* Teletoon president John Riley has been named to replace Lisa de Wilde as president of Astral Television Networks, effective Sept. 17.

Appointed president of Teletoon the day it was awarded a licence to operate in English and French in 1996, Riley, a lawyer and member of the Astral team for 13 years, joined Family Channel as legal counsel prior to its launch in 1988. He was later promoted to VP, business affairs.

There’s no word yet as to who will replace Riley at Teletoon.

* Anne Loi has been appointed VP of finance at Decode Entertainment. Prior to joining the kids programming house, Loi was VP of financial strategy at ExtendMedia where she was responsible for mergers and acquisitions. She has also held the position of director of finance and administration for Interactive Media Group.

* Tara Ellis, a former executive-

in-charge of CBC’s movies and miniseries unit, has joined Showcase as production executive for original productions.

Emily Morgan has been appointed director of programming for Alliance Atlantis’ two new digital channels, Showcase Diva and Showcase Action. Prior to joining AAC, Morgan worked for Canadian Heritage, where she advised on broadcasting policy.

* Television industry veteran Erica Benson has been named director of programming for the Discovery Health Channel.

* Micheline Raymond has been appointed director of sales and acquisitions with Distribution La Fete. Raymond has extensive experience with broadcasters Tele-Quebec and TQS and with TV program seller Fox/TVA International, Communications Claude Heroux and video distributor Imavision. Raymond will manage sales in selected francophone European, African and Middle East markets.

* Groupe TVA has named Reneault Poliquin to the post of VP sales and marketing following the departure of Robert Leonard.

* At Radio-Canada, Francois Decarie has been named to the newly created post of director, specialty sales, representing Reseau de l’Information, the newly launched ARTV arts channel and SRC/Sports.

* Pierre Moreau has been promoted to the position of VP, sales and marketing for Covitec. Moreau started with the post house in 1999 as director of original sound, moving quickly into the position of director of sales, marketing and public relations.