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.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS