2024 Cable Hall of Fame inductees are: 

• Liz Claman, Anchor, The Claman Countdown, Fox Business Network
• Bonnie Hammer, Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal
• Yvette Kanouff, Partner, JC2 Ventures
• Larry E. Romrell, Board Member, Liberty Media and Liberty Global
• Steven A. White, President, Special Counsel to CEO, Comcast Cable
• Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, Founder & Board Member, YAS Foundation

They join the 159 luminaries who’ve been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame since 1998. 

“This year’s Cable Hall of Fame honorees are some of the most accomplished leaders in the business,” The Cable Center CEO Diane Christman said. “It will be a true honor to welcome them to the Cable Hall of Fame.” 

A current Hall of Famer will be recognized again on April 18 as this year’s winner of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Geraldine Laybourne, a cable entrepreneur who is now the chairman of DAY ONE Early Learning Community, is this year’s Bresnan Award winner. 

The Bresnan Award recognizes the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center. 

“Gerry is a true trailblazer in the cable industry — from building Nickelodeon into a top-rated network to creating Oxygen and leading Disney/ABC, her career achievements are unrivaled,” Michael Willner, chairman and CEO of Penthera Partners and chair of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center’s board of directors, said. “She has tirelessly served the industry through her work on numerous boards and the thousands of women she has mentored. Her unwavering dedication to the early learning community is game-changing. It is a special honor to present my good friend with the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

For more on information on The Cable Hall of Fame, including how to attend the April 18 gala, click here. 

Liz Claman
Anchor, The Claman Countdown
Fox Business Network

It seems that Liz Claman was always meant to be on the air. Her father brought home the family’s first video camera when she was in sixth grade, and she and her four siblings played with it every night. “They all wanted to pretend they were celebrities,” she recalls. “I wanted to pretend I was the person interviewing the celebrity. I wanted to be that person on the other side of the camera.”

Although she dreamed of being a reporter, Claman thought she needed to focus on a more “legitimate” path. She studied French at the University of California, Berkeley with a diplomatic career in mind, squeezing in every journalism class she could. As graduation approached, the pull was too strong. She got an internship at KCBS Los Angeles which led to a production assistant job, delivering newspapers and scripts to Ann Curry, Paula Zahn and Jim Lampley. Her first on-air job was in Columbus, Ohio, then Cleveland, and eventually she landed an anchor position with WHDH Boston, at the time that city’s NBC affiliate. 

In 1998, CNBC offered Claman a 13-week freelance gig. “There were a million reasons not to take it,” she said. “I had a staff job at NBC in Boston. I was an anchor. I had benefits. And [the CNBC job] was the stock market, about which I knew nothing. [But] I knew I had to make the jump to cable.” 

Claman inhaled financial information to prepare for the new job. “I kept telling myself sleep was overrated,” she said. “To this day, I never let myself think I know it all.” She still heeds advice from her mother, a trained Shakespearean actress, who told Claman, “Darling, never wing it.” After seven weeks in her initial freelance position, CNBC offered her a full-time job.

At CNBC Claman relished the opportunity to do in-depth reporting. “In cable, you could throw out ideas and most often they’d say, ‘Why not? Let’s try it.’ ” She created Breakfast with the CEO, featuring business luminaries in their natural work habitat. The popular series led to promotion to anchor.

After nine years at CNBC, Claman was ready to move on. She got a call from Fox, which was preparing to launch Fox Business Network. “Within 30 minutes, I thought, ‘I’ve got to work here,’” she recalled. She liked the feistiness of a startup taking on an established player. “More than that, I sensed that they understood me.”

In addition to the highly rated Claman Countdown, Claman’s work at Fox includes her Weekend With Warren special, which culminated in a high-profile interview with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Millions follow her on TikTok. 

In her off hours, Claman skis, runs triathlons and takes bass guitar lessons. She advises those aspiring to follow her example: “You have to fight the hardest for it. You have to say yes to everything, including the stuff where you say, ‘Well, I’m a Berkeley graduate. I’m not delivering newspapers.’ Yes, you are. You don’t get here without going there.” 

