The Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center honored the 2024 class of Cable Hall of Fame inductees on April 18 at a gala event at New York’s Ziegfeld Ballroom. Also recognized was this year’s recipient of the Bresnan Award for Ethics in Business, Geraldine Laybourne, the former Nickelodeon chief, Disney-ABC Cable Networks president and Oxygen Media co-founder. For photos from the festivities, please click on the gallery below.  

A group of six cable and connectivity trailblazers, including top programmers, cable-system operators, a high-profile business anchor and innovative technologists — one of whom is known as “the father of the cable modem” — will be honored April 18 with induction into the Cable Hall of Fame. 

That’s when the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center will stage its 27th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, a red-carpet event at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. 

The 2024 Cable Hall of Fame inductees are: 

• Liz Claman, Anchor, The Claman Countdown, Fox Business Network
• Bonnie Hammer, Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal
• Yvette Kanouff, Partner, JC2 Ventures
• Larry E. Romrell, Board Member, Liberty Media and Liberty Global
• Steven A. White, President, Special Counsel to CEO, Comcast Cable
• Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, Founder & Board Member, YAS Foundation

They join the 159 luminaries who’ve been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame since 1998. 

“This year’s Cable Hall of Fame honorees are some of the most accomplished leaders in the business,” The Cable Center CEO Diane Christman said. “It will be a true honor to welcome them to the Cable Hall of Fame.” 

A current Hall of Famer will be recognized again on April 18 as this year’s winner of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Geraldine Laybourne, a cable entrepreneur who is now the chairman of DAY ONE Early Learning Community, is this year’s Bresnan Award winner. 

The Bresnan Award recognizes the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center. 

“Gerry is a true trailblazer in the cable industry — from building Nickelodeon into a top-rated network to creating Oxygen and leading Disney/ABC, her career achievements are unrivaled,” Michael Willner, chairman and CEO of Penthera Partners and chair of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center’s board of directors, said. “She has tirelessly served the industry through her work on numerous boards and the thousands of women she has mentored. Her unwavering dedication to the early learning community is game-changing. It is a special honor to present my good friend with the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

For more on information on The Cable Hall of Fame, including how to attend the April 18 gala, click here. 

Liz Claman
Anchor, The Claman Countdown
Fox Business Network

It seems that Liz Claman was always meant to be on the air. Her father brought home the family’s first video camera when she was in sixth grade, and she and her four siblings played with it every night. “They all wanted to pretend they were celebrities,” she recalls. “I wanted to pretend I was the person interviewing the celebrity. I wanted to be that person on the other side of the camera.”

Although she dreamed of being a reporter, Claman thought she needed to focus on a more “legitimate” path. She studied French at the University of California, Berkeley with a diplomatic career in mind, squeezing in every journalism class she could. As graduation approached, the pull was too strong. She got an internship at KCBS Los Angeles which led to a production assistant job, delivering newspapers and scripts to Ann Curry, Paula Zahn and Jim Lampley. Her first on-air job was in Columbus, Ohio, then Cleveland, and eventually she landed an anchor position with WHDH Boston, at the time that city’s NBC affiliate. 

In 1998, CNBC offered Claman a 13-week freelance gig. “There were a million reasons not to take it,” she said. “I had a staff job at NBC in Boston. I was an anchor. I had benefits. And [the CNBC job] was the stock market, about which I knew nothing. [But] I knew I had to make the jump to cable.” 

Claman inhaled financial information to prepare for the new job. “I kept telling myself sleep was overrated,” she said. “To this day, I never let myself think I know it all.” She still heeds advice from her mother, a trained Shakespearean actress, who told Claman, “Darling, never wing it.” After seven weeks in her initial freelance position, CNBC offered her a full-time job.

At CNBC Claman relished the opportunity to do in-depth reporting. “In cable, you could throw out ideas and most often they’d say, ‘Why not? Let’s try it.’ ” She created Breakfast with the CEO, featuring business luminaries in their natural work habitat. The popular series led to promotion to anchor.

