Eddy Hartenstein, a former head of DirecTV, will become publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper reported on Saturday.
Hartenstein, a pioneering satellite television executive with no newspaper experience, will take over today. His job will be to invigorate a newspaper that has cut hundreds of jobs as it struggles with plunging circulation and ad revenue in the Internet age.
HIGH TURNOVER
Hartenstein will be the fourth Times publisher since the newspaper was acquired in 2000 by the Chicago-based Tribune Co. The post has been vacant since David Hiller resigned on July 14, the same day that Tribune began implementing more staff cutbacks.
Hartenstein, 57, said he was approached for the job about a month ago by Tribune chief Sam Zell, who did not demand any more cuts.
“I wanted to know that I would have the ability … to call the shots,” he said on Friday.
Zell “basically said ‘You’re the publisher and CEO. It’s yours to run,”’ Hartenstein said.
Hartenstein, an engineer who graduated from the California Institute of Technology, is considered one of the founding fathers of satellite television. He was working for Hughes Electronics Corp, which was later acquired by General Motors Corp, when he began considering the use of satellites to deliver TV programming.
DIRECTV
In the 1990s, he persuaded GM to finance a venture that would become DirecTV Group Inc. He became the company’s president and was chairman and CEO from 2001 to 2004.
DirecTV introduced small satellite dishes that could be mounted on practically any roof, wall or balcony, in comparison to the large backyard dishes then in general use by satellite TV subscribers.
Hartenstein went on to serve on the boards of SanDisk Corp, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc, Broadcom Corp and the City of Hope hospital in Duarte.
He was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame in 2002 and received an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences last year.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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