Bonnie Hammer
Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal

It takes more than a sharp eye and great instincts to become one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. Bonnie Hammer has plenty of both and combined them with her deep belief in the power of collaboration to build a brilliant career. 

Her happiest childhood memories are of summer camp. “That’s where I learned true friendship,” she said. “How to be a teammate, how to collaborate, how to share.” That was also where Hammer’s lifelong passion for photography began. Later, as a photojournalism major at Boston University, she cultivated the ability to capture a story in a shot — a skill that would continue to serve her well. 

Aiming for a career as a print photojournalist, Hammer got an internship shooting still photos for a kids’ show, Infinity Factory, on WGBH, Boston’s PBS station. A couple of the show’s production assistants had been fired, and Hammer was offered a PA job. Each PA was assigned a child cast member to wrangle. As the most junior member of the team, Hammer was responsible for Winston, a sheepdog. “I had to clean up after the dog,” she recalled. “A lot of people say their job is crap, but mine really was … crap!” 

Hammer advanced in broadcast before becoming Lifetime Television’s director of programming. “Cable was still very young,” she recalled. “We made the rules. We broke the rules. We made up new rules. And there were a lot of women, partially because we couldn’t necessarily get jobs in broadcast.” 

For Hammer, cable’s limited resources were a bonus. “Because we didn’t have tons of money, there weren’t tons of employees. We all got to wear different hats. We were also forced to collaborate because that’s the only way you could get things done. It was a phenomenal learning ground.”

After joining Universal Television as a programming executive, Hammer went on to lead USA and Syfy. She presided over USA Network’s “Characters Welcome” rebrand and the network’s public-service program, “Erase the Hate,” and green-lighted hit after hit, always “in a room together with every one of my senior people when we had to make a final decision,” she said. Despite early skepticism when she was given responsibility for USA’s wrestling property, Hammer and the “ginormous” men of the WWF (now WWE) forged another hugely successful collaboration. 

Now vice chair of NBCUniversal, Hammer said her proudest accomplishment is the teams she’s built throughout her career. “My channels succeeded because of amazing people, great collaboration, and the realization that everyone had skin in the game,” she said. “We would win together, and we would lose together. That made all the difference.” 

Hammer advises those entering the industry to seek out honest mentors. “Find yourself a truth-teller,” she said. Next, “understand it’s a journey. Figure out what you love. Experiment. Don’t think growth is all vertical — a lot of it is horizontal. I’m a big believer in zigzagging.” Hammer looks forward to discovering where the next zigzag takes her. 

As for her next chapter, “I’m still not finished writing my own story,” she said.

Yvette Kanouff
Partner, JC2 Ventures

Yvette Kanouff has spent her career blazing trails, revolutionizing video and helping others along the way. As an eighth-grade student in Germany, where her military family was stationed, Kanouff discovered what would become her intellectual passion. Scolding her for goofing off, her teacher sent her to the board to solve an algebra problem. “I solved the problem, and I thought, ‘That was so easy.’ And I fell in love with math that day.”

She studied mathematics at the University of Central Florida and began her career as a radar engineer with Lockheed Martin, developing pattern recognition algorithms — now known as artificial intelligence algorithms.

A Lockheed colleague who was interviewing with Time Warner Cable encouraged her to apply. “I came into the cable industry to help them build two-way video networks — that needs computer science and mathematics, I assumed,” she said. Her ability to code, script and write significant software made her something of a unicorn. “I realized there was nobody like me in the industry, or if there was, I didn’t work with them. So I got to work on the funnest stuff.  We had to build every spec from scratch — how to encode, create metadata, store, stream, deliver, modulate, transport, build applications and more.” 

Working with Warner Bros. to put a movie onto digital media, she said, “I remember writing one command that was a page long. But all that work was the predecessor to creating the DVD. That wasn’t what we were trying to do, but we ended up creating a digital storage and playout medium for every person in their home.” 

Kanouff led the world’s first video-on-demand trial, and her work in VOD, cloud DVR, digital and on-demand advertising, streaming security and privacy changed the face of video. In 2020 she was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in Technology and Engineering by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Often the only woman in the room, especially early in her career, Kanouff has more than her share of stories about unconscious bias, and she has skillfully overcome many barriers with confidence, competence and good humor. She prides herself on the many lifelong friends, men and women, that she has made through deep technical and industry connections.