After nine years at CNBC, Claman was ready to move on. She got a call from Fox, which was preparing to launch Fox Business Network. “Within 30 minutes, I thought, ‘I’ve got to work here,’” she recalled. She liked the feistiness of a startup taking on an established player. “More than that, I sensed that they understood me.”

In addition to the highly rated Claman Countdown, Claman’s work at Fox includes her Weekend With Warren special, which culminated in a high-profile interview with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Millions follow her on TikTok. 

In her off hours, Claman skis, runs triathlons and takes bass guitar lessons. She advises those aspiring to follow her example: “You have to fight the hardest for it. You have to say yes to everything, including the stuff where you say, ‘Well, I’m a Berkeley graduate. I’m not delivering newspapers.’ Yes, you are. You don’t get here without going there.” 

Bonnie Hammer
Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal

It takes more than a sharp eye and great instincts to become one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. Bonnie Hammer has plenty of both and combined them with her deep belief in the power of collaboration to build a brilliant career. 

Her happiest childhood memories are of summer camp. “That’s where I learned true friendship,” she said. “How to be a teammate, how to collaborate, how to share.” That was also where Hammer’s lifelong passion for photography began. Later, as a photojournalism major at Boston University, she cultivated the ability to capture a story in a shot — a skill that would continue to serve her well. 

Aiming for a career as a print photojournalist, Hammer got an internship shooting still photos for a kids’ show, Infinity Factory, on WGBH, Boston’s PBS station. A couple of the show’s production assistants had been fired, and Hammer was offered a PA job. Each PA was assigned a child cast member to wrangle. As the most junior member of the team, Hammer was responsible for Winston, a sheepdog. “I had to clean up after the dog,” she recalled. “A lot of people say their job is crap, but mine really was … crap!” 

Hammer advanced in broadcast before becoming Lifetime Television’s director of programming. “Cable was still very young,” she recalled. “We made the rules. We broke the rules. We made up new rules. And there were a lot of women, partially because we couldn’t necessarily get jobs in broadcast.” 

For Hammer, cable’s limited resources were a bonus. “Because we didn’t have tons of money, there weren’t tons of employees. We all got to wear different hats. We were also forced to collaborate because that’s the only way you could get things done. It was a phenomenal learning ground.”

After joining Universal Television as a programming executive, Hammer went on to lead USA and Syfy. She presided over USA Network’s “Characters Welcome” rebrand and the network’s public-service program, “Erase the Hate,” and green-lighted hit after hit, always “in a room together with every one of my senior people when we had to make a final decision,” she said. Despite early skepticism when she was given responsibility for USA’s wrestling property, Hammer and the “ginormous” men of the WWF (now WWE) forged another hugely successful collaboration. 

Now vice chair of NBCUniversal, Hammer said her proudest accomplishment is the teams she’s built throughout her career. “My channels succeeded because of amazing people, great collaboration, and the realization that everyone had skin in the game,” she said. “We would win together, and we would lose together. That made all the difference.” 

Hammer advises those entering the industry to seek out honest mentors. “Find yourself a truth-teller,” she said. Next, “understand it’s a journey. Figure out what you love. Experiment. Don’t think growth is all vertical — a lot of it is horizontal. I’m a big believer in zigzagging.” Hammer looks forward to discovering where the next zigzag takes her. 

As for her next chapter, “I’m still not finished writing my own story,” she said.

Yvette Kanouff
Partner, JC2 Ventures

Yvette Kanouff has spent her career blazing trails, revolutionizing video and helping others along the way. As an eighth-grade student in Germany, where her military family was stationed, Kanouff discovered what would become her intellectual passion. Scolding her for goofing off, her teacher sent her to the board to solve an algebra problem. “I solved the problem, and I thought, ‘That was so easy.’ And I fell in love with math that day.”

She studied mathematics at the University of Central Florida and began her career as a radar engineer with Lockheed Martin, developing pattern recognition algorithms — now known as artificial intelligence algorithms.

