Lovett takes COO post at Charter cable

ST. LOUIS -- Charter Communications Inc. -- the nation's third-largest cable television provider -- said Monday it has promoted its executive vice president of operations and customer care to chief operating officer.

Michael Lovett, 43, succeeds Maggie Bellville, who left the company in September after serving as COO since David Barford's December 2002 firing in connection with an accounting scandal.

Lovett joined suburban St. Louis-based Charter in August 2003 as senior vice president of Midwest operations and was tapped to be executive vice president of operations when Bellville resigned.

Robert May, Charter's interim president and chief executive, said Lovett and the rest of Charter's senior management was working toward a "renewed sense of operational excellence and customer focus throughout the organization."

"I'm confident that with Mike's proven business experience and leadership, the Charter team will drive continued improvements in service delivery and customer care," May said.

Lovett's career in cable TV began in 1980 with Centel Communications eventually becoming a Chicago-based regional operations manager. He later worked for Jones Intercable Inc., rising to senior vice president of operations.

Before joining Charter, he was COO of Voyant Technologies Inc., a voice-conferencing hardware-software solutions provider in Denver.

Shares of Charter slipped three cents, or about 2 percent, and closed at $1.50 on Monday on the Nasdaq stock Market, near the bottom end of the 52-week range of $1.23 to $4.95.

May, a Charter director, continues looking to fill the vacancy of chief financial officer at a company that has seen a shuffle in its executive suites over the past several months.

May took over as interim chief executive and president after Carl Vogel left Charter in January after last year's big losses -- $4.35 billion, on the heels of $242 million in red ink in 2003 -- and a debt load that the company says swelled to $19.5 billion as of Dec. 31.

Last month, Charter said its general counsel, Robert Shaw, will leave the company April 15 to accept a comparable job with Dallas-based chemicals maker Celanese Corp.

Charter already had announced that its co-chief financial officer, Derek Chang, also would be stepping down April 15, though neither the company -- controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen -- nor Chang have publicly said why. Chang also has served as executive vice president of finance and strategy, with overall responsibility for treasury and mergers and acquisitions.

Chang was tapped last summer to temporarily share the role of CFO with Paul Martin, filling a vacancy created when Michael Huseby left to take a similar job at rival Cablevision Systems Corp.

Also in January, Charter parted ways with chief administrative officer Steven Schumm after eliminating his position. Schumm served as its interim CFO from December 2002 to January 2004, assuming that role after Kent Kalkwarf was fired with Barford in light of the accounting scandal.

Kalkwarf, Barford and former senior vice presidents David McCall and James Smith III each have pleaded guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to defraud. They are to be sentenced April 22.

Federal prosecutors have alleged the executives schemed in 2000 and 2001 to inflate revenue and operating cash flow while indicating that the company had more cable subscribers than it did.

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On the Net:

Charter Communications Inc., http://www.charter.com.