The Cable Center has named six industry leaders to be honored during its 2023 Cable Hall of Fame ceremony in April.

The honorees, who were selected for their groundbreaking innovation and entrepreneurship in the connectivity, content, and media industry, include:

• Tom Adams – Former Executive Vice President, Field Operations, Charter Communications, Inc.
• Italia Commisso Weinand – Executive Vice President, Programming and Human Resources, Mediacom Communications Corporation
• Doug Holloway – President, Homewood Media
• Julie Laulis – Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cable One, Inc.
• Wonya Lucas – President and Chief Executive Officer, Hallmark Media
• Curb Your Enthusiasm – HBO

Since 1998, 153 luminaries have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. The 26th annual Cable Hall of Fame ceremony will be held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on April 27. 

"The members of our 2023 Cable Hall of Fame class reflect all cornerstones of our industry and are true trailblazers in their field," Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s Board of Directors said in a statement. "I am looking forward to gathering with our industry friends again this April to welcome them to the Cable Hall of Fame."

Added Cable Center President and CEO Diane Christman: "This year’s Cable Hall of Fame inductees are some of the 'best of the best,' and we are thrilled to honor them at our celebration at the Ziegfeld Ballroom this April." ■

The Cable Center said it has named six industry veterans to its 2022 Cable Hall of Fame class and they will be celebrated at a red carpet event at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York on September 15.

The event marks the first year the celebration will be held in person since the 2020-21 gala was held virtually.

The honorees, selected for their groundbreaking leadership and entrepreneurship in the connectivity, content and media industry, are:

• Patricia Jo Boyers – President/CEO & Co-Founder, BOYCOM Cablevision, Inc.; Chairman of the Board of Directors, ACA Connects

• Kevin Casey – President, Northeast Division of Comcast Cable

• Chris Lammers – COO Emeritus and Senior Executive Advisor, CableLabs

• Tina Perry – President, OWN TV Network & OTT Streaming

• John C. Porter II – CEO, Telenet Group Holding

• The Honorable Michael K. Powell – President & CEO, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association; Former Chairman of the FCC

"Our 2022 Cable Hall of Fame class represents the ‘best of the best’ of our industry. Each of these trailblazers has worked to shape the cable and video entertainment industry through their leadership and pioneering ideas," said chairman of The Cable Center board of directors and CEO of Penthera Partners Michael Willner in a press release. "We are also thrilled to welcome everyone back to the red carpet for our Cable Hall of Fame celebration this fall in New York."

Since 1998, 147 luminaries have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame.

"The entrepreneurial spirit and dedication shown by this year’s inductees has had an immeasurable impact on our industry throughout the world. We can’t wait to gather in person again and honor them at our celebration at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 15," Cable Center CEO Diane Christman said in a press release. ■

More information on the event can be found here. ■  

The Cable Center said Tuesday that it has rescheduled its 23rd Annual Cable Hall of Fame virtual celebration to Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. (ET).

“As we continue to navigate the world of Covid and the necessary rescheduling of various industry events, we made the decision to move our Cable Hall of Fame celebration to a later date,” Cable Center president and CEO Jana Henthorn said in a press release. 

This is the fifth time the Cable Center has rescheduled the event. Originally it was to take place at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City on April 30, 2020,  but the pandemic pushed that date to that fall of that year. In June 2020, the date was again pushed ahead, to April 29, 2021 because of pandemic concerns, and in February 2021 said it would try to hold the event both live in New York and virtually on Oct. 20. In June 2021, the Center said the event would be held virtually-only on Oct. 20. 

On Tuesday, the Center said the event will premiere on C-SPAN 3 and be available to view simultaneously online at CSPAN.org. The program will also be featured in the C-SPAN Video Library and available for on demand viewing immediately following the event.

The Cable Hall of Fame selected seven industry leaders in March 2020 for this year’s class:  Baker Media CEO Bridget Baker; former Charter Communications EVP IT and Engineering Jim Blackley; Urban One founder and chairwoman Cathy Hughes; TV One chairman and CEO and Urban One CEO Alfred C. Liggins III; Cable Pioneer Jeff Marcus; Comcast Cable president and CEO Dave Watson; and WarnerMedia News & Sports president and president CNN Worldwide Jeff Zucker.

The Bresnan Ethics in Business Award will also be presented to Ted Turner, Environmentalist and Philanthropist, during the Cable Hall of Fame celebration.

The Cable Center said Wednesday that it will reschedule its 23rd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration to Oct. 20 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.

This is the fourth time the Center has had to reschedule the event. It was originally scheduled for April 30, 2020,  but was pushed to the fall of that year because of the pandemic.   In June 2020, it was rescheduled again to April 29, 2021.  

The Cable Hall of Fame inductees are: 

Bridget Baker: CEO Baker Media Inc.

Jim Blackley: Former EVP, IT and Engineering Charter Communications

Cathy Hughes: founder and chairwoman, Urban One

Alfred C. Liggins III: CEO, Urban One; chairman and CEO TV One

Jeff Marcus: Cable Pioneer

Dave Watson: president and CEO Comcast Cable

Jeff Zucker: chairman, WarnerMedia, News & Sports and president, CNN Worldwide 

The Bresnan Ethics in Business Award will also be presented to Ted Turner during the celebration. For those unable to gather in-person, the Cable Center said it will host a virtual celebration.

The Center said it is still confirming its plans for 2021 honorees. For more information on the celebration, visit www.cablehalloffame.com.

The Cable Center said it has decided to reschedule its 23rd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration to the fall, due to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.

The Hall of Fame was originally expected to be held April 30 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York. The Center said it is postpoining the event “out of an abundance of caution for public health,” adding that a new date for the gala will be announced soon.

“The health and safety of our Cable Hall of Fame attendees, honorees, and community is always our highest priority. Given the current situation, we believe the best decision is to reschedule our celebration for a later date,” said Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in a press release. “We look forward to celebrating the 2020 honorees this fall, and express our gratitude for your understanding and continued support.”

This year’s event was set to honor seven new inductees -- CEO of Baker Media and co-founder of CNBC Bridget Baker; former Charter Communications EVP of IT Jim Blackley; Urban One founder and chairwoman Cathy Hughes; Urban One CEO and TV One chairman and CEO Alfred Liggins III; Marcus Cable founder and cable pioneer Jeff Marcus; Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson; and WarnerMedia News & Sports chairman and CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker. 

#coronavirus #COVID-19

A first-generation American whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Scotland after World War II, Jim Blackley joined the U.S. Navy after high school in 1974. A military aptitude test revealed his natural affinity for engineering. He entered a two-year training program in Tennessee, and then went to work on a Grumman stealth plane. After completing his military service and computer programming school, he found his first private-sector technology job and attended night school to earn his degree.

Blackley joined Royal Insurance and changed employers six times over the following years, working with companies in the finance and utility sectors. “There’s a lot of value in being an IT vagabond and chasing the next technology,” he said. Specializing in billing and workforce management systems, he said, “I was preparing for a life in cable that I didn’t know I was preparing for.”

