Ex-M&A sales chief lands CNN role

Former Mills & Allen (M&A) sales director Lawson Muncaster, who was fired after the outdoor company was taken over by JC Decaux, has been appointed sales director of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).

Former Mills & Allen (M&A) sales director Lawson Muncaster, who was fired after the outdoor company was taken over by JC Decaux, has been appointed sales director of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).

Muncaster joins TBS amid the high-profile merger of holding company Time Warner with America Online – the world’s largest media group.

Muncaster, who has responsibility for CNN International’s advertising sales in the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavia, takes over from Julia Terry, who left the company last summer to join Real Media as digital interactive TV manager.

Eric Clemenceau, senior vice-president of international sales at the TBS Group, says: “Lawson brings two key qualities to this position: an indepth, and proven, knowledge of pan-European TV and a strong local understanding of clients in the region.”

Muncaster, whose main objective will be to build the CNN brand and develop its London office, lost his job – along with M&A chief executive David Pugh – last July.

Pugh became managing director of rival outdoor company Maiden Outdoor at the beginning of this month.

Before joining M&A in 1998, Muncaster was joint sales director of Eurosport.