Ex-Court TV Chairman Takes Top Job at Crown Media

STUDIO CITY, October 4: Crown Media Holdings, parent company
of Hallmark Channel in the U.S., has tapped former Court TV chairman Henry Schleiff
as president and CEO, succeeding David Evans, who stepped down in May.

Schleiff will join Crown Media immediately and will work out
of the company's New York offices. He was chairman and CEO of Court TV from
1999 till this year. During his tenure he grew the channel’s distribution from
30 million subscribers to 85 million subscribers, and successfully negotiated
the sale of the channel to Time Warner. The channel was previously co-owned by
Time Warner and Liberty Media.

"Henry is an industry leader who is passionate about
the opportunities that can be created in cable television. His experience and
expertise make him uniquely qualified for this role," said Don Hall, Jr.,
the president and CEO of Hallmark Cards and co-chairman of the Crown Media Holdings
board of directors. "Henry is universally respected and has a proven track
record of building a highly successful cable network, producing a wide variety
of original programming and guiding high performance management teams."

"I am delighted to be joining Crown Media for three
reasons," said Schleiff. "First, I passionately believe in the
network's message and what it stands for: quality and values as reflected in
its family friendly original programming and award-winning series and movies.
Secondly, operators appreciate Hallmark Channel's importance to them as one of
the few networks in their lineup not programmed toward the younger demographics
but, rather, at subscribers who are often the ones actually paying the cable
bill and who simply want quality programming they can watch with their family.
Similarly, advertisers who are seeking to maximize the effective return on
their investments will increasingly turn to the well-established buying power
of the Baby Boomer generation—an audience to which the uncluttered and
engaging environment of Hallmark Channel directly appeals. Lastly, while this
is a challenging environment for all forms of media—especially, as I well
know, for an independent cable network—my experience proves that if you start
with quality, add value and surround yourself with the kind of talented and
dedicated people already at Hallmark Channel, you have the right ingredients to
make some real progress—and even have some fun along the way!"

Before joining Court TV, Schleiff held executive positions
at Home Box Office, Viacom and Studios USA.