After wandering for nearly 20 years, Blackley found a place to call home in 1996 at Cablevision Systems in Bethpage, New York, where his background was needed. The company was looking into building what it referred to as its own MOAB — Mother of All Billing Systems. Blackley convinced Cablevision management that rather than build a billing system from scratch, it would make more sense to modernize and automate the components already being used.

Chasing technology was no longer necessary at Cablevision. “I didn’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “New jobs and new technologies kept coming to me.”

RELATED: Magnificent Seven Earn Hall of Fame Honors

He was excited to be part of the company’s transition to all-digital, and in his 16 years at Cablevision, was instrumental in a number of groundbreaking industry deployments including outside-the-home WiFi service and the first downloadable security system for set-top boxes. In cable, Blackley said, he was now part of an industry that was changing the world.

In 2012 Blackley left his position heading Cablevision’s engineering and technology to become Charter’s executive VP, engineering and information technology. Under his leadership, Charter has been at the forefront of introducing innovative video, internet and voice solutions using advanced technology. He led the MSO’s integration of Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and legacy Charter systems into a single, virtual infrastructure and supervised the company’s technological transformation. Blackley was instrumental in the launch of the Spectrum TV App, Spectrum Mobile, the cloud-based Spectrum Guide, Spectrum Internet Gig, and Charter’s move to an all-digital network.

Blackley’s work on downloadable conditional access software enabled the development of Charter’s WorldBox. He was honored with the Vanguard Award for Science and Technology in 2015 by NCTA–The Internet and Television Association.

Blackley spends his leisure time golfing, reading and doing “anything on water, either on boats, paddleboards, surfboards or in scuba gear.” As he looks toward retirement, he advises those entering the industry to keep their eye on the horizon. “Technology is coming fast and furious, and we’re uniquely positioned to provide the technology platform that will power this country for a very long time,” he said.

As the pay TV business moves through its latest evolution, the product emphasis is primarily on speed and choice. But as subscription TV service gets more complicated — Verizon Communications’s Fios Mix & Match offering is the latest step toward the Holy Grail of a la carte programming — so, too, do the more mundane aspects of the business, like how to collect payment for the myriad content opportunities presented to consumers.

There is a handful of vendors that have controlled cable billing since the industry began, with CSG Systems, Amdocs and NEC’s Netcracker being among the largest. But as offerings continue to grow, so does the danger of confusing the customer. And for just about any industry, billing confusion and questions are usually at the top of the list when it comes to poor customer satisfaction.

On the surface, billing seems to be relatively straightforward: You order a package and you pay for it. But with telecom companies, there is a slew of hidden charges, fees, promotional offers and pricing that can puff up a monthly bill almost beyond recognition. And with the future expected to be rife with choice, that also means there are more opportunities to disrupt the relationship.

Top Reason for Customer Calls

“It's pretty much common knowledge that questions about billing are one of the top reasons for subscribers contacting their operator,” said Dr. Charles Patti, Cox chair in customer experience and senior fellow at The Cable Center in Denver.

In a September 2019 ranking of television service providers by J.D. Power, companies with a high number of billing complaints ranked low on the customer loyalty scale. Per J.D. Power, nearly 40% of television and internet customers who had a high bill complaint said they didn’t achieve a resolution. Additionally, 52% of internet subscribers who had a high bill complaint said they would switch carriers.

Cable did a lot better in the J.D. Power rankings as an internet provider than as a video distributor. Comcast was No. 1 in the North Central region among internet providers, No. 2 (behind AT&T) in the North Central and the South and No. 3 (behind AT&T and Cable One) in the West. But it ranked fifth in the East, third in the South, North Central and West regions as a television provider.

Part of that has to do with customer perceptions and the higher cost of cable video service (because of higher programming costs), as well as past federal fines for charging customers for services and equipment they didn’t authorize.

“Taking every opportunity to demonstrate transparency is a customer-focused outlook that improves the overall customer experience,” Ian Greenblatt, J.D. Power managing director and practice leader, technology, media and telecom intelligence, said in a press release announcing the rankings last year.

About 65% of North American pay TV subscribers run on CSG platforms, and the company counts Comcast, Charter Communications and most of the other large cable operators as customers, as well as about 20 direct-to-consumer platforms in the over-the-top space.

Billing questions are still at the top of customer complaints, said CSG head of global product management Chad Dunavant, and operators are making changes, especially around the concept of prorating. That can be the culprit when a customer calls to complain that they signed up for a $99 service, yet their first bill was much higher, he said.

Operators are either removing prorates and providing service for no cost during the time that the billing dates differ, or aligning the dates programmatically as part of the order process.

“Customers are more comfortable with the subscription model due to new entrants and are OK having service through the date of their service," Dunavant said. “Moreover, operators are starting to play around with base packages that have a recurring billing relationship and then ala carte services that are sold directly through a credit card with a separate billing relationship. All of these models are things the billing systems can support, and areas CSG has invested in to ensure our operator customers can meet the demands of the market.”

One thing CSG is doing to simplify the process is a product it calls the “video bill,” where it sends out a personalized interactive video tutorial of what a customer’s first bill looks like.

“We send out emails when you order; we send out emails when your statement processes; we send out emails when your second statement processes,” Dunavant said. “There are all of these interactions to try to make it easier for consumers to understand. As a la carte rolls out and is adopted, those techniques will become even more important.”

Comcast began implementing the video bill in 2015, spokesperson Katie Lubenow said. Customers can access it through the MyAccount app, by saying “explain my bill” into their X1 Voice Remote or through the Xfinity Assistant, an always-on virtual assistant that customers can access online or via the Xfinity mobile app.

Charter has a similar customer video on its website that breaks down billing statements. Elsewhere on its website, it explains the vagaries of franchise fees, sales taxes and other charges.

In 2018, Comcast redesigned its billing statements, with the help of customer feedback, to make them easier to read and understand. Bills broke out one-time and recurring charges and highlighted changes in service.

“We believe in a clear, transparent billing experience for our customers,” Lubenow said, adding that the changes have resulted in reduced calls about billing problems.

That could get a little more difficult as the video business evolves into a more a la carte model.

“We’ve definitely seen the industry evolve from just something that was basic pay television to cable television that included a lot more bundling and cross-promotional discounts into a multi-line-of-business universe,” Dunavant said. About six years ago, he said, CSG began offering an OTT billing product, and the move toward direct-to-consumer distribution actually simplifies the billing process.

“On the OTT front specifically, it’s less complex,” Dunavant said. “Typically with OTT, you’re dealing directly with a content provider or a studio, not an aggregator, so the plans are much simpler. And the way you think about billing is simpler, because in most cases they are just doing credit card-only. You’re looking at a line item that might show up on a credit card for $9.99 per month and it shows a content distributor on that line item. It’s pretty simple, versus these large-scale bundles that have multiple line items and franchise taxes and everything else that goes with it.”

