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 - OCT TV-16 and TV-13. While TV-16 provides information regarding the many programs, services and opportunities made available by the District of Columbia Government. TV-13 provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of the live and recorded activities of the D.C. 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 responsible for administering the programs and services under the agency's purview; administers the Office's responsibility for the day-to-day oversight of the construction and operation of the District's cable television systems; regulates cable television services in the District as prescribed in Cable Franchise Agreements and is ultimately responsible for programming 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.

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 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.