Senior Editor
Jeff Baumgartner rejoined the Light Reading team in July 2018 as Senior Editor, where he heads up day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors and works with the editorial team on various Light Reading events. In late 2025, he launched “Signal Strength,” a new Light Reading podcast.
Baumgartner, who previously had served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013, most recently was broadband editor at Multichannel News, heading up tech coverage for the publication’s online and print platforms, and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting & Cable.
Baumgartner’s career in covering the cable industry began in 1998 as the Denver Bureau Chief of CableFAX Daily, where he covered Mile High City’s cable scene, with an emphasis on programming and tech news. Baumgartner began to cover cable technology full time in 2000 as an associate editor of CED magazine, and then as the Broadband Editor of sister pub Multichannel News. Baumgartner returned to CED in 2002, where he was later named Editor-in-Chief.
Baumgartner got his start in cable in 1992 as a PR manager at Jones Education Networks, an umbrella company that operated full-time education and technology programming networks such as Knowledge TV and Jones Computer Network. He left in 1998 for brief stint managing trade advertising for premium programmer Starz.
Baumgartner was inducted into the Cable TV Pioneers in 2018. He graduated from Colorado State University with a B.A. in technical journalism.