While the Fios Mix & Match offering is seen by some as the next step toward a la carte, Sanford Bernstein media analyst Peter Supino wrote in a note to clients that the offering is more “evolution, not revolution.”

“With ‘custom’ video bundles, the marginal video customer gets what he/she wants (to not buy things that they won't watch), while Verizon optimizes its per subscriber video costs,” Supino wrote. “This additional margin opportunity funds Verizon's elimination of video's infamous add-on service fees (but NOT set-top box rentals charges).”

The Experience in Canada

A la carte, to some, is an inevitability, and CSG is already traveling down that road. Among its customers are Canadian operators that have been offering a la carte programming to customers since 2016 as part of a government mandate.

So far, a la carte hasn’t been a challenge on the billing side, Dunavant said, because not that many Canadian customers are taking advantage of it. Those who do are only selecting a few channels.

“We haven’t seen a huge uptake yet,” Dunavant said.

But in a scenario where customers are selecting hundreds of a la carte channels, it gets a lot trickier.

“That becomes complex, because now every single channel has a price,” Dunavant said. “And how do you display that to a call center agent or how do you display that to a customer?

“One of the things we’ve done within our applications is to put in search functions and put in toggles that allow you to group channels together and make it easier to find and identify the channels that you need,” he continued. “The other part of the challenge is how does that get displayed on a bill.

“Imagine a situation where somebody picked 100 a la carte channels. Now you have 100 line items on a bill for each a la carte channel,” Dunavant said. “When you’re doing a statement run and are trying to keep your costs down, that becomes costly.”

For the second straight year, The Cable Center is taking to Manhattan to induct the newest members into the Cable Hall of Fame.

The new class of six individuals and one groundbreaking cable network will be honored at the 22nd annual Cable Hall of Fame, returning to Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Ballroom on May 2.

The honorees are:

● Leslie Ellis, president of Ellis Edits and a longtime Multichannel News technology reporter and columnist;
● Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain, president and co-CEOs, C-SPAN;
● Phil Kent, former chairman and CEO, Turner Broadcasting System;
● Kyle McSlarrow, senior vice president of customer experience, Comcast;
● Steve Miron, CEO, Advance/Newhouse;
● and MTV and its founding creators, Mark Booth, Tom Freston, Judy McGrath, Bob Pittman, Fred Seibert and John Sykes.

Serving as the evening’s emcee will be Don Lemon, host of CNN Tonight With Don Lemon.

“The 2019 Cable Hall of Fame class represents leaders from some of the industry’s most innovative and groundbreaking companies and includes our first cable TV network, MTV,” Michael Willner, Penthera Partners CEO and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in a statement. “As a cultural icon whose impact on music and cable is unrivaled, it will be our pleasure to honor MTV’s founding creators.”

The ceremony will also honor the late Jim Robbins, president and CEO of Cox Communications until 2005, with the 2019 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. The award is named for the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and the longtime chairman of The Cable Center.

“Jim was such a positive influence in our industry and personally to so many of us at Cox,” Cox president Patrick Esser said in a statement. “He led the company to great success, but it is how he led that we remember most.”

Leslie Ellis
President, Ellis Edits

Tech Translator Leslie Ellis takes the “work hard, play hard” doctrine seriously. She’s been doing both since she was a kid, transcribing tape recordings for her mother, a court reporter, at 10 cents a page.

With a career ambition to do “something with computers,” she attended Temple University, then Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Holding down two jobs, she managed to graduate a semester early with a B.S./B.A. in computer science, although she knew early on that computer work wasn’t exactly her cup of tea. “My nickname in the computer lab,” she said, “was ‘Infinite Loop.’ ” Days after graduation, a friend convinced her to apply for a job writing technical manuals for Telecommunications Product Corp.’s ad-insertion equipment and in 1987 a cable career was born.

In addition to writing user manuals and installing equipment, Ellis’s TPC job included buying ad space in cable trade publications. She got to know CED editor Roger Brown and when a writing job opened up at the magazine, she jumped at the chance to move to Colorado. How does a nonengineer learn to write about technology? “You have to ask the question a million different ways, until the answer makes sense,” she said. That persistence has enabled her to communicate complex technical material and its business implications to readers. It’s the core proposition of “Translation Please,” her well-known column in Multichannel News, and of “Nerdy Little Secrets,” her column in Broadband Library.

After full-time jobs as managing editor for CED, senior technology editor for Multichannel News/Broadband Week and senior technology analyst for Paul Kagan Associates, Ellis struck out on her own. At Ellis Edits, she works with telecom executives on a variety of research and communications projects. A prolific volunteer, she’s a popular speaker, panel moderator, event organizer, and supporter of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and Women in Cable Telecommunications. As a volunteer with Cable FIRST Robotics, she helps connect local cable people to mentor high school robotics teams. Humor plays a part in every effort.

On the “play hard” side of the equation, Ellis finds time for a wide array of hobbies and passions. She took up surfing at age 48, raises and advocates for bees, and sings harmony in a rock cover band, the Skware Pegs. Her advice for young people entering the cable industry: “Get involved. Take good notes.”

Rob Kennedy
President and Co-CEO, C-SPAN

A Happy College Internship played a critical role in the growth of a unique cable service and a great career. As a MBA student at the University of Chicago, Rob Kennedy interned at Centel Corp., which had just become involved with cable operations in the Chicago suburbs. That summer engagement led to a job with Centel after graduation in 1980, where Kennedy worked for cable division chief Jack Frazee.

Frazee chaired the C-SPAN board and was a great believer in the service’s potential, especially with a presidential election just over the horizon. He was also an advocate of five-year business plans and thought C-SPAN needed one. The young MBA on his Centel staff was Frazee’s logical choice to prepare that plan. He sent Kennedy to Washington in 1983 to work on the project with founder Brian Lamb and the C-SPAN team.

Kennedy left Centel to run marketing for ATC’s operation in Rochester, New York, but he stayed in touch with C-SPAN. In 1987, Lamb recruited him, and Kennedy moved his young family to Washington to join the small C-SPAN staff as its top financial officer. Two years later, Lamb named Kennedy and his colleague, Susan Swain, senior vice presidents with joint operating responsibility for the growing network. The two were named co-CEOs in 2012, with Lamb serving as executive chairman. “It took four feet to fill [Lamb’s] two shoes,” Kennedy said.

One of Kennedy’s fondest memories was C-SPAN’s 1994 Lincoln-Douglas debates, held in the Illinois locations where the original 1858 debates originally took place. “We went to those seven communities, using the transcripts that were written down by newspaper reporters at the time, and asked them to recreate those debates … in their entirety.” C-SPAN cameras covered the events live. The experiment led C-SPAN to seek greater community outreach.

In its 40th year, C-SPAN comprises three television channels, a robust web presence and a radio service. The staff has grown but remains comparatively small at 260, many of whom have been with the network for decades. That kind of longevity isn’t common in media, and Kennedy attributes the network’s success in retaining people to the C-SPAN culture. “It’s not flashy,” he said, but “if people stay here for a couple of years, they become invested in the mission of an unfiltered view of public affairs. We don’t take that for granted.”

