Biography
Director
Eric E. Richardson

Eric E. Richardson is Director of the Office of Cable Television (OCT). OCT is the award winning District government agency that regulates all cable television providers within the District of Columbia. In addition, OCT manages the District's two municipal government channels: TV-13 and DCN. While DCN provides information regarding the many programs, services and opportunities made available by the District of Columbia Government; and, TV-13 provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of the live and recorded activities of the DC City Council and its various committees, together these channels are intended to provide District of Columbia residents access to the activities and processes of their government.

Richardson is dedicated to providing stellar programming and cable services to the residents of the District of Columbia. He administers the day-to-day oversight of the construction and operation of the District's cable television systems; regulates cable television services as prescribed in the Cable Franchise Agreements and is ultimately responsible for programming that is aired on the District's municipal cable access channels. He also directs OCT's national award winning production department, creating human interest, history, science, health, lifestyle, performance, and news and public affairs programming. He served as OCT's director of programming from December 2006 until January 2007.

Recently Richardson has negotiated the procurement of the future home of OCT to be housed at Black Entertainment Television (BET), 1894 9th Street, NW, Washington, DC 2000 with the first phase of the move tentatively scheduled for November 2011.

Under Richardson's leadership, OCT collected five (5) 2010 National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NOTOA) Government Programming Awards (GPAs) in a national competition for the following productions: Enslavement to Emancipation, Washington Full Circle: Cinema City, CableTalk, School Sketch, and an award in the category of Overall Excellence in Government Programming.

In April 2009, under the leadership of Richardson, an agreement was reached to offer Verizon FiOS service to the residents of the District of Columbia, adding a third and competitive cable provider with service provided to residents of Ward in October 2009. Additionally, in 2009 Mr. Richardson launched the rebranding of the District Schools Television station to District Knowledge Network (DKN) to include programming directed towards life-long learning, i.e. GED preparation, home remodeling, language skills, financial planning and geography. Among Richardson's many accomplishments, DKN televised the DC Interscholastic Athletic Associations (DCIAA) Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl football championship game in 2010 and the Abe Pollin City Title Games this past March 2010.

In addition, Richardson spearheaded the Digital Television (DTV) transition campaign, representing the Executive Office of the Mayor, in partnership with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) reaching thousands of DC residents to ensure that they were DTV ready.

Prior to joining OCT, Richardson worked for Howard University's PBS affiliate, WHUT-TV, as the Director of Broadcast Services. He was responsible for the station's overall operations oversight capacity and supervised and coordinated the overall on-air product that included news, information and entertainment. He was also responsible for several station productions, website operations, news and programming staff, as well as for analyzing and interpreting audience data, and working with management to make programming decisions in response to audience research. After over a nine year absence, he successfully implemented WHUT's on-air fundraising strategy in September of 2004. Additionally, he served as Executive Producer of Evening Exchange with Kojo Nnamdi and played a key role in the development and direction of such shows as The Tavis Smiley Show, Moneywise with Kelvin Boston, and White House Chronicles. Richardson worked directly with the university president H. Patrick Swygert and WHUT's general managers Jennifer Lawson and Adam Clayton Powell III in developing the channel's creative vision.

Richardson's prior positions include director of content and traffic management for Mega Advertising (Media General Cable Advertising) where he was responsible for the content on the Washington, DC interconnect reaching over 1.5 million homes, director for programming and production at Broadcast Holdings' WYCB-AM, where he headed the relaunch of the station during a Radio One acquisition; director of programming at WNDC-AM in Baton Rouge; he has created programming content and marketing campaigns for Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB), The Shakespeare Theater, True Colors Theater Company, Clear Channel Communications and ChildHelp USA.

Mr. Richardson is a member of the Washington, DC Economic Partnership (WDCEP) and served on the Lincoln Theatre Foundation Board of Directors and former member of the Board of Governors for the National Capital/Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) where he co-chaired the Student Affairs committee. He has been a featured speaker/presenter for the United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI), Howard University, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) and American Public Television (APT) and is a two time Emmy nominated producer. A native of Louisiana, Mr. Richardson received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communications from The Manship School of Journalism at Louisiana State University and currently resides in Ward 6.