Satellite Pioneer to Retire From DirecTV

Eddy W. Hartenstein, widely regarded as the father of modern-day satellite television, will retire as vice chairman of News Corp.’s DirecTV Group Inc. at the end of the year, the company said Thursday.

Sources said that Hartenstein, a Caltech graduate and aerospace engineer, had grown frustrated with his diminishing role at the company he launched in 1990 and built into the nation’s leading satellite TV provider. Since News Corp. took control last December and installed new leadership, the sources said, Hartenstein has increasingly been cut out of the loop.

The abrupt timing of Hartenstein’s resignation, announced late in the afternoon, caught many employees at the El Segundo-based company by surprise. The brainy, down-to-earth executive is just 54 -- young enough, industry sources speculated, to start a second career at another technology-based company, perhaps in a burgeoning area such as satellite radio.

In an interview Thursday, Hartenstein said he planned to take some time off before contemplating his next move.

“The thing I’m proudest of is that we really changed the way people view television,” said Hartenstein, who long kept an old black-and-white television in his South Bay garage that served as a reminder of how far broadcast had come. “We made digital happen.”

Executives at News Corp., which acquired the company from General Motors Corp., issued a statement acknowledging Hartenstein as the creator of DirecTV.

“Eddy has not only been a colleague but a friend for more than 10 years,” Chase Carey, chief executive of DirecTV, said in the statement. “His expertise and counsel have been critical to our progress during the last year.”

Hartenstein, who grew up in Alhambra, was a longtime executive at Hughes Electronics Corp., the aerospace, defense and satellite subsidiary of GM.

In the 1990s, Hartenstein persuaded GM to finance what was then a speculative venture: using satellite and digital technologies to bring sharper pictures and sound to television. In 1994, DirecTV revolutionized pay television by introducing a pizza-sized rooftop dish to replace the large backyard receiver that had been the industry standard.

In addition to clearer pictures and sound, DirecTV gave consumers an alternative to cable TV and a larger selection of channels. Hartenstein distinguished DirecTV from cable by offering improved customer service and innovative sports packages.

On Thursday, even his rivals gave him his due.

“Without him, we would not be where we are in our competition against cable,” said Charles Ergen, CEO of EchoStar Communications Corp., the nation’s second-largest satellite TV provider. “His engineering acumen is legendary, and few executives in this industry have matched his vision.”