WASHINGTON — Craig Tanner, executive director of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), is leaving that digital TV standards group to head Sharp Electronics Corp.'s cable TV unit.
Tanner joined ATSC in July 1997, shortly after government regulators approved the ATSC specification as the U.S. digital TV transmission standard for broadcasters. Since then, Tanner helped push implementation of the standard in the United States and abroad.
ATSC is competing throughout Asia with a rival European digital TV specification.
Tanner will join Sharp Laboratories of America (Camus, Wash.) as vice president of its Cable Business Development department. He previously served as vice president of advanced television projects at Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (Louisville, Colo.).
Tanner said he will leave ATSC on Oct. 18. No replacement has been named. ATSC chairman Robert Graves will head a search team that will find a replacement.
