Henry Schleiff will step down at the end of May as president and chief executive of Crown Media Holdings Inc., the owner of the Hallmark Channel. Schlieff leaves Crown having made Hallmark one of the top cable channels in the nation with an audience of more than 86 million subscribers. He will be replaced by William J. Abbott, executive vice president of advertising sales. Schleiff assumed his current role in October 2006. He guided the Hallmark to strong ratings in prime time and made the Hallmark Movie Channel available in both standard and high definition with a subscriber base of 16 million. Schleiff and his management team created a balance of original programming, feature films and classic TV series that makes Hallmark Channel unique, said Crown Media co-chairman Donald J. Hall, Jr. Abbott joined Crown Media in 2000 and is currently responsible for national advertising sales, Internet services and digital network development for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel. Mark R. Madler