Susan Swain
President and Co-CEO, C-SPAN

Susan Swain’s Love Affair with the news started early. “When I was very small, I had a little printing press where you could set the type, and I used to do neighborhood reports. I was always interested in gathering what’s going on and helping people know about things.”

After graduating from the University of Scranton, Swain planned to go into local TV news. But her college years coincided with the advent of the personality-driven “Action News” format. Swain’s interests were more serious, and her original plan lost its appeal.

She instead got a job with the educational and musical organization Up With People, traveling the world as an advance person promoting group appearances. She calls the experience “a fabulous detour.” From there, she went to a Boston-based communications job with Raytheon’s government services division working at the U.S. Department of Transportation — work that frequently took her to Washington, D.C. She eventually moved there.

C-SPAN hit her career radar screen in 1982, just three years after the network launched and was expanding its on-air hours. She said she interviewed for a producer job and “I just never left.”

“It was exactly what I was hoping for — a role that used the medium of television in a serious way, and a chance to be on the ground floor of building something new,” Swain recalled. The 18-person staff was all “in our twenties, with much more responsibility than experience, flying by the seat of our pants. Somehow, we managed not to screw it up.”

Her C-SPAN career continued with positions as VP of corporate communications, and advancing executive assignments leading to executive VP. In 2012, she and her co-chief operating officer, Rob Kennedy, were named co-CEOs. She has also been an on-air interviewer for more than 30 years.

Swain credited the cable executives who founded C-SPAN with creating a true “white-hat” news outlet that doesn’t rely on advertising, corporate underwriting or fundraising. She believes those obligations would affect the network’s editorial credibility. “The [founders’] wisdom was maybe even beyond what they envisioned when they first sat at that table in 1978,” she said. “So many journalists say to us, ‘What I wouldn’t give to not have to worry about how many people are watching or reading, or clicking.’ ” Regarding C-SPAN’s unfiltered legislative coverage, she said, “This [government] stuff is not always sexy, but it’s certainly important.”

Phil Kent
Former Chairman & CEO Turner Broadcasting System

Phil Kent believes in the power of teams. “Television is the ultimate team sport,” the retired television executive said. “You have to have a lot of points of view, and a lot of diversity of all kinds.”

Kent studied civil engineering at Lehigh University, but realized the field wasn’t for him when he was unable to learn calculus. He changed his major to economics, intending to work on Wall Street. Interestingly, in light of his future career, he said he did his senior project on “the promise of two-way interactive television.”

After he was talked out of his Wall Street ambitions, Kent found work with prominent spot-TV rep firm Blair Television. He was hired as “the first male sales assistant in the history of New York media,” he recalled. “It was a very chauvinistic business at the time: All the guys started in research, and women were sales assistants.” He attributed his breakthrough to the fact that his “only marketable skill was being able to type 100 words a minute.”

Kent went on to help start Blair’s syndication division. From there, he made his way to Creative Artists Agency (CAA) as a television packaging agent. He joined the Turner organization in 1993 as chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System.

Following Turner’s 1996 merger with Time Warner, Kent moved to London, where he led the company’s international networks. In 2000, he returned to the U.S. as president of CNN, and then left following the AOL-Time Warner merger. He returned to Turner in 2003 as president of Turner Broadcasting System, the position he held until his retirement at the end of 2013. At Turner, he emphasized the importance of brands, quickly internalizing the difference between cable and broadcast. “Broadcast was about ratings and viewership and cable is really about having fans,” he said. “Hopefully, passionate fans.”

In retirement, Kent travels and serves on a number of nonprofit boards, working on “causes that are worthy with people I like and respect.” He said the most satisfying part of his cable career was putting together a great team. “I always thought that was the main priority of a CEO — trying pick great people and get them to work well together,” Kent said. “I think the ultimate legacy of a leader is the team they leave in place when they exit.”

Kyle McSlarrow
SVP, Customer Experience, Comcast

Some detours are worth taking. After service as an Army captain and assistant to the general counsel of the Army, Kyle McSlarrow’s first big detour from his legal career came when he decided, almost overnight, to get into politics.

It was 1991, and his Virginia district was changing hands. Democrat Jim Moran was running for the House seat, and McSlarrow wanted to be represented by a Republican. Laughing now at his audacity then, he recalled concluding: “The only way to get the right person with the right philosophy was if I were to do it. So I literally jumped into the campaign with no political experience, no base and, most importantly, no money.” The campaign failed, but the risk paid off, crystallizing McSlarrow’s interest in politics and public policy, and starting a new career track.

The next 10 years took him to political campaigns and legislative appointments, including serving as deputy secretary of energy during the George W. Bush administration. He had been approached about leading the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and decided to check it out after Bush’s re-election.

McSlarrow’s only experience with the cable industry at that point was as a satisfied customer. As he researched the industry, he began to believe cable was “at the center of everything. I realized this was a dynamic, entrepreneurial industry. What clinched it was meeting the people. They seemed very genuine, unbelievably humble.” That early impression was confirmed once McSlarrow took a new detour and joined NCTA as CEO in 2005.

His first day on the job, McSlarrow ran into a buzz saw when Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) attacked the cable industry on the floor of the Senate for indecent programming. Working with the NCTA board to address Stevens’ concerns quickly immersed the cable rookie into the workings of the industry he now represented.

After five years leading NCTA (now NCTA–The Internet & Television Association), McSlarrow was eager to be more engaged in cable. Field operations held the most appeal. He ran Comcast’s Mountain Region in Arizona and Utah from 2012 to 2015 and then its Seattle-based region from 2015 to 2017. He was subsequently named senior vice president, customer experience.

McSlarrow’s advice for those considering a cable career, is to be “highly adaptable … this industry is always changing. That’s not for everybody, but if you like it and can embrace it, it can be pretty exhilarating.”

Steve Miron
CEO, Advance/Newhouse

As a youngster, Steve Miron didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but cable was in his blood. The second-generation cable executive started working in the industry at age 16, selling cable door-to-door in Syracuse, New York, for one of the Newhouse operations run by his father, Robert Miron. Subsequent summer jobs had him out on construction crews installing underground plant. After graduating from American University, he worked for Xerox. Then in 1989, he joined MetroVision in Chicago. He’s been a cable guy ever since.

Miron began his career in operations positions with MetroVision in Illinois and Vision Cable in North Carolina before returning to northern New York. When Newhouse combined operations with Time Warner Cable, he joined TWC to run cable systems in the state.

He helped launch sixth-ranked Bright House Networks in 2002, serving as president until 2008, when he was named CEO. He held that position until 2016, when Bright House merged with Charter Communications. Much of Bright House’s operations footprint was in Florida, and Miron led the company’s recovery from a number of natural disasters there. “In ’05, we were hit by Hurricanes Charlie, Francis, Jean and Ivan,” he recalled. “It was in the early days for voice, and we also had data services. We learned about putting systems back together and talked about how to harden the plant, get rid of single points of failure, build in redundancy.”

