MEDIACOM PARK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 7, 2026--
Giuseppe B. Commisso, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mediacom Communications Corporation, announced the retirement of Italia Commisso Weinand as Executive Vice President of Programming and Human Resources, following a distinguished 50-year career in the cable industry. Commisso Weinand, who joined Mediacom in 1996 as its third employee, will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261007308814/en/
Commisso Weinand began her cable career at Manhattan Cable (Time Inc.) and later held positions at Times Mirror Cable, TCI and Comcast. While at Comcast, she received the company’s first “Manager of the Year” award.
“Italia has been a trusted leader and an extraordinary steward of Mediacom’s people, culture and values since our earliest days,” said Giuseppe B. Commisso. “On behalf of the entire Mediacom family, I thank her for decades of leadership, dedication and service. Her contributions have helped shape who we are today. My father, Rocco, was immensely proud of Italia, not only for everything she accomplished professionally, but also for the commitment, loyalty and heart she brought to Mediacom from its earliest days. As his sister, she meant so much to him personally, and as one of his closest and most trusted partners, she played an important role in helping him build the company he envisioned. My mother and I share that same pride in Italia and in the extraordinary legacy she has created over a remarkable career.”
Working alongside her brother, Mediacom founder Rocco B. Commisso, Commisso Weinand helped build the company around his vision of bringing cable service and state-of-the-art technology to underserved markets across America. She played an instrumental role in Mediacom’s growth into the nation’s fourth-largest cable operator, serving more than 3 million homes and businesses across 22 states.
As Mediacom expanded through major acquisitions, Commisso Weinand helped establish and lead its operations, human resources, marketing and programming functions. Her efforts to attract, develop and retain talented employees, together with her commitment to sound and fair employee practices, helped build a successful workforce of more than 3,500 employees. Her advocacy for employee education, including through her work on the CTAM Educational Committee, helped make continuing education and advancement an integral part of Mediacom’s employee development programs.
Called “the heart of Mediacom” by her brother, Rocco B. Commisso, Commisso Weinand championed fairness, diversity and career development, helping shape a family-oriented culture that has had a lasting influence on Mediacom and its employees.
In programming, Commisso Weinand helped Mediacom develop a video offering capable of competing with those of the nation’s largest providers. Her business judgment and relationships within the content acquisition community supported Mediacom’s mission of connecting residential and business customers throughout the 1,500 communities it serves with local, national and international programming choices, along with the advanced technology needed to enjoy them.
She has also been a respected and influential voice throughout the cable industry. A groundbreaker and thoughtful risk-taker, she brought sound business judgment, determination and a strong sense of purpose to her service on the boards of numerous industry organizations, including WICT and NCTC, as well as on committees and task forces including CATHRA. Through those organizations, she advocated for pay equity, improved employee benefits and programming protocols across the industry.
Her industry honors include recognition among Cablefax Magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Cable for 13 consecutive years; induction into the Cable TV Pioneers in 2006 alongside her brother, Rocco B. Commisso, in recognition of her entrepreneurial accomplishments; the Multichannel News Wonder Woman honor in 2004; induction into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2014; the WICT Woman of the Year – Operator Award in 2018; recognition as a Cablefax Glass Breaker in 2022; and induction into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2023.
Commisso Weinand will continue to serve on Mediacom’s Board of Directors and on the boards of JMCC Corporation, The Cable Center, the CTAM Educational Foundation and the Emma Bowen Foundation. She previously served on the boards of Cable Positive, NCTC and WICT. She attended Elizabeth Seton College and Fordham University and completed WICT’s Senior Executive Summit at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In addition to spending time with her husband, George Weinand, and their son, John Giuseppe Weinand, Commisso Weinand will continue to advocate for the deaf community and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). She will also continue her other volunteer, community and philanthropic work.
ABOUT MEDIACOM COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION
Mediacom Communications Corporation is the 4th largest cable operator in the United States and the leading gigabit broadband provider to smaller markets primarily in the Midwest and Southeast. Through its fiber-rich network, Mediacom offers high-speed data, video, phone, and mobile services to over 3 million households and businesses across 22 states. The company delivers scalable broadband solutions to commercial and public-sector customers of all sizes through Mediacom Business and sells advertising and production services under the OnMedia brand. More information about Mediacom is available at mediacomcable.com.
Italia Commisso Weinand
REIM, Israel (AP) — On a field where music festival revelers were gunned down by Hamas-led militants three years ago, Israelis on Wednesday embraced and wept for those lost in an attack that plunged the Middle East into war.
Israelis mourned at the site of the Nova Music Festival, as well as at bomb shelters, intersections and in communities targeted on Oct. 7, 2023. On that day — the deadliest in the country's history — militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Israel's retaliatory offensive killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and drove most of its 2 million residents from their homes.
