TELE-TV announces Brian Steel as Joint Venture's Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development

NEW YORK -- Howard Stringer, Chairman and CEO of TELE-TV, announced today the appointment of Brian Steel as Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development of TELE-TV.

In his new role, Mr. Steel will report to Mr. Stringer and will have overall responsibility for strategy formulation, business development, and alliance management. He will be responsible for analyzing the entertainment, media, and communications industries, and identifying attractive projects and lines of business. He will also manage the structuring and negotiation of acquisitions and joint venture opportunities.

TELE-TV is a new media and technology joint venture of Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Pacific Telesis. Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is a consultant to the venture. Mr. Steel will serve as liaison with the partners.

In making the announcement, Mr. Stringer said: "Brian Steel played a key role in creating the idea and the reality of TELE-TV. His insight, his wisdom and broad knowledge, make him the ideal point man to propel our partnership in its digital destiny."

Mr. Steel said: "I couldn't be more thrilled. It's rare to have the opportunity to participate in the creation of a venture like TELE-TV. Then to be fortunate enough to become part of the realization of the vision. In the spirit of true interactive media, I will enjoy having some influence over how the movie ends."

Mr. Steel joins TELE-TV from Pacific Telesis Group, where he served as Vice President, Strategic Development, for the firm's video services unit, Pacific Telesis Enhanced Services. As a key member of this business unit's management team, he was responsible for establishing strategic frameworks, and structuring the alliances and joint ventures that were essential to developing a broad array of competitive services for the "communications superhighway."

With his leadership, Pacific Telesis took several vital steps into the interactive multimedia information and entertainment industry, including the creation of an electronic shopping and information service with Times Mirror, the formation of TELE-TV, and the recent acquisition of Cross Country Wireless in southern California.

Before joining Pacific Telesis, Mr. Steel was a principal and founding partner of Conversion Management Associates (San Francisco), a consulting firm with special expertise in public/private sector partnerships. Prior to founding CMA in 1992, he concluded a ten-year career in commercial real estate, serving as Senior Vice President, Real Estate Merchant Banking, Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. (New York), with responsibility for investment structuring and portfolio management.

Mr. Steel is a magna cum laude graduate, B.A. Economics, of Duke University, which he attended as an Angier B. Duke Scholar. He is married with two children and will be headquartered in the New York offices of TELE-TV.

TELE-TV is a new media joint venture of Bell Atlantic (NYSE: BEL), NYNEX (NYSE: NYN), and Pacific Telesis Group (NYSE: PAC). TELE-TV will offer nationally branded, traditional and interactive home entertainment, and information services over its partners' wireline and wireless networks in six of the nation's top seven markets.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.