Although he has seen dramatic change in his industry, Miron said, “some things haven’t changed, like keeping customers happy.” Customer focus was the idea behind Bright House’s name, he said. During his tenure, the company won 12 J.D. Power Awards for customer satisfaction.

Miron said the most enjoyable part of his cable career has been the people, starting with his father and sister, Nomi Bergman, who was president of Bright House when he was CEO. “Not a lot of people get the opportunity to work with their family,” he said. His best memories are the times when cable colleagues “got into a room and figured out strategies, hammered out differences of opinion and solved problems. For me, the consistent theme has always been to focus on customers and take care of them. They spend a lot of time with our products, so we always think of it as a privilege.”

MTV
Founding Creators Mark Booth, Tom Freston, Judy McGrath, Bob Pittman, Fred Seibert, John Sykes

“Ladies and Gentlemen, rock ‘n’ roll.” With those words and video of a rocket launch, MTV went live on Aug. 1, 1981. Following its first music video (The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”), Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run” video went out to cable viewers. As the early tagline promised, America would “never look at music the same way again.”

The network introduced a new kind of television that discarded narrative form in favor of one inspired by music. Its irreverence and youth spoke to a new audience and ignited the careers of many up-and-coming musicians.

MTV’s founders had to sell their radical new concept to the cable operators that would distribute MTV and the record companies that would provide the video content. At launch, MTV had about 250 videos, five VJs as on-air talent and precious few viewers. Marketing chief Tom Freston and promotion director John Sykes went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the few markets where MTV was being promoted. The reconnaissance team found that local record stores had sold out of Buggles records soon after MTV hit the air, along with a run on records by other MTV artists. Armed with similar information from other markets, the network made its case to record labels and then created a brilliant marketing campaign aimed at getting reluctant cable operators to carry the new service. As young music fans declared, “I want my MTV,” the network stormed the music business and the country.

In a 1991 Los Angeles Times article celebrating the network’s 10th anniversary, MTV founder Bob Pittman recalled: “Early on, we made a key decision that we would be the voice of Young America. We would not grow old with our audience. We accepted the fact that viewers would grow out of MTV and new viewers would grow into it. We would continually reinvent MTV so that it didn’t look like it belonged to the last generation.”

MTV keeps reinventing itself. Today, it’s the leading global youth media brand with 95% awareness in 180 countries, across every platform. In 2018, MTV Studios launched to produce new and reimagined content for SVOD and linear platforms based on MTV’s library of 200-plus youth titles and franchises, including a landmark deal to bring new seasons of The Real World to Facebook Watch later this year.

James O. Robbins
Bresnan Award Recipient

“There was never a question. You just knew he’d do the right thing.” Debby Robbins’s succinct description of her husband, Jim, explains why the late president and CEO of Cox Communications is being recognized with the 2019 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Robbins’s youngest daughter, Hilary, echoed that sentiment. “His unwavering morality showed me having integrity was the only way I could stand on my own two feet,” she said.

Robbins began his 33-year cable career at Continental Cablevision and continued at Viacom Cablevision before moving to Cox. He joined Cox in 1983, was named president in 1985 and CEO in 1995. He led the company until his retirement in 2005. On Robbins’s death in 2007, Cox Enterprises chairman Jim Kennedy said in a statement, “Jim embodied the spirit of our company — to do the right thing by the people the company touches.”

Robbins consistently put people first, Debby Robbins recalled. “He was the guy who’d stay after and talk to people at work who were having family problems,” something she didn’t learn until those employees shared their memories after his passing. “It’s so perfect that the Cox cafeteria was named after him,” Debby Robbins said. “He would go in the morning and sit with the cooks, with the staff. He identified with everybody, made everybody feel that they were important.”

Beyond caring for his employees, Robbins valued their insights. An early champion of customer care, he credited them with highlighting the need to invest in keeping customers happy. Robbins led Cox to achieve five J.D. Power Awards for customer satisfaction and numerous other honors. In 1996, NCTA recognized him with the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership. He was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2006.

In addition to his work at Cox, Robbins was heavily involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, an organization the entire Robbins family continues to support. As national chair, Robbins testified before Congress in support of additional research and funding. He was also a trustee of the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, which his children attended, and his own high school alma mater, St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, among other charitable activities.

“He did what he thought was the best thing to do in the best way he could,” Debby Robbins said.

For more on the Cable Hall of Fame, go tocablecenter.org. Profiles in this report were written and compiled by Erica Stull.

The Cable Center has announced that late former Cox Communications CEO Jim Robbins will receive the 2019 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

The award recognizes former Bresnan Communications founder and chairman and longtime Cable Center chairman, Bill Bresnan. The award will be presented at the 22nd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration May 2 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

Robbins served as Cox CEO for a decade and was long known as a pioneer in the industry. He retired in 2005 and died in October 2007 at the age of 65 after a brief battle with cancer.

Related: Friend, Fighter and Visionary

“Jim embodied the spirit of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award,” C-SPAN executive chairman and chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee, Brian Lamb in a statement. “He held a passion for the cable industry, commitment to excellence and was dedicated to the success of Cox Communications and its employees. We are honored to recognize him with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Related: Robbins Helped Lead an Industry 

Robbins joined Cox in 1983, was named president in 1985 and became CEO in 1995. During Robbins’ tenure, Cox quadrupled its size and led the industry on many issues, including sports rights. He retired from Cox at the end of 2005. Following his retirement, he was elected a member of the Cox Enterprises board of directors.

“Jim was such a positive influence in our industry and personally to so many of us at Cox,” current Cox president Patrick Esser said in a statement. “There was no one like him and hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t recount a Jim anecdote or special memory. He led the company to great success, but it is how he led that we remember most. To employees, customers, and colleagues, he was always genuine and giving and that’s what makes him so deserving of this recognition.”

Robbins served twice as chairman of the Internet & Television Association (NCTA) and won multiple awards, including the industry’s Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership. He is a member of the Cable Hall of Fame class of 2006. He was also a veteran, serving as a destroyer line officer and a gunboat flotilla public affairs officer during two tours of duty with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967.

“Jim’s commitment to excellence in customer service was exceptional, he was a mentor and friend to so many in our industry,” said The Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn in a statement. “We are delighted to remember Jim and his legacy with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created in 2011 to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s longstanding commitment to ethics in business. Awardees represent the ideals upheld by Bill Bresnan, including continually demonstrating ethical leadership qualities, doing what’s right in the face of adversity, even when it is unpopular, incorporating doing what’s right in everyday life, and demonstrating societal, community, and philanthropic engagement.

Past recipients include former Continental Cablevision founder Amos B. Hostetter, Jr., former National Cable & Telecommunications CEO and Landmark Communications president Decker Anstrom; former CableVision Industries chief Alan Gerry and Lamb. Last year’s winner was former National Cable Television Association executive June Travis. 

Since 1998, 133 leaders have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. For more information on the celebration and to secure sponsorships, visit ww.cablehalloffame.com, or call 720-502-7513.

