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CABLE WORLD STAFF

A&E: Risa Rosenthal has been named VP-direct response and advertising and will be responsible for all direct response advertising for A&E Television Networks, the History Channel and Biography Magazine. She had been director-direct response advertising. She joined the network in 1985, and has managed the direct response department since 1987.

AVANEX CORP.: Peter R. Maguire has joined the company as VP-sales. A 24-year veteran of the communications industry, he was most recently VP-IXC sales with Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. He has also been VP-sales with Pirelli Cable and Systems North America.

BLOOMBERG TELEVISION: Bronwyn Curtis has been named managing editor for Europe. A member of The Guardian newspaper's/economic advisory panel, Curtis had been chief economist at Nomura International and is a member of the Economic and Social Research Council.

THE BOX: Kymberly Nelson has been named director-advertising sales, Midwest region and will be responsible for selling Internet ad time in major cities in the Midwest. She had been at Pearson/All American Television where she had been VP-division manager since 1997. Prior to that, she had been program director at WMC-TV in Memphis, Tenn. She had also been with WPTY-TV and WLMT-TV in Memphis.

BRESNAN COMMUNICATIONS: Joseph DiBacco has been appointed regional manager for Nebraska. He will be based in Grand Island, Neb., and will also be GM for Grand Island, Hastings and North Platte. DiBacco had been Southwest division manager for Century Communications in California. Prior to that, he had worked for CablePlus and Triax Communications Corp. Lawrence Eleftheri has been named VP-advertising sales and will be based in Madison, Wis. Eleftheri had been regional VP for Insight Communications in Indiana. Before joining Insight, he had been with TCI Media Services for nine years.

CNBC: Douglas E. McMahon has been named to the newly created position of SVP-marketing & research. Most recently, he was EVP/GM of J. Walter Thompson in New York. He had also been SVP and global business director for the company. Prior to that, he was GM of the start-up, National Mall Network. He had also been an account supervisor at Grey Advertising.

CABLEVISION: Mac Budill has been named SVP-video products. He joined the company in 1991 as program manager and was named SVP-programming in 1998. Prior to joining Cablevision, he was a management consultant with Bain & Co. Phil DeCabia has been named VP-Long Island business telecommunications services, the division responsible for operating Lightpath, the company's commercial telephone service. DeCabia joined Cablevision in 1983 as one of the first employees of Rainbow Advertising Sales Co. (RASCO) and left there in 1995 as SVP-director, ad sales for SportsChannel to join Lightpath.

CARTOON NETWORK: Gary Albright has been named SVP-trade creative services. Before joining the network, he had been art director at Hanna-Barbera's Orbit City Art Company. He had also been design director for Turner Publishing and was manager of design for the Walt Disney Co. in the publishing division.

CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS: Sherry Gearner has joined the company as regional director for government affairs in the Ft. Worth-Dallas area. Gearner has been in the cable industry for more than 20 years, and was most recently director-marketing and public affairs for Paragon Cable in Irving, Texas. She was also responsible for marketing at cable companies in Minnesota and Houston.

COM 21: David P. Santomarco has been promoted from director-North American sales, a position he has held since 1997 to the newly created position of VP-North American sales. Prior to joining the company, Santomarco was director of account management with Time Warner Cable. Before that, he had been in management positions with AT&T Network Services.

COX COMMUNICATIONS: Deborah Lawrence has been promoted to VP-customer care center for Southern California. She had been director of the company's customer care operation in San Diego and Orange County and responsible for broadband calls for high-speed data and digital telephone nationwide. Prior to joining Cox in 1998, she was with Fidelity Investments as VP-site manager. She had also been manager of the customer service call center for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. Jimmy Hayes has been promoted to EVP-finance and administration and CFO. Hayes has held various executive positions at the company since joining Cox Enterprises Inc. in 1981 as accounting manager. In 1989, he joined Cox Cable as VP-finance and was promoted to SVP-finance in 1992. When Cox Cable became publicly traded in 1995, Hayes added the title of CFO. Before joining Cox, he was audit manager with Price Waterhouse & Co.

WEATHER CHANNEL: Dr. Gregory Forbes has joined the network as the severe weather expert. He worked with Dr. Ted Fujita, an expert on tornadoes who is the namesake for the scale used to rate the strength of tornadoes. Since 1978, Forbes has taught meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and has authored, co-authored and/or edited research publications related to a range of meteorological topics including severe weather.