A Lockheed colleague who was interviewing with Time Warner Cable encouraged her to apply. “I came into the cable industry to help them build two-way video networks — that needs computer science and mathematics, I assumed,” she said. Her ability to code, script and write significant software made her something of a unicorn. “I realized there was nobody like me in the industry, or if there was, I didn’t work with them. So I got to work on the funnest stuff.  We had to build every spec from scratch — how to encode, create metadata, store, stream, deliver, modulate, transport, build applications and more.” 

Working with Warner Bros. to put a movie onto digital media, she said, “I remember writing one command that was a page long. But all that work was the predecessor to creating the DVD. That wasn’t what we were trying to do, but we ended up creating a digital storage and playout medium for every person in their home.” 

Kanouff led the world’s first video-on-demand trial, and her work in VOD, cloud DVR, digital and on-demand advertising, streaming security and privacy changed the face of video. In 2020 she was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in Technology and Engineering by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Often the only woman in the room, especially early in her career, Kanouff has more than her share of stories about unconscious bias, and she has skillfully overcome many barriers with confidence, competence and good humor. She prides herself on the many lifelong friends, men and women, that she has made through deep technical and industry connections.

“It’s just a tough journey for the first one,” Kanouff said, and she is committed to easing the journey for those who follow her. She founded Tech Connect, a mentoring program, and Multiplier Effect, which focuses on sponsorship. “You’ve got to open a door and pull people through. The day I don’t have to do it for women, I’ll gladly do it for somebody else who’s an underdog.”

Kanouff encourages those coming into the business to preserve its distinctive collegiality and creativity. “I’d like to see people continue to help the next generation. We need them and we have to welcome them and help them thrive,” she said. “And most important — never stop innovating!”

Larry E. Romrell
Board Member, Liberty Media and Liberty Global

Larry Romrell’s modesty belies his great success. Uncomfortable in the spotlight, he sees himself as lucky — in the right place at the right time with the right people. In fact, he helped build the cable industry.

Growing up in Idaho, Romrell’s earliest ambition was to be a pilot. He studied electronics in college but, “I didn’t finish because there was a local TV station being constructed in Pocatello, Idaho. They hired me and paid me a lot more than the graduates were making.” At Salt Lake City’s KCPX, he gained experience with microwave technology. 

Then, community antenna system owner Bob Magness offered him a job. Romrell says he’d been “indoctrinated” with broadcasters’ anti-cable viewpoint and was hesitant to work on Magness’s microwave sites in Montana and Wyoming. However, Romrell recalled, “I liked [Magness] on the phone, so I went to work [for him] right away and I was able to get things stabilized.”

Romrell became Magness’s chief engineer and then manager, traveling with his boss on acquisition trips that changed his view of cable. “I no longer felt I was a turncoat, I could see that the problem in small towns was that they had one broadcast signal or none,” he said.

Magness’s cable company grew, moved to Denver, and became Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) in 1968. Romrell led the company’s microwave subsidiary, Western Telecommunications, which grew along with TCI, eventually stretching from Omaha to San Francisco. The Idaho country boy “waltzed into the offices of TV network executives and made proposals that (our) equipment would be a lot better for them,” he recalled. “We fed every broadcaster signals along that route.”

Romrell’s work included building the first fiber network inside NORAD in Colorado Springs. A separate contract took him to Saudi Arabia to install the microwave radios for the government across the desert from Riyadh to Jeddah. There, he and his team observed princes on a falconry hunt using a transportable microwave satellite uplink — new technology at the time. “I convinced Bob that we should buy one and use it for remote satellite uplinking,” he recalled. They went on to support uplinking for the NFL, space shuttle launches, and primetime news events. The team also did the satellite uplinking for the Olympics in 1980 and 1984.

In 1978 Western Telecommunications merged with Marcus Communications to become WestMarc, which was spun out as a separate cable company with Romrell and Jeff Marcus at the helm. TCI repurchased WestMarc a few years later and made Romrell a senior vice president. 

In 2000, Romrell achieved his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. Today, he enjoys flying and  ranching. He currently serves on the boards of Liberty Media, Liberty Global and Tripadvisor. Looking back on a remarkable career, he said: “I guess if there’s something I did right, it’s that I hired really good people. And I had the best mentors that a person could ever follow, like Bob Magness and John Malone. I didn’t do it on my own.”  