“It’s just a tough journey for the first one,” Kanouff said, and she is committed to easing the journey for those who follow her. She founded Tech Connect, a mentoring program, and Multiplier Effect, which focuses on sponsorship. “You’ve got to open a door and pull people through. The day I don’t have to do it for women, I’ll gladly do it for somebody else who’s an underdog.”

Kanouff encourages those coming into the business to preserve its distinctive collegiality and creativity. “I’d like to see people continue to help the next generation. We need them and we have to welcome them and help them thrive,” she said. “And most important — never stop innovating!”

Larry E. Romrell
Board Member, Liberty Media and Liberty Global

Larry Romrell’s modesty belies his great success. Uncomfortable in the spotlight, he sees himself as lucky — in the right place at the right time with the right people. In fact, he helped build the cable industry.

Growing up in Idaho, Romrell’s earliest ambition was to be a pilot. He studied electronics in college but, “I didn’t finish because there was a local TV station being constructed in Pocatello, Idaho. They hired me and paid me a lot more than the graduates were making.” At Salt Lake City’s KCPX, he gained experience with microwave technology. 

Then, community antenna system owner Bob Magness offered him a job. Romrell says he’d been “indoctrinated” with broadcasters’ anti-cable viewpoint and was hesitant to work on Magness’s microwave sites in Montana and Wyoming. However, Romrell recalled, “I liked [Magness] on the phone, so I went to work [for him] right away and I was able to get things stabilized.”

Romrell became Magness’s chief engineer and then manager, traveling with his boss on acquisition trips that changed his view of cable. “I no longer felt I was a turncoat, I could see that the problem in small towns was that they had one broadcast signal or none,” he said.

Magness’s cable company grew, moved to Denver, and became Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) in 1968. Romrell led the company’s microwave subsidiary, Western Telecommunications, which grew along with TCI, eventually stretching from Omaha to San Francisco. The Idaho country boy “waltzed into the offices of TV network executives and made proposals that (our) equipment would be a lot better for them,” he recalled. “We fed every broadcaster signals along that route.”

Romrell’s work included building the first fiber network inside NORAD in Colorado Springs. A separate contract took him to Saudi Arabia to install the microwave radios for the government across the desert from Riyadh to Jeddah. There, he and his team observed princes on a falconry hunt using a transportable microwave satellite uplink — new technology at the time. “I convinced Bob that we should buy one and use it for remote satellite uplinking,” he recalled. They went on to support uplinking for the NFL, space shuttle launches, and primetime news events. The team also did the satellite uplinking for the Olympics in 1980 and 1984.

In 1978 Western Telecommunications merged with Marcus Communications to become WestMarc, which was spun out as a separate cable company with Romrell and Jeff Marcus at the helm. TCI repurchased WestMarc a few years later and made Romrell a senior vice president. 

In 2000, Romrell achieved his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. Today, he enjoys flying and  ranching. He currently serves on the boards of Liberty Media, Liberty Global and Tripadvisor. Looking back on a remarkable career, he said: “I guess if there’s something I did right, it’s that I hired really good people. And I had the best mentors that a person could ever follow, like Bob Magness and John Malone. I didn’t do it on my own.”  

Steven A. White 
President, Special Counsel to CEO, Comcast Cable

Finding his “why” and making an impact have been lifelong pursuits for Steve White. He was inspired by Mark Twain’s observation, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” That piece of wisdom led White to live a life of purpose. 

White said his earliest influence was his single mother, who moved her “four knucklehead boys” from Florida to Indianapolis with $500 in her pocket and got a job cleaning motels. “That’s motel with an ‘M,’ not hotel with an ‘H,’ ” White emphasized. She’d take the boys to work with her where “we learned about teamwork and what you can control, which is your attitude and effort,” White recalled. 

An aspiring athlete in high school, White became the basketball manager for his school’s highly competitive team. Aiming for a career in sportscasting, he went to Indiana University as a journalism major, switching to business when he realized he was better suited to that world. 

