Two executives long known as top programming chiefs for big MSOs are on the move, with one leaving a full-time Comcast Corp. job and another said to be leaving Adelphia Communications Corp.
Tom Hurley, former senior vice president of programming at Comcast, actually left the company as of July 1, but is still working for the MSO as a consultant, Comcast spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick confirmed last week after a reporter's inquiry.
When Comcast hired former AT&T Broadband programmer Matt Bond as executive vice president and chief programming negotiator last December, it named Hurley president of the Digital Programming Center in Denver, part of Comcast Media Center. The center's top executive is chief operating officer Gary Traver, who received a promotion in May.
Fitzpatrick said Hurley is consulting on "a variety of interactive and programming-related technologies." He joined Comcast in 1990.
At the time Comcast replaced him with Bond, industry executives said Hurley's brusque manner worked against him, and that Comcast was impressed with the deals Bond hammered out at AT&T's cable unit.
At Adelphia, vice president of programming Jeff Abbas is planning to leave his position at the end of August, according to several sources. Both Abbas and an Adelphia spokesman declined to comment on whether or not Abbas was leaving Adelphia, which is moving to Denver from Coudersport, Pa.
Abbas is talking to officials at the National Cable Television Cooperative about taking a position there, and relocating to its headquarters in Lenexa, Kan., sources said. An NCTC spokesman declined to comment.
Earlier this year, Adelphia brought in Judith Meyka, former InDemand senior vice president of distribution, as its top programming official, senior vice president of programming — in a position over Abbas's.