Steven A. White 
President, Special Counsel to CEO, Comcast Cable

Finding his “why” and making an impact have been lifelong pursuits for Steve White. He was inspired by Mark Twain’s observation, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” That piece of wisdom led White to live a life of purpose. 

White said his earliest influence was his single mother, who moved her “four knucklehead boys” from Florida to Indianapolis with $500 in her pocket and got a job cleaning motels. “That’s motel with an ‘M,’ not hotel with an ‘H,’ ” White emphasized. She’d take the boys to work with her where “we learned about teamwork and what you can control, which is your attitude and effort,” White recalled. 

An aspiring athlete in high school, White became the basketball manager for his school’s highly competitive team. Aiming for a career in sportscasting, he went to Indiana University as a journalism major, switching to business when he realized he was better suited to that world. 

After college, White became American Hospital Supply’s youngest-ever sales leader at age 23. It didn’t go well. “I thought my purpose was to provide a living for my family so we would never be in poverty again,” he said. “I got fired because I was so self-absorbed.” A company executive who saw White’s potential had the young man shadow him for six months to learn about leadership. “That was a major transformation,” he said. He realized that his “why” was to “create a table of prosperity for as many people as possible.”

White was leading Colgate-Palmolive’s toothbrush business when a TCI recruiter contacted him in 1996. “At the time, TCI was only offering analog video and they wanted to get into phone, get into internet.” He was sold on the prospect of leading thousands of people in a young industry.

After AT&T purchased TCI, White became senior VP of the new organization’s Atlanta cluster, but he was losing interest in the cable business. When AT&T Broadband merged with Comcast in 2002, the company’s vision for what the industry could become inspired White anew. He advanced in operations leadership to become president of Comcast’s West Division. After 18 years with the company, he was named president, special counsel to the CEO of Comcast Cable with responsibility for supporting the company’s diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives; leadership programming and development; and advancement of digital equity.

White believes his success is the result of investing in others and helping them reach their potential. He attributes much to those who gave him “a hand up, not a handout — people who allow you to put your talents fully on display,” he said. “The reason I’ve been given these opportunities is to help make a path for others to make a difference.”

Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard
Founder and Board Member, YAS Foundation

Don’t underestimate a person with a vision, especially if that visionary has the determination of Rouzbeh Yassini. Against all odds, Yassini played an outsize role in connecting the world and became known as the “father of the cable modem.”

 Arriving in the U.S. from his native Iran to attend West Virginia University in 1977, Yassini originally intended to study medicine, but pivoted to electrical engineering. “Like healthcare, communications has no boundaries. The discovery continues forever,” he said.

Yassini’s first job in 1981 was with General Electric, where he designed TV sets, cameras and videocassette recorders and got his first glimpse of how cable television worked. In 1986 he moved to New England to become director of engineering at a data-networking company, Proteon. 

Those two experiences started the wheels turning. “At GE we did video over coax for consumers, and at Proteon we did data over twisted pair for corporate users,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to put data and video over the same wire.’ ” 

But not everyone agreed. “The chief technical officers at Proteon told me that if it could be done, somebody would already have done it. So I quit Proteon and followed my vision to do it myself.”

Working with a hand-picked team of engineers and advisers, Yassini began deploying a first-generation cable modem for university campuses and government clients including the Rock Island Arsenal military complex, where a then-record 5,000 users were connected by a blended coax-and-data network. 

In 1990, Yassini founded LANcity Corp. to develop technology that was smaller, agile, and built for scale. A second-generation modem for institutional customers paved the way for LANcity’s  crown jewel: a powerful, affordable modem designed to integrate with residential cable networks.  

At the time, many larger cable U.S. operators remained focused on their core business of video, not data connectivity. Smaller companies, however, were more willing to experiment, and by 1992, with more than 100 operators using LANcity’s modems, larger peers began to join the parade. “The biggest challenge wasn’t inventing the technology and scaling it,” Yassini said. “It was convincing the cable industry that data over cable had business value, and that it could be the underpinning for a generational transformation.”