After college, White became American Hospital Supply’s youngest-ever sales leader at age 23. It didn’t go well. “I thought my purpose was to provide a living for my family so we would never be in poverty again,” he said. “I got fired because I was so self-absorbed.” A company executive who saw White’s potential had the young man shadow him for six months to learn about leadership. “That was a major transformation,” he said. He realized that his “why” was to “create a table of prosperity for as many people as possible.”

White was leading Colgate-Palmolive’s toothbrush business when a TCI recruiter contacted him in 1996. “At the time, TCI was only offering analog video and they wanted to get into phone, get into internet.” He was sold on the prospect of leading thousands of people in a young industry.

After AT&T purchased TCI, White became senior VP of the new organization’s Atlanta cluster, but he was losing interest in the cable business. When AT&T Broadband merged with Comcast in 2002, the company’s vision for what the industry could become inspired White anew. He advanced in operations leadership to become president of Comcast’s West Division. After 18 years with the company, he was named president, special counsel to the CEO of Comcast Cable with responsibility for supporting the company’s diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives; leadership programming and development; and advancement of digital equity.

White believes his success is the result of investing in others and helping them reach their potential. He attributes much to those who gave him “a hand up, not a handout — people who allow you to put your talents fully on display,” he said. “The reason I’ve been given these opportunities is to help make a path for others to make a difference.”

Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard
Founder and Board Member, YAS Foundation

Don’t underestimate a person with a vision, especially if that visionary has the determination of Rouzbeh Yassini. Against all odds, Yassini played an outsize role in connecting the world and became known as the “father of the cable modem.”

 Arriving in the U.S. from his native Iran to attend West Virginia University in 1977, Yassini originally intended to study medicine, but pivoted to electrical engineering. “Like healthcare, communications has no boundaries. The discovery continues forever,” he said.

Yassini’s first job in 1981 was with General Electric, where he designed TV sets, cameras and videocassette recorders and got his first glimpse of how cable television worked. In 1986 he moved to New England to become director of engineering at a data-networking company, Proteon. 

Those two experiences started the wheels turning. “At GE we did video over coax for consumers, and at Proteon we did data over twisted pair for corporate users,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to put data and video over the same wire.’ ” 

But not everyone agreed. “The chief technical officers at Proteon told me that if it could be done, somebody would already have done it. So I quit Proteon and followed my vision to do it myself.”

Working with a hand-picked team of engineers and advisers, Yassini began deploying a first-generation cable modem for university campuses and government clients including the Rock Island Arsenal military complex, where a then-record 5,000 users were connected by a blended coax-and-data network. 

In 1990, Yassini founded LANcity Corp. to develop technology that was smaller, agile, and built for scale. A second-generation modem for institutional customers paved the way for LANcity’s  crown jewel: a powerful, affordable modem designed to integrate with residential cable networks.  

At the time, many larger cable U.S. operators remained focused on their core business of video, not data connectivity. Smaller companies, however, were more willing to experiment, and by 1992, with more than 100 operators using LANcity’s modems, larger peers began to join the parade. “The biggest challenge wasn’t inventing the technology and scaling it,” Yassini said. “It was convincing the cable industry that data over cable had business value, and that it could be the underpinning for a generational transformation.”

With the LANcity personalized cable-modem revolution accelerating in 1995 and its merger with BayNetwork, Yassini went on to work with CableLabs as executive consultant in 1997 to develop the DOCSIS standard and a companion interoperability/certification effort that would vault “cable television” into the broader realm of telecommunications. Today, DOCSIS-powered devices are just about everywhere, connecting billions of people. But Yassini said there’s still work to be done. One objective: make sure every citizen is connected to broadband. Another: help heal planet Earth. 

Pairing vast sensor networks with broadband connectivity offers enormous potential for improving environmental conditions ranging from cleaner water to reduced pollution. “Eventually, we’ll learn to use the network to improve human life and extend the planet’s survival,” Yassini said. “That’s the ultimate goal.” 

