The Vanguard Award for Associates and Affiliates recognizes the important contributions of equipment manufacturers and service suppliers to cable industry innovation, growth and progress. As president and CEO of In Demand, Bob Benya’s entrepreneurial expertise has elevated many revolutionary products and services, including content-delivery innovations, new technology launches, groundbreaking marketing and first-to-market interfaces.
In Demand delivers about 360,000 hours of marquee content each year to more than 60 million subscribers. In 2015, Benya led In Demand to deliver the best PPV results in its 30-year history.
Receiving the 2016 Vanguard Award, he said, is “an incredible honor that recognizes the work our great teams at Time Warner Cable and In Demand have accomplished to develop innovative services for the industry and consumers.”
Benya has deep roots in cable operations. From 1991 through 2009, he held several senior operating and corporate executive positions at Time Warner Cable, including corporate senior vice president of video product strategy. He worked on the development of pivotal technological and product advances that improved and expanded cable service for consumers.
As part of TWC’s Full Service Network, Benya helped pioneer digital TV, video-on-demand, interactive TV and interactive program guides, along with the blueprints for industry-wide deployments. Later, he was on the founding team that designed and led the rollout of Road Runner, TWC’s high-speed Internet service. And as part of AOL Time Warner Inc.’s interactive video group, he led the team that designed network DVR (the genesis of current cloud-based solutions) and the “Start Over” and “Look Back” features available to all Time Warner Cable digital customers.
During the early 1990s, working at a Time Warner Cable joint venture, Benya moved to Europe to lead sales, marketing and programming for the second-largest MSO in Sweden. In the 1980s, he headed up marketing for several MSOs and helped launch such services as pay-per-view, business class and the first fiber-based ad-sales interconnect across New York City. He was tapped for the leadership team that rebuilt and secured large and complex urban cable systems to set the stage for future growth and new products. He also secured franchise renewals and the buildout of new systems throughout New York City.
Benya is on the boards of CTAM and the CTAM Educational Foundation. He previously served on the boards of In Demand, Music Choice and The Better Business Bureau Online, and was co-chairman of CTAM’s Advanced Cable Services Consortium (now the Advanced Video Council). He has received numerous CTAM Mark Awards, three Marketing Executive of the Year awards, TWC’s Innovation Award and a Technical Emmy for overseeing the groundbreaking “Start Over” service. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from New York University.
Benya lives in Breezy Point, N.Y., with his wife Barbara, a former TWC executive. He has four children.
