Showtime’s Blank, Disney’s Sweeney Honored by NCTA

WASHINGTON, March 31: Matthew
Blank, the chairman and CEO of Showtime Networks, and Anne Sweeney, the co-chair of Disney Media Networks and the president of
Disney-ABC Television Group, are the 2008 recipients of the Vanguard Award for
Distinguished Leadership from the National Cable & Telecommunications
Association (NCTA).

Sweeney and Blank top the
list of nine Vanguard Award winners who will be recognized for their
outstanding contributions to the cable industry. The awards will be presented
on May 20 at a reception and awards ceremony during The Cable Show ’08, taking
place in New Orleans.

The Vanguard Awards will
be presented by Abbe Raven, the chair of the NCTA Vanguard Awards Committee and
the president and CEO of A&E Television Networks.

In addition to the
Distinguished Leadership category, Vanguard Awards are also presented for Young
Leadership, with this year’s honoree being Bret Perkins, the VP of government
affairs at Comcast Cable Corporation. The Vanguard Award for programmers is
going to Kenneth W. Lowe, the president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Company;
and the science and technology award will be presented to Paul G. Allen, the
chairman of Charter Communications and chairman of Vulcan Inc.

Other Vanguard Award
honorees this year include Steven Brookstein, the executive VP of operations at
Bresnan Communications; Carol A. Melton, the executive VP of global public
policy at Time Warner; Sam Howe, the executive VP and chief marketing officer
at Time Warner Cable; and Michael Pohl, the president of global strategies at
C-COR.

—By Mansha Daswani