Bresnan Award Recipient
Geraldine Laybourne
Chair, DAY ONE Early Learning Community

Gerry Laybourne has spent much of her extraordinary career listening to others, and turning what she learns from them into gold. Her achievements led to her 2004 induction into the Cable Hall of Fame. Like Bill Bresnan, she has always used business as a jumping-off point to make the world a better place, and her efforts on behalf of women and children have earned her the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

Laybourne took over the management of Nickelodeon in 1984 and led the network to top ratings and awards over the next 16 years. She said she did it by listening. “My mentors in how to run Nickelodeon were kids and my staff,” Laybourne said. “I went to more focus groups listening to kids than probably any TV executive in the history of television.” 

Inspired by an early mentor, Bernice Coe, the founder of Women in Cable (now the WICT Network), Laybourne was determined to help women advance in the industry. “When I was president of Nickelodeon, at least ten percent of my speeches would be for women’s groups,” she recalls. As a result, “so many young women would call my office to get my advice. My assistant figured out I didn’t need any more breakfast or lunch meetings. So we invited people to walk with me around Central Park Mondays and Fridays at 7 a.m. That became the mentor’s walk.”

Laybourne founded Oxygen Media and in 2000 launched Oxygen, the first network owned and operated by women. The network was targeted to young women, and mentor’s walks became a part of its brand. Four hundred women participated in the first walk, and Oxygen took it to other cities across the U.S. Today, Laybourne is vice chairman of Vital Voices, which supports 165 annual Mentoring Walks in more than 80 countries. 

With a master’s degree in elementary education, Laybourne’s deepest commitment is to early childhood education. “There was curriculum behind everything” at Nickelodeon, she said. 

As an undergraduate at Vassar College and later as a board member, Laybourne became interested in the public school system in Vassar’s hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York. In 2020, just 48% of the city’s students were graduating from high school, and Laybourne believed it was because Poughkeepsie was a “child-care desert.” She co-founded DAY ONE, which created a community-based approach to building a skilled childcare workforce, working with teachers, children, parents, and communities. Now in its third year, the nonprofit is focused on Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County, but has already drawn wider attention. 

Laybourne serves on statewide and U.S. Senate task forces for early childhood education. “We’re in high expansion mode and it all reminds me of Nickelodeon,” she said. “[DAY ONE’s] results are better than we thought they’d be. It’s because we’re concentrating on the audience. Everything I learned in the cable industry, I’m using.” 

Geraldine Laybourne, the pioneering media executive at Nickelodeon and founder of Oxygen Media, will receive the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award by the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center at the center's Cable Hall of Fame induction ceremony on April 18 in New York.

Laybourne became a star media executive first as a creator of children's and educational programming at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, where she spent 16 years and ran the network starting in 1984. She then served as president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks (1996-98) and was founder, chairman and CEO of Oxygen Media, the younger-women-focused cable network that launched under an intense spotlight in 2000 and was sold to NBCUniversal in 2007. She is in the Cable, Broadcasting+Cable and Television Academy halls of fame, was in the first group of Multichannel News Wonder Women and has received numerous other awards and honors, including Emmys, Peabodys and Parents’ Choice awards. She currently is on the boards of Betaworks, Common Sense Media Growth, The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and the Youth Opportunity Union (YOU) Advisory Boards and is vice chairman of Vital Voices, an organization that supports and develops promising women leaders around the world. She recently retired from the Vassar College board of trustees. 

In a statement, Laybourne said: “What an honor to receive this award in Bill’s name. A role model to all of us, Bill was passionate about using business as a jumping-off point to make the world a better place. I love that so many of us, in the formative years of cable, built businesses that gave back to the communities we served. I’m particularly proud of the mentoring efforts we started that now live on all over the world. I started casually asking young women to take a walk rather than going out for a meal. We formalized it in 2006 by launching the first-ever Mentors Walk in NYC, and now there are 175 walks taking place annually. I think Bill would heartily approve of all these wise women giving advice to the next generation of leaders by taking a walk.”

