Beth Knutsen Main is Director of Affiliate Sales for HBO, where she is currently responsible for the business HBO does with Comcast’s West Division. In this capacity she leads a team of sales and marketing executives and product trainers to direct business relationship management, brand positioning, pricing strategies, consumer advertising, and point-of-sale training and development.
Prior to joining HBO in 2002, Beth served as Director of Marketing for DIVA Systems, a Silicon Valley start-up in California. In the late ‘90s, DIVA was a video-on-demand technology pioneer, determined to convince a then-skeptical cable industry that VOD was a viable product. Beth spearheaded a complete renovation of the company’s corporate identity in preparation for commercial launch. She also devised the first consumer marketing plans used in the successful launch of VOD to DIVA’s first six U.S. markets.
Beth’s cable industry education began in 1983 on the operator side of the business and included various advancing marketing positions at Cable Oakland and Viacom Cable.
A San Francisco native, Beth is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara and holds a degree in English Literature. She is a published travel writer (Karen Brown’s Pacific Northwest: Charming Inns & Driving Itineraries, first published in 2003) and a one-time professional ballet dancer, trained for a time at the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School. She is an Associate Board Member of the California Cable & Telecommunications Association (CCTA), an Executive Member of WICT, and a Member of CTAM.