In January 1989, James R. Osborn was named President/General Manager of the Bay Area Interconnect which reaches over one million homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and offers local and regional advertising on national cable networks.

Prior to that appointment, he had well over 30 years of experience in television sales management. Most recently he had been Vice President and General Manager of KGO-TV in San Francisco. Prior to managing KGO-TV, he was Vice President and General Manager for WXYZ-TV in Detroit (1972-1979) and General Sales Manager for four TV stations; CBS stations in Milwaukee (1958) and Sacramento (1958-1961) and the ABC-owned stations, KABC-TV, Los Angeles (1966-1968) and KGO-TV in San Francisco (1968-1972).

As General Manager for the Detroit ABC affiliates and San Francisco-owned television stations for nearly 12 years, Jim headed all facets of station operations which included sales, news, programming, promotion, engineering and finance, as well as being active in community affairs. Both stations were Number One in their respective markets.

Upon taking the appointment at BAI, Jim noted; "The challenge of this new job and the potential of cable are intriguing. The sales opportunities that exist in cable today have similarities to broadcast television in the 50's and 60's. Today, however, television is a proven sales medium and cable is supplying solid programming whch provides advertisers the exiting prospect of utilizing popular channels that include ESPN, CNN, USA and MTV networks. How right he was.