Michael Willner, board chairman of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center, said: “Gerry is a true trailblazer in the cable industry — from building Nickelodeon into a top-rated network to creating Oxygen and leading Disney/ABC, her career achievements are unrivaled. She has tirelessly served the industry through her work on numerous boards and the thousands of women she has mentored. Her unwavering dedication to the early learning community is game changing. It is a special honor to present my good friend with the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Past recipients of the Bresnan Award include Pat Esser, Bill Daniels, Decker Anstrom, Ted Turner, June Travis, Brian Lamb and Bill Miron. More about the award and a 2000 Cable Center oral history interview with Laybourne can be found here. More about the Cable Hall of Fame and the upcoming ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom can be found here.

 The Cable Center said Wednesday that it has named two former cable executives — the late Bill Daniels and retired Cox Communications CEO Patrick Esser — as recipients of its 2021 and 2022 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

The award recognizes the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the board of The Cable Center. The award will be presented at the 25th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, September 15 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

"Bill and Pat’s commitment to the creation and growth of the cable industry, as well as their history of supporting innumerable philanthropic endeavors is truly inspirational," The Cable Center president and CEO Diane Christman said in a press release. "We are delighted to honor them with the Bresnan Award."

Daniels, who died in 2000, is the 2020 Bresnan awardee and was an early pioneer in the cable industry. He started out building cable systems in the western part of the country, later forming Daniels & Associates, which became the consummate cable broker, facilitating many deals that shaped the cable business. He also was an active philanthropist,  providing significant support to innovative education efforts. He founded Young Americans Bank in 1987, the world's only bank exclusively for kids, and made substantial donations to the University of Denver to incorporate ethics, values, and personal integrity into the business school curriculum. The business school was later renamed the Daniels College of Business in his honor.

Daniels spent his final years laying plans for the Daniels Fund, which is now one of the largest foundations in the Rocky Mountain region, continuing his legacy of compassion and generosity across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming through grants, scholarships, and an ethics initiative.

"On behalf of the Daniels Fund, I am honored to accept this award for Bill Daniels," Daniels Fund president and CEO Hanna Skandera said in a press release. "He would have been extremely proud to receive this recognition along with Pat. He dedicated his life to the cable industry and to giving back to his community. His commitment to ethics and to being a steward of the next generation of leaders was unrivaled and we continue to see the impact of that commitment today."

Esser retired in 2021 after 15 years as CEO of Cox. A 42-year veteran of the company — he joined Cox in 1979 — during his tenure as CEO, Cox earned many accolades for celebrating its diverse people, suppliers, communities, products and the characteristics that make each one unique. Esser has personally been recognized with several industry awards including the Cable Advertising Bureau’s President’s Award, NCTA’s Vanguard Award for Leadership, Multichannel News’ Executive of the Year, NAMIC’s Living Legend Award and Hall of Fame inductions by both The Cable Center and Broadcasting+Cable

Also: Cable Industry Execs Salute Cox’s Patrick Esser

Esser currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of C-SPAN as well as a national Trustee and member of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He also served many years on both the board of CableLabs and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

“I am thrilled to accept the Bresnan Award,” Esser said in a press release. “Bill Bresnan was not only a mentor, but also a friend, and I greatly admired his passion for our industry and to doing what is right in today’s business world. I am humbled to be named this year’s award recipient and I am thrilled to be recognized alongside Bill Daniels.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business Award was created to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s long-standing commitment to ethics in business, and demonstrating societal, community, and philanthropic engagement.

“Bill and Pat have been two of the most passionate and innovative members of our industry. Their dedication to people and philanthropy exemplifies what the Bresnan Award is all about,” Michael Willner, chairman and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in a press release. “Pat has shown outstanding leadership at the helm of Cox Communications and his dedication to our industry and to supporting his community is extraordinary. Bill helped found the cable industry and his entrepreneurial spirit was at the core of its growth and success. We are honored to recognize both Bill and Pat.” ▪️

The Cable Center said Tuesday that it has named cable icon Ted Turner as the recipient of the 2020 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. The award will be presented at the Center’s 23rd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, scheduled for April 29, 2021, at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

An entrepreneur, philanthropist, sportsman, and environmentalist, Turner founded CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel and TBS, the nation’s first “superstation” using satellite technology to carry its signal nationwide. Through Turner Broadcasting, he also purchased the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team (now owned by Liberty Media) and the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team (now owned by Apollo Global Management co-founder Tony Wessler). Throughout his career, Turner also launched Cartoon Network, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and served as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner.