With the LANcity personalized cable-modem revolution accelerating in 1995 and its merger with BayNetwork, Yassini went on to work with CableLabs as executive consultant in 1997 to develop the DOCSIS standard and a companion interoperability/certification effort that would vault “cable television” into the broader realm of telecommunications. Today, DOCSIS-powered devices are just about everywhere, connecting billions of people. But Yassini said there’s still work to be done. One objective: make sure every citizen is connected to broadband. Another: help heal planet Earth. 

Pairing vast sensor networks with broadband connectivity offers enormous potential for improving environmental conditions ranging from cleaner water to reduced pollution. “Eventually, we’ll learn to use the network to improve human life and extend the planet’s survival,” Yassini said. “That’s the ultimate goal.” 

Bresnan Award Recipient
Geraldine Laybourne
Chair, DAY ONE Early Learning Community

Gerry Laybourne has spent much of her extraordinary career listening to others, and turning what she learns from them into gold. Her achievements led to her 2004 induction into the Cable Hall of Fame. Like Bill Bresnan, she has always used business as a jumping-off point to make the world a better place, and her efforts on behalf of women and children have earned her the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

Laybourne took over the management of Nickelodeon in 1984 and led the network to top ratings and awards over the next 16 years. She said she did it by listening. “My mentors in how to run Nickelodeon were kids and my staff,” Laybourne said. “I went to more focus groups listening to kids than probably any TV executive in the history of television.” 

Inspired by an early mentor, Bernice Coe, the founder of Women in Cable (now the WICT Network), Laybourne was determined to help women advance in the industry. “When I was president of Nickelodeon, at least ten percent of my speeches would be for women’s groups,” she recalls. As a result, “so many young women would call my office to get my advice. My assistant figured out I didn’t need any more breakfast or lunch meetings. So we invited people to walk with me around Central Park Mondays and Fridays at 7 a.m. That became the mentor’s walk.”

Laybourne founded Oxygen Media and in 2000 launched Oxygen, the first network owned and operated by women. The network was targeted to young women, and mentor’s walks became a part of its brand. Four hundred women participated in the first walk, and Oxygen took it to other cities across the U.S. Today, Laybourne is vice chairman of Vital Voices, which supports 165 annual Mentoring Walks in more than 80 countries. 

With a master’s degree in elementary education, Laybourne’s deepest commitment is to early childhood education. “There was curriculum behind everything” at Nickelodeon, she said. 

As an undergraduate at Vassar College and later as a board member, Laybourne became interested in the public school system in Vassar’s hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York. In 2020, just 48% of the city’s students were graduating from high school, and Laybourne believed it was because Poughkeepsie was a “child-care desert.” She co-founded DAY ONE, which created a community-based approach to building a skilled childcare workforce, working with teachers, children, parents, and communities. Now in its third year, the nonprofit is focused on Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County, but has already drawn wider attention. 

Laybourne serves on statewide and U.S. Senate task forces for early childhood education. “We’re in high expansion mode and it all reminds me of Nickelodeon,” she said. “[DAY ONE’s] results are better than we thought they’d be. It’s because we’re concentrating on the audience. Everything I learned in the cable industry, I’m using.” 

Geraldine Laybourne, the pioneering media executive at Nickelodeon and founder of Oxygen Media, will receive the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award by the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center at the center's Cable Hall of Fame induction ceremony on April 18 in New York.

Laybourne became a star media executive first as a creator of children's and educational programming at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, where she spent 16 years and ran the network starting in 1984. She then served as president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks (1996-98) and was founder, chairman and CEO of Oxygen Media, the younger-women-focused cable network that launched under an intense spotlight in 2000 and was sold to NBCUniversal in 2007. She is in the Cable, Broadcasting+Cable and Television Academy halls of fame, was in the first group of Multichannel News Wonder Women and has received numerous other awards and honors, including Emmys, Peabodys and Parents’ Choice awards. She currently is on the boards of Betaworks, Common Sense Media Growth, The Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet and the Youth Opportunity Union (YOU) Advisory Boards and is vice chairman of Vital