CABLE ’STAR’ CHANGES CHANNELS

You’d think that with all Anne Hall did for the people at Warner Amex Cable Communications, they’d do cartwheels to try to keep her happy and on their payroll.

After all, it was Anne who, at age 27, successfully led the long fight for Warner Amex to get the lucrative franchise that wired Dallas for cable. And then it was Anne who spearheaded the successful campaign to get approval for the franchise at the polls last April.

But though they made her a vice president, they didn’t keep her happy; she has now bolted to take a new position as information services manager for the Morning News.

“It was time,” says Ms. Hall. “Ever since the election I felt like one of those mothers for hire. I couldn’t give up the franchise, and I couldn’t build it myself. They were bringing in all these engineers to build it.”

Besides, she says, the News offered her a good deal. “What I’m going to be doing is researching and hopefully managing ways in which the newspaper might repackage its resources,” Ms. Hall says.

“It has tremendous resources that are inefficiently directed. If you look at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, all these newspapers are looking at re-evaluating all of the people and organizations they have at their disposal in terms of what other services they might provide the local community,” Ms. Hall says.

“One of the areas we will spend a lot of time looking at is how to get the Morning News or parts of it on cable television in a way that makes money.”