“Ted is a true industry trailblazer and his commitment to humanitarian, conservation and environmental causes is incomparable,” The Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in a press release. “We are delighted to honor him with this year’s Bresnan Award.”

A noted philanthropist, Turner has given to many causes but is probably best known for his $1 billion donation to establish the United Nations Foundation to support humanitarian work around the world. He also created the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which sought to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, and has provided extensive funding to conservation efforts through his Turner Foundation. He launched the charitable Goodwill Games and also signed The Giving Pledge, committing more than half his wealth to good deeds.

“Ted’s passion for the cable industry and his commitment to philanthropy is at the core of the Bresnan Award,” said Michael Willner president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s Board of Directors in a press release. “His entrepreneurial aptitude helped to form our industry and his dedication and support of numerous philanthropic and environmental causes is extraordinarily generous and unprecedented. We are honored to recognize him with this year’s Bresnan Award.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created in 2011 to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bresnan Communications founder and longtime Cable Center chairman Bill Bresnan’s longstanding commitment to ethics in business. Awardees represent the ideals upheld by Bill Bresnan, including continually demonstrating ethical leadership qualities, doing what’s right in the face of adversity, even when it is unpopular, incorporating doing what’s right in everyday life, and demonstrating societal, community, and philanthropic engagement.

“It is an incredible honor to be recognized for accomplishments that were considered by many as genius and maybe a bit outrageous. Creating CNN, pretty much against all odds and with the support of my fellow cable pioneers, was a mission of pure joy and determination, surpassed only by my work and dedication to conservation and the environment,” Turner said in a press release. “Bill was a good guy, and I admired him for his integrity and good works that he upheld through every aspect of his life. My time in the cable industry was a big adventure and I treasure the lifelong friendships I made. I am humbled to receive this year’s Bresnan Award.” 

Turner was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in 1999, the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2007 and has received a Peabody Award and the Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute. An endowed professorship at the George Washington University’s (GW) School of Media and Public Affairs is also being established in his honor, as well as the creation of the Ted Turner Exhibition Hall and Legacy Gallery at the University of Georgia.

Past recipients include former Continental Cablevision founder Amos B. Hostetter, Jr., former National Cable & Telecommunications CEO and Landmark Communications president Decker Anstrom; former CableVision Industries chief Alan Gerry; C-SPAN founder Brian  Lamb and NCTA executive June Travis. Last year’s winner was the late James Robbins, former CEO of Cox Communications. 

In December, WarnerMedia (which owns CNN) dedicated the news network’s Techwood Campus in Georgia to Turner, who a year prior told 60 Minutes he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. 

The Cable Center has announced that late former Cox Communications CEO Jim Robbins will receive the 2019 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

The award recognizes former Bresnan Communications founder and chairman and longtime Cable Center chairman, Bill Bresnan. The award will be presented at the 22nd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration May 2 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

Robbins served as Cox CEO for a decade and was long known as a pioneer in the industry. He retired in 2005 and died in October 2007 at the age of 65 after a brief battle with cancer.

Related: Friend, Fighter and Visionary

“Jim embodied the spirit of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award,” C-SPAN executive chairman and chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee, Brian Lamb in a statement. “He held a passion for the cable industry, commitment to excellence and was dedicated to the success of Cox Communications and its employees. We are honored to recognize him with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Related: Robbins Helped Lead an Industry 

Robbins joined Cox in 1983, was named president in 1985 and became CEO in 1995. During Robbins’ tenure, Cox quadrupled its size and led the industry on many issues, including sports rights. He retired from Cox at the end of 2005. Following his retirement, he was elected a member of the Cox Enterprises board of directors.

“Jim was such a positive influence in our industry and personally to so many of us at Cox,” current Cox president Patrick Esser said in a statement. “There was no one like him and hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t recount a Jim anecdote or special memory. He led the company to great success, but it is how he led that we remember most. To employees, customers, and colleagues, he was always genuine and giving and that’s what makes him so deserving of this recognition.”

