ATLANTA -- Cox Television today announced that Greg Stone, vice-president and general manager of WSB-TV in Atlanta, will retire March 3, 2006. Bill Hoffman, currently vice president and general manager at Cox’s sister stations in Orlando, Fla. (WFTV and WRDQ) will succeed Stone at WSB-TV. Hoffman will now report to Bruce Baker, executive vice president of Cox Television.

“Greg has been instrumental in keeping WSB-TV at the top of its game since he joined the station in 1990,” said Baker. “He has been a huge asset to Cox Television and our success during his tenure can be attributed to his leadership and management style.

“Bill has a proven track record and will continue to deliver the tradition of excellence that our Atlanta viewing audience expects,” added Stone. “His expertise and industry knowledge have been a huge benefit to Cox Television. It has been a great honor for me to have served our station, our company and the communities in which I’ve worked over the course of my career.”

Stone has been general manager and vice president of Cox-owned WSB-TV since August of 1990. The station has consistently been named as one of the top-rated ABC affiliates in the country in terms of local news audience.

Stone’s career in broadcasting started in 1963 when he joined Cox at WSOC Radio in Charlotte. He moved to the television side in 1966 when he became an account executive at WSOC-TV in Charlotte. He joined TeleRep as the manager of the Atlanta office from 1970-1977 and was promoted to area regional vice president of TeleRep in 1977 where he supervised the Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami markets.

In 1980, Stone returned to WSOC-TV as director of sales and was promoted to vice president and general manager in 1982. He remained there until 1990 when he was promoted to vice president and general manager of WSB-TV.

Hoffman joined Cox in 1979 as an account representative at TeleRep. He left in 1983 to become national sales manager at Cox-owned WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh and then left the company to serve as local and national sales manager of WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minn. from 1984-1990. He returned to Cox in July 1990 as office manager at TeleRep and held his position there until 1995 when he moved to WSB-TV as local sales manager.

In 1997, Hoffman transferred to WFTV in Orlando as general sales manager and was promoted to director of sales in 2000 and then vice president and general manager in 2002.