Manuel Polanco appointed new president of Sogecable

The Board of Directors of Sogecable, at the request of PRISA - the sole shareholder of the company - today approved the appointment of Manuel Polanco as new president, replacing Rodolfo Martin Villa.

Sogecable has thus adapted its Board of Directors to the new goals of the firm that is set to become the holding company for PRISA's audiovisual operations and, as such, will absorb all of the Group's audiovisual investments. In line with similar decisions that have been or will be adopted across other branches of PRISA, Sogecable is strengthening its Board of Directors with renowned professionals with broad experience in the audiovisual sector while at the same time reducing the number of directors to turn it into a more specialized and operational body that is better placed to meet the demands of a television market undergoing a complete process of transformation.

Pedro García Guillén remains CEO of the company, as do former members of the Board, Juan Luis Cebrián, vice-president, Gregorio Marañón, Jaime Terceiro and Leopoldo Rodés.

Joining as new directors are Pierre Lescure, who has been CEO of Canal+ France for over ten years as well as vice-president of Canal+ España (subsequently Sogecable) from 1989 to 2002; Markus Tellenbach, president and CEO of TVN Group, Poland's leading media group; and Fernando Martínez, secretary general of  Grupo PRISA, with extensive experience in the audiovisual sector after heading Sogecable's Management, Planning and Finance division from 1998 until 2009.

During the Board meeting, the new president of Sogecable, Manuel Polanco, paid tribute to "the valuable contribution of Rodolfo Martín Villa to the development and strategy of this company, and his inestimable capacity for dialogue and consensus with all sectors involved in the audiovisual market and, especially, with Telefonica, Sogecable's strategic partner for many years. " He added that "the audiovisual holding company is now the main source of revenue for Grupo PRISA and is set to become the motor for strategic growth for the company. To this end, we have already initiated a series of operations that will lead to a wide expansion for the Group in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets".

Rodolfo Martín Villa, at the same meeting, expressed his satisfaction with the time he spent as president of Sogecable and thanked all who have worked with him over the years, noting that he could have no better successor than the one now designated to take over the reins.

Juan Luis Cebrián, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of PRISA, said the reorganization is in line with the decisions the group has begun to take as a result of its shareholding restructuring and its new policy aimed at growth and expansion.

The planned reorganization foresees Sogecable, owner of Digital+ and Cuatro, incorporating its assets  from TVI - Portugal's leading Free-to-View television channel - with those of production company Plural, based in Madrid, Lisbon, Miami and Rio de Janeiro, and the US TV Vme channel based in New York. Sogecable will now be called PRISA-TV.

Manuel Polanco Moreno. Manuel holds a degree in Economics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and has spent his entire career at PRISA. In January 2009 he was named general managing director of the Group's business units, a post he has held till his latest appointment to the presidency of Sogecable.

In 1991, he took over as head of Santillana Chile and Peru. He was editor-in-chief of the Mexican newspaper La Prensa and launched the American edition of El País. In 1996 he became director of Santillana in Latin America and the United States, based in Miami. He was president of Gerencia de Medios (GDM) and the Grupo Empresarial de Medios Impresos (GMI), both belonging to PRISA. In 2005 he was named CEO of the Portuguese media group Media Capital (TVI), where he spent more than three years. He has been a PRISA CEO since 2001, a member of the executive committee since 2008 and CEO at Sogecable since 2006.

Pierre Lescure was CEO of Canal+ France for over ten years, head of Vivendi Universal from 2000 to 2002 and Vice-President of Canal+ España and, subsequently,  Sogecable from 1989 to 2002, where he spearheaded the launch and development of Canal+ in Spain. He is currently a board member of the Lagardere group and Le Monde.

Markus Tellenbach is president and CEO of TVN Group, Poland's leading media group. Tellenbach has extensive experience in the development and growth of Pay TV and digital media. Since 2001 he has held top-level posts in SBS where he was behind strategic expansion plans that saw it become one of the most dynamic companies in Europe.

He was previously CEO of KirchPayTV and Premiere World (now Sky, Germany's leading pay-television platform), and chairman of Convers Media, a leading international media company involved chiefly in the marketing of online video and electronic advertising.

Fernando Martínez, has been secretary general of PRISA since February 2009, where he headed the Legal, Communications and Institutional Relations divisions, as well as the CEO Office. Martínez has wide and varied experience in the audiovisual sector having headed at Sogecable the areas of Management, Planning, Investor Relations and Business and Finance, from 1998 to 2009.