Robbins served twice as chairman of the Internet & Television Association (NCTA) and won multiple awards, including the industry’s Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership. He is a member of the Cable Hall of Fame class of 2006. He was also a veteran, serving as a destroyer line officer and a gunboat flotilla public affairs officer during two tours of duty with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967.

“Jim’s commitment to excellence in customer service was exceptional, he was a mentor and friend to so many in our industry,” said The Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn in a statement. “We are delighted to remember Jim and his legacy with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created in 2011 to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s longstanding commitment to ethics in business. Awardees represent the ideals upheld by Bill Bresnan, including continually demonstrating ethical leadership qualities, doing what’s right in the face of adversity, even when it is unpopular, incorporating doing what’s right in everyday life, and demonstrating societal, community, and philanthropic engagement.

Past recipients include former Continental Cablevision founder Amos B. Hostetter, Jr., former National Cable & Telecommunications CEO and Landmark Communications president Decker Anstrom; former CableVision Industries chief Alan Gerry and Lamb. Last year’s winner was former National Cable Television Association executive June Travis. 

Since 1998, 133 leaders have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. For more information on the celebration and to secure sponsorships, visit ww.cablehalloffame.com, or call 720-502-7513.

The Cable Center said Wednesday that it has named former National Cable & Telecommunications CEO and president of Landmark Communications Decker Anstrom as the recipient of the 2015 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

The award, named in honor of the late Bresnan Communications founder and chairman and long-time chairman of the Cable Center board William Bresnan, will be presented at the 18th annual Cable Hall of Fame Celebration, May 5 at the Chicago Navy Pier, in conjunction with the NCTA’s Internet and Television Expo (INTX).

“The Bresnan Ethics in Business Award is not only a wonderful honor, but also a very humbling one,” Anstrom said in a statement. “I loved and respected Bill so much - and the previous recipients have all been true giants of our industry.” 

Anstrom joined the NCTA as executive vice president in 1987 and became president and CEO in 1994. During his tenure, he led the cable industry’s efforts that helped result in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 1999, Anstrom joined The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC) in Atlanta, GA. as president and CEO. In 2002 he became president of Landmark Communications and in that position he also served as chairman of TWCC.  He retired as president of Landmark Communications and chairman of The Weather Channel Companies in 2008, following Landmark’s sale of The Weather Channel to a group including NBC Universal.

He currently serves on the board of directors of Discovery Communications, as well as on the boards of several non-profit environmental groups including the Island Press, Climate Central, and Planet Forward. He also serves as chairman of the Board for the National Environmental Education Foundation and the Institute for Educational Leadership.

“Decker’s leadership has helped to shape our industry into the thriving, innovating business it is today,” said retired chairman and chief executive officer, Bright House Networks, and chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee Bob Miron in a statement. “His commitment to public service and philanthropy is unrivaled, and we are delighted to honor him with the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Prior to his positions at Landmark, Anstrom had a long career in public service and in the communications industry. During the Carter administration, he was a senior staff member in the White House Office of Management and Budget, working on the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. He also served in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and was president of Public Strategies, a Washington-based public policy consulting firm.

Anstrom also served as U.S. Ambassador and Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12), held under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union. WRC-12 was a treaty conference involving 150 nations that considered international and regional spectrum allocations that support satellite, mobile and other wireless services.

In addition, Anstrom has served on numerous cable industry boards, including NCTA, which he chaired for two years, and Comcast Corporation, where he chaired the Governance Committee. He is a member of the Cable Hall of Fame and has also received numerous industry awards including the Vanguard for Leadership Award.

“On behalf of The Cable Center, I am honored to recognize Decker with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award,” said Cable Center CEO Larry Satkowiak in a statement.  “His leadership on so many important issues in the cable industry and his involvement in the community are testaments to his dedication and commitment to ethics in business.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s longstanding commitment to ethics in business. Awardees represent the ideals upheld by Bill Bresnan, including continually demonstrating ethical leadership qualities, doing what’s right in the face of adversity, even when it is unpopular, incorporating doing what’s right in everyday life, and demonstrating societal, community and philanthropic engagement. 

Past awardees include Miron,  former CableVision Industries founder and Alan Gerry,  C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb and A+E Networks CEO emeritus Nick Davatzes.