For the first time, the lights of Broadway will shine on The Cable Center’s newest Cable Hall of Fame class.

Five executives and a groundbreaking television show — AMC’s drug-dealer drama Breaking Bad — will share the stage of New York’s Ziegfeld Ballroom on Wednesday, April 4, for the 2018 Cable Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Lending more star wattage to the festivities will be host Carla Hall, a popular cooking personality from ABC’s The Chew and Bravo’s Top Chef and Top Chef America.

Among the industry figures set to be enshrined are Nomi Bergman, president, Advance/Newhouse; John Bickham, president and chief operating officer, Charter Communications; Balan Nair, president and CEO, Liberty Latin America; Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO; and Neil Smit, vice chairman, Comcast Corp.

June Travis, a former NCTA executive, will also be presented with the group’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Breaking Bad creator, head writer and executive producer Vince Gilligan will accept Hall of Fame honors on the AMC show’s behalf.

Nomi Bergman
President, Advance/Newhouse

Second-generation cable executive Nomi Bergman didn’t intend to get into the family business. After graduating from the University of Rochester with a degree in statistics and economics, Bergman went to work as a systems consultant in Arthur Andersen & Co.’s consulting division. Bergman’s father, Robert Miron, ran the Newhouse cable companies, and a cousin at parent company Advance/Newhouse encouraged her to join the larger organization’s internal consulting group. As an analyst with Advance/Newhouse, Bergman worked on instituting best practices and operating efficiencies among the company’s publications and cable divisions.

In the late 1980s, her group installed new accounting systems at company properties. Noticing that the various cable operations used a variety of billing systems, she recommended integrating them. She took charge of what would be a two-year project involving 50 system conversions. She became a cable nomad, setting up camp in each Newhouse location to oversee successive rollouts. The odyssey was an immersion in MSO field operations that convinced Bergman to make her professional home in cable at Advance/Newhouse. (The company formed a partnership with Time Warner Cable in 1995.)

Bergman adapted quickly to the architecture side of the cable business. Among her most satisfying achievements was being part of the launch of RoadRunner, Time Warner’s broadband internet service. “Being a part of reinventing the purpose of a cable system … re-architecting service delivery, growing the team, was beyond exciting,” she said.

Bergman helped launch sixth-ranked MSO Bright House Networks in 2003 and served as the company’s president from 2007-16. Today, as senior executive officer with Advance/Newhouse companies, she focuses on corporate development and strategic partnerships.

The busy executive and mother of three daughters has been a force in a number of cable and community support organizations, and she remains actively involved with several. Her work on the board of Adaptive Spirit grew out of a mother-daughter activity that became an annual tradition. “Watching [U.S. Paralympic Ski Team members] embrace their disabilities as their star qualities and become exceptional athletes is incredibly inspiring,” Bergman said. “It’s a powerful metaphor for us all — about how to live our lives and be our best selves.”

She believes in the value of kindness in all aspects of life. “People trust kind and caring leaders,” she said, and feels these qualities helped her to cultivate dedicated fearless, and knowledgeable teams who felt empowered to win.

John Bickham
President and Chief Operating Officer, Charter Communications

John Bickham’s career has taken him from the utility industry in Texas to the cable C-suite in Connecticut. Born in Corpus Christi, he graduated from Texas A&I — now part of the Texas A&M system — but had no idea where he would go from there. He landed at utility holding company Houston Industries, where he helped design and build coal-fired generating stations. In 13 years with the company, he was involved in utility regulation at the national and state levels. In the mid-1980s, the holding company became interested in cable and went into partnership with ATC. Bickham’s accidental entry into the cable business was the start of a long, successful career.

Compared to the staid world of utilities, Bickham found cable “an immature business, unsophisticated from a business planning and construction standpoint. It was different, it was fun, and you were a lot closer to the cash register.” Thirty years ago, “who knew the business was going to be what it is today? Today … we sell services that every home and business needs.” In 1986, he co-founded KBLCOM, a cable company that partnered with ATC and owned cable systems in eight states. He left as president and chief operating officer of KBLCOM to operate Time Warner Cable’s Los Angeles division, and advanced to executive vice president of TWC, overseeing the company’s operations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

Bickham moved to Cablevision Systems in 2004 as president of cable and communications. He joined Charter as COO in 2012 and added president to his title in 2016 when the company’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks closed. In the cable industry, local operations continue while the owners change; at Charter, Bickham has gotten reacquainted with cable systems that he previously led at KBLCOM.

The father of two grown daughters, Bickham enjoys spending time with his four-year-old grandson. And he travels the world in pursuit of game birds — to England, Spain and South America, as well as in the U.S.

Bickham advises the industry’s future leaders to take every opportunity to learn the different aspects of the business, especially as companies grow and jobs become more tightly focused. “Don’t limit yourself,” he urged. “Don’t ever get bored with what you’re doing. Move around in your company; experience different things.”

Breaking Bad
Television Drama Series, AMC, Vince Gilligan, creator

Only on cable could a series that starts with a cancer diagnosis and continues into the darkest corners of the methamphetamine industry find a home. Breaking Bad broke new ground in television drama and demonstrated the possibilities of innovative storytelling.

The series premiered on AMC in 2008 and ended in 2013. It tells the story of Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher who, with two years left to live and a desire to secure his family’s financial security, becomes a powerful meth manufacturer.

Series creator Vince Gilligan envisioned an approach that had never been tried in series television: a “show about change” that began with a definite end point in view. Gilligan is a TV fan who streams shows from the 1950s and ‘60s and observed, “The thing TV has done very well is tell an indefinite story — a story that can go on for 20 years [a la Gunsmoke or NCIS]. And the way to do that, from a writer’s point of view, is not to put the characters through too many personal changes … I figured stasis had been tried with great success for 50 years, and something more dynamic in terms of character would be interesting. But that meant it couldn’t last indefinitely.” Gilligan was well aware that the concept of a finite series would be difficult to sell. “That’s why I’m still amazed that Sony and AMC signed on. … You don’t want to be told from the get-go, ‘This thing probably won’t last long enough for you to make your money back.’ ”

Not only does Walter White change, but unlike other TV heroes or anti-heroes, he changes for the worse, as the series title suggests. Legend has it that Gilligan pitched his idea to AMC as “turning Mr. Chips into Scarface.” Another unusual approach: in the moral universe of Breaking Bad, actions have consequences. Ultimately, characters reap what they sow, and nobody gets away with anything.

Gilligan believes television drama continues to change, and he hopes it will continue to pursue shows designed for more than the same demographic sweet spot. Above all, he wants writers to be bold. “Don’t copy off your neighbor’s exam,” he said. “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories other folks are telling; tell a story that excites you.”

Balan Nair
President and CEO, Liberty Latin America

“My life is 95% luck,” said Balan Nair. “Making the most of opportunities takes a little bit of skill, but to get those opportunities [takes luck]. I’m a very lucky man.” What Nair calls luck, others might see as destiny.