This is the first anniversary since all the hostages, living and dead, were returned. Signs calling for their return are mostly gone, but reminders of those who were killed are ubiquitous in a country still reckoning with the trauma of that day.
For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of fear and misery. Most Gaza residents live in squalid tent camps, with large parts of cities bombed to rubble. More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military. Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily.
Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with the Hezbollah militant group, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran, the United States and their allies are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across the region and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that the war in Gaza paved the way for, even if they weren’t directly connected.
Hundreds of people paid their respects to the more than 350 people killed in and around the festival site. Videos from that day showed militants gunning down fleeing revelers, shooting the wounded at point-blank range and ambushing those seeking refuge in nearby bomb shelters.
On Wednesday, survivors' relatives hugged at 6:29 a.m. — the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago — as explosions boomed in nearby Gaza.
Anya Davitashili, who lost her 25-year-old son, Sean, said she visits the site every Saturday. It’s where she feels closest to him.
“I have a video of him dancing here that ends at 6:29 in the morning. It’s in front of my eyes all the time,” she said. “Every morning, you wake up and there is just endless missing.”
Elkana Bohbot, 37, is marking the anniversary in Israel for the first time since his release after 738 days of captivity. For most of that time, he said, he was held underground in a dark, damp tunnel.
Bohbot, who was abducted from the festival, was kept in a small cell with other hostages, given little food and allowed to bathe only every few weeks, he said. His captors forced him to take part in propaganda videos, including one where he acted out a fake call to his family.
In the year since his release, Bohbot has undergone physical and emotional rehabilitation. In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, fulfilling his promise to himself in the tunnels to give his 5-year-old son, Reem, a sibling.
The newborn Michele is “not a symbol for my people, she is more of a symbol for the enemy,” Bohbot told The Associated Press. “This child is the message for you that we were here and we will always be here forever.”
No events are expected Wednesday in Gaza, but Hamas in a statement praised the Oct. 7 attack as an example of ”heroism, resilience and national solidarity” and said it had returned the Palestinian cause to the world’s attention.
“The conflict with the enemy did not begin on that day, (and) its final chapters are not written yet,” it said.
Palestinians in the territory said their suffering over the past three years had previously been unimaginable.
“We witnessed death, destruction, and bombardment that we had never known before,” said Walid Akram, a Gaza City resident who, like most in Gaza, has been displaced by the war.
Raed Khozeiq’s coastal neighborhood in Tel al-Hawa was largely flattened. Nothing about his life now is the same, he said.
“No country in the world has gone through what we have experienced here,” he said. “A war of extermination, starvation, the absence of schools and universities — nothing remains.”
More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. The numbers from the ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
While a ceasefire that took effect Oct. 10, 2025, halted the heaviest fighting, Israeli strikes have continued, targeting what Israel says are Hamas militants. Since the ceasefire, 1,460 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the ministry. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in attacks in that period. Restrictions on the entry of goods and aid have contributed to a hunger crisis, food security experts say.
A contentious election at the end of the month hangs over this year's anniversary in Israel. Voters are bitterly divided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership, his role in the security failures surrounding the attack and his refusal to launch an official inquiry into them.
The attack set in motion a cascade of events that led to wars across the Middle East as Israel confronted Hamas, Hezbollah and their backer, Iran. Israel has seized swaths of territory in Syria and Lebanon, where more than 300,000 Lebanese remain displaced. The United States joined Israel in attacking Iran’s military and nuclear program in two rounds, battering Iran and upending global markets far from the battlefield.
Violence has also risen across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israel’s far-right government has heightened restrictions on Palestinians while emboldening extremist settlers who have attacked them and destroyed their property.
Associated Press journalists Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Sam Metz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
People carrying Israeli flags walk through an installation marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
People walk past an installation marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Israeli soldiers attend a memorial service marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas cross-border attack on Israel, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, southern Israel, where female observer soldiers were killed, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Murid Akhziq, 43, lights a fire for cooking inside his home, which was destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war, in Gaza City, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Raz Zarfati, sister of Ron Zarfati who was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, attend a memorial marking the third anniversary of the attack at the Nova music festival site near Kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians inspect the site of an early morning Israeli airstrike in Gaza city, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians inspect the site of an early morning Israeli airstrike in Gaza city, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Released hostage Elkana Bohbot poses in Kadima Zoran, Israel, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, before marking the Oct. 7 anniversary in Israel for the first time following his release from 738 days in captivity in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
People attend a memorial service marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas cross-border attack on Israel, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, where many community members were killed and abducted, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Raz Zarfati, sister of Ron Zarfati who was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, attend a memorial marking the third anniversary of the attack at the Nova music festival site near Kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
