FCC's Chessen To Succeed Brenner At NCTA: Sources

By John Eggerton
published

According to sources, Rick Chessen is exiting the Federal Communications Commission to join the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

Chessen, who has been a top aide to FCC Commissioner and former Acting Chairman Michael Copps, will succeed Dan Brenner heading up the association's law and regulatory policy. NCTA had no comment.

Brenner, after more than 16 years of fighting cable's competitors and the government as the organization's senior vice president for law and public policy , left  NCTA to join Hogan & Hartson, an international telecommunications-law firm in Washington, D.C.

Sources also confirm a report in Communications Daily that Diane Smith, an executive at Fox TV's D.C. station, will also join NCTA..

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.