In his 11 years with Liberty Global, Nair has advocated focusing on software as the driver of cable’s evolution and he’s met the challenge of harmonizing products, services, workforce and networks across multiple countries, languages and regulatory environments. Named CEO of Liberty Latin America late last year, he is now focused on high-potential markets in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Nair grew up in Malaysia, coming to the U.S. in 1985 to study electrical engineering at Iowa State University. He met his wife at Iowa State — an event he believes was the greatest stroke of luck in a fortunate life. He began his career working on high-voltage power transmission, and discovered an aptitude for writing software. His wife worked at telephone company USWest in Iowa, and when she was transferred to Minneapolis, he followed and found work at a power research company. When another USWest transfer came up, this time to Denver, Nair switched from power to telco, and joined USWest himself. In more than 12 years with the company and its successor, Qwest Communications International, he rose up the leadership ladder to become chief information officer and chief technology officer.

With extensive telco experience under his belt, Nair decided to move on to the fast-growing internet world. He joined AOL as chief technology officer, overseeing technology, IT and network operations. The Nairs left Denver for AOL headquarters in Washington, D.C. Given his experience, Nair was well-positioned for an industry that saw its future in both areas. Liberty Global came calling in 2007, and the family happily returned to Denver.

As a cable industry newcomer, Nair saw a huge opportunity. He “immediately saw the advantage cable had over any other telecommunications business. We had better networks, better platforms and we were better suited for the transition to a software world. We also have a perpetual entrepreneurial spirit. The founding members [of the industry] are still involved, and our second-generation managers were trained by founders. That is very special.”

Richard Plepler
Chairman and CEO, HBO

It’s safe to assume that Richard Plepler is the only high-ranking cable executive whose entry into the industry came about through a chance meeting with a U.N. ambassador at a Chinese restaurant. To start at the beginning: Plepler grew up in the ’60s in a politically active home where engaged, informed citizenship was paramount. “At the dinner table, you had to have read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and you had to be prepared to talk about the world,” he recalled.

After graduating from Franklin & Marshall College, he went to work for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). From Dodd, he learned about building consensus and the notion that people can disagree without being disagreeable. “I think that informed the way I began to think about business, and I think it informs my leadership style,” Plepler said.

Plepler next went on to work for a small media-consulting firm that specialized in crisis management. After a year, brimming with confidence at 26, he started his own strategy and production firm, RLP International, which would make films to help countries that wanted to improve their images. Cheerfully acknowledging his own youthful hubris, Plepler is quick to point out that he was RLP International’s sole employee.

His big break came at a Chinese restaurant in New York in 1988, where then-Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Benjamin Netanyahu happened to be dining. “I went over to introduce myself, and I said, ‘You have a huge problem in the U.S.’ The first intifada had broken out, and Israel was being viewed negatively. I told Netanyahu, ‘This needs to be put in a larger context, sir, and my company, RLP International, knows how to do that.’ And by some miracle, he said, ‘Come see me.’ ” The result of their subsequent meeting was a well-received documentary for PBS that explained the complexity of Israel’s situation. A call from HBO’s Michael Fuchs soon followed, inviting Plepler to join the network in 1992 as communications chief.

“From my first day [at HBO], I always felt like I was where I belonged,” Plepler said. “The people I’ve observed who have done the best feel they’re in the environment where they’re meant to be. Be in the place where you feel passionate about the work, about the mission.”

Neil Smit
Vice Chairman, Comcast Corp.

Growing up on a farm in Connecticut, Neil Smit didn’t have a clear idea of what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he knew what he didn’t want to do. Farming was at the top of that list; construction was second. “My father was in construction, and I didn’t necessarily want to be the second generation in the construction business,” he said. “I wanted to carve my own path.” He entertained notions of becoming an astronaut, but after graduating from Duke University, he ended up on sea, air and land as a member of the legendary Navy SEALs.

From his five-and-a-half years as a SEAL, Smit learned important lessons that he applied to his subsequent business career. “The first thing you learn in SEAL teams is, it’s all about teams,” he said. “If you’re not pulling together, you’re pulling apart, and you do everything together as a team. The other thing is that you communicate very directly from day one. And finally, you’re always developing your skills, your people, and you have to keep building new capabilities. More than anything, it’s about the teamwork.”

When Smit retired from the Navy as a lieutenant commander, he worked in hostage negotiations before moving into the corporate world. He held leadership roles at Nabisco and Pillsbury, and then moved to AOL and MapQuest. Along the way, he got to know Paul Allen, who invited him to join Charter Communications as CEO in 2005. Cable appealed to him. “The day-to-day diversity of things that we had to deal with was interesting,” he recalled. “We were in the internet business, the phone business, the video business, and it was an ever-changing environment.” Another plus: “The quality of the people was very high; there’s still an entrepreneurial spirit in the industry,” he said.

Smit joined Comcast Cable as president and CEO in 2010. He now serves as a vice chairman of Comcast Corp., working to develop future technology- oriented business opportunities. Active in his community, he recently left the board of trustees of Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, and continues his work with the board of visitors for the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. And his adventurous spirit remains strong. He enjoys boating, water sports and skiing, and recently took up ice driving with his son in northern Canada. “I’ll try about anything,” he said.

Bresnan Award Recipient

June E. Travis

June Travis retired from the cable television industry in late 1999. Since 1994, she had served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Cable Television Association, the industry’s principal trade association based in Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining the NCTA, Travis was president and chief operating officer of Rifkin & Associates, a Denver-based cable television operator. Before that, she served in several executive positions at American Television and Communications, the predecessor to Time Warner Cable.

Recalling the days when cable was a much smaller business, Travis said the industry’s ethical core was apparent in the relationships between its leaders. The early entrepreneurs “were very competitive with one another, but if attacked from the outside, they circled the wagons and supported one another. The collegiality was palpable.”

Starting her cable career as a secretary, Travis noted the admirable leadership qualities she saw practiced by industry role models. “I kept thinking, ‘Gee, if I ever get into management, that’s how I would like to manage, that’s how I would like to be involved in the community, that’s how I would like to give back.’ ”

Travis has served as an officer and board member of a number of cable television industry boards, including CommScope, NCTA (now NCTA: The Internet & Television Association), C-SPAN, Cable in the Classroom, TeleCorps and Women in Cable (now Women in Cable Telecommunications). She chaired the industry’s political action committee, CablePAC, for nine years. She said such organizations made a tremendous difference to the industry’s employees.

She has been active in a number of Colorado organizations including the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Colorado Forum, the Colorado Women’s Forum, the National Jewish Center, Inter-Faith Community Services, Young Americans Center for Financial Education and the Dumb Friends League. She recently stepped down as chairman of the board of the Daniels Fund but remains on that board and also serves as a trustee for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Travis believes in business leaders’ responsibility to their communities. “It’s huge,” she said. “And it pays back a hundred-fold. If you are genuinely in the community, not for the recognition, but truly caring, and participating, and supporting the community, you can’t buy that kind of customer respect.”

NPR CEO Jarl Mohn has declined his invitation to join the Cable Hall of Fame as he deals with the broadcaster's sexual harassment issues.

The Cable Center said Mohn made the decision "to focus all of his efforts on NPR."

UPDATE: NPR CEO Jarl Mohn to Take Medical Leave 

Mohn, the former head of E! Entertainment, has been criticized for the way sexual harassment allegations against NPR’s news chief, Michael Oreskes, were handled.

Oreskes resigned last week but some staffers said management, led by Mohn, did not respond quickly or forcefully enough to complaints about Orsekes's behavior and are now seeking Mohn’s dismissal.

RELATED: Cable Center Announces 2018 Cable Hall of Fame Class

“We understand and support Mr. Mohn’s decision regarding his nomination,” Jana L. Henthorn, president and CEO of The Cable Center, said in a statement. “We are looking forward to the celebration, which will be held on April 4, for the first time in New York City at the Ziegfeld Ballroom.”

Mohn’s inclusion in the 2018 Hall of Fame class was announced on Oct. 31.

NPR's issues are part of a wave of sexual harassment allegations across the entertainment and media business that began with reports that studio head Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Co. had for decades engaged in inappropriate behavior with women. The disclosures have led to the firing or resignation of a number of top executives, agents and actors.

The Cable Center said it has named Continental Cablevision founder Amos B. Hostetter Jr. as the 2016 recipient of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. The award honors the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and long-time chairman of the board of The Cable Center. Hostetter will received the award at the 19th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, May 16 at the Westin Boston Waterfront, in conjunction with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s (NCTA) Internet and Television Expo (INTX).

“I am honored to have been chosen for this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award,” Hostetter said in a statement. “Bill was a respected colleague, and most importantly, a good friend, and it is a real privilege to receive this recognition in his memory.” 

Hostetter currently serves as chairman of Pilot House Associates, LLC. He was the co-founder and former chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Cablevision, Inc.; and was also a former director of AT&T. Additionally, Hostetter is the chair emeritus of the board of trustees of WGBH and of Amherst College; chair of Global Post, LLC; and is a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the North Bennet Street School and Belmont Hill School.

He is best known as a pioneer and innovator in the industry – Continental was one of the first cable operators to introduce broadband – and his decision to leave the company he founded shortly after selling it to telco U.S. West in 1996. Less than a year later, after US West reneged on a promise to keep the Continental management team intact and in Boston, Hostetter and several of his top executives resigned.    

“Amos has always been a role model for many of us in the cable television industry,” said Brian Lamb, executive chairman, C-SPAN, and chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee. “In many ways ‘ethics’ could be his middle name.”

Hostetter also is a former board member and chairman of NCTA, and was a founding board member and former chairman of C-SPAN and Cable in the Classroom. He is also a former board member of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB), Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; and is a former member of the Vestry of Trinity Church, Boston.

Hostetter has received numerous awards and honors including the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award; and induction into the Cable Hall of Fame and Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame for lifetime contribution to the communications industry.

 “The Cable Center is pleased to recognize Amos with this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award,” said Jana L. Henthorn, president and CEO. “He has consistently provided strong leadership and guidance throughout his years in the cable industry, and his dedication to philanthropy and ethics in business is truly admirable.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s longstanding commitment to ethics in business. Awardees represent the ideals upheld by Bill Bresnan, including continually demonstrating ethical leadership qualities, doing what’s right in the face of adversity, even when it is unpopular, incorporating doing what’s right in everyday life, and demonstrating societal, community and philanthropic engagement. 

The Cable Center has added five new oral histories to The Hauser Oral and Video History Collection, which includes audio and video histories of executives from major cable companies, as part of its Cable History Project. The new additions are: Terry Cordova, Craig Cuttner, John Evans, Steve Friedman and John Goddard.

Cordova (pictured), chief technology officer and senior vice president of Suddenlink Communications started out at Communications Services then worked at Galaxy Cablevision, as vice president of Charter Communications and then finally at Suddenlink. Cordova believes in a cable industry that is able to adapt and “constantly evolve.”

Cuttner, SVP of Technology Development and Standards at HBO, enjoys his position both as an entrepreneur and the tech work behind the scenes and is proud of what HBO has accomplished. He looks back and realizes that no six months are the same.

“At the end of the day, you want one result that’s for the betterment of cable-kind, mankind, whatever you want to call it.” Cuttner said, in a release.

Brian Lamb interviewed CEO and chairman of Evans Telecommunications Company John Evans. Evans was president of Hauser Communications, co-founder of C-SPAN and is a philanthropist with the Evans Foundation, contributing to “higher education and social justice, global health and specifically AIDS vaccine research.”

Friedman built his own company Somerset Communications in 1980, co-built a SMATV company and is now currently executive vice president of Fiber Design and Construction at Wave Broadband. His success comes from supporting the customer and growing a stronger business.

Paul Maxwell interviewed Goddard, former president and CEO of Viacom Cable as well as being a second generation cable operator. Goddard told Maxwell he wants to be remembered for his “commitment to customer service,’ which he is always willing to improve upon by ‘spending a little more money and sacrificing current cash flow.”

The Hauser Oral History Collection is “the only repository of first-hand accounts direct from industry leaders about the creation, expansion and current state of the cable industry.” The Cable Center has been collecting histories since 1985 and has over 330 video and histories in their collection with more being added every year. They are available on The Cable Center website and on YouTube. The histories also include a written transcript to assist with research purposes.

Steve Scully, C-SPAN’s senior executive producer and political editor, will emcee the 18th annual Cable Hall of Fame Celebration on Tuesday, May 5, at the Chicago Navy Pier, in conjunction with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s (NCTA) Internet and Television Expo (INTX).

Scully (pictured) is responsible for coordinating all aspects of C-SPAN’s campaign programming for C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org and C-SPAN Radio (heard nationwide on on Sirius XM Channel 120). He also serves as one of the regular hosts of its morning call-in show, Washington Journal, C-SPAN’s Newsmakers and C-SPAN Radio’s Washington Today program. He joined C-SPAN in 1990 as a political editor and White House producer. Scully served nine years on the executive board of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and was president from 2006-2007. He is also the past Amos B. Hostetter Chair at The Cable Center and University of Denver (DU), and taught an innovative and popular distance learning course on media, politics and public policy issues for a number of years in conjunction with DU, Purdue University, George Mason University and Suffolk University.

“We are honored to welcome Steve as emcee for this year’s Cable Hall of Fame Celebration, and are looking forward to a wonderful evening with industry friends and associates as we recognize our six honorees,” Larry Satkowiak, CEO of The Cable Center, said in a release.

The Cable Hall of Fame Celebration will begin with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner and the induction ceremony. The event program will also include the presentation of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award, honoring the late William J. Bresnan, to Decker Anstrom. A festive after party concludes the evening’s activities. For more information on the Cable Hall of Fame celebration, visit www.cablehalloffame.com or call 720-502-7500.