Anne Sweeney, Matt Blank Top Vanguard Award Winners

NCTA to present awards on May 20 at the Cable Show in New Orleans

By B&C Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/31/2008 3:08:00 PM

The National Cable & Telcommunications Association today announced winners of its coveted Vanguard Awards, topped by Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks and President, Disney-ABC Television Group and Matthew Blank, Chairman and CEO, Showtime Networks Inc., who both will receive Distinguished Leadership awards. (NCTA typically picks a man and a woman for this award each year.)

Sweeney and Blank top the list of nine Vanguard Award winners who will be recognized for their outstanding contributions to the cable industry. 

Other winners, in other Vanguard categories are: Bret Perkins, Vice President of Government Affairs, Comcast Cable Corporation, receiving the Young Leadership Award; Kenneth W. Lowe, President & CEO, The E.W. Scripps Company; awarded the Programming Vanguard; Paul G. Allen, Chairman, Charter Communications and Chairman, Vulcan Inc ., who will receive the Science and Technology Award;  Steven Brookstein, Executive Vice President, Operations, Bresnan Communications, who gets the Cable Operations Management Vanguard; Carol A. Melton, Executive Vice President, Global Public Policy, Time Warner Inc., receives the Vanguard Award for Government and Communication Relations;  Sam Howe, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Time Warner Cable gets the Marketing Award; and Michael Pohl, President, Global Strategies, C-COR, receives the award for Associates and Affiliates.

The Vanguard Awards will be presented on Tues., May 20, at a 4:15 p.m. CDT reception and awards ceremony during NCTA's 57th Annual Convention & International Exposition, May 18-20 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The Vanguards, generally considered to be the cable industry’s most prestigious award, have been given out since 1965.