President Named at Newly Merged Columbia TriStar

Eric Tannenbaum has been named to the new position of president of Sony’s Columbia TriStar Television, a group formed by consolidating the TriStar and Columbia labels. Tannenbaum was formerly executive vice president of TriStar Television. His counterpart at Columbia, Jeff Wachtel, was named head of a new company, 3 Arts Television, formed Wednesday by Sony, CBS and the talent management firm of 3 Arts Entertainment.

As a result of the merger of Columbia and TriStar, Helene Michaels has been promoted to executive vice president of Columbia TriStar, in charge of all development.

* Bill Bennett has been named president of Geffen and DGC Records, home to such hit acts as Hole, Beck and Guns N’ Roses. The 44-year-old industry veteran worked at Columbia, Epic and MCA Records before joining Geffen as director of promotion in 1991. Geffen Records, one of the most successful rock labels in music business, is owned by MCA Inc.

* At MCA TV, Steve Rosenberg has been named executive vice president, with oversight of sales of all domestic first-run, off-network and library products to the broadcast and cable markets. Arthur Smith has been named senior vice president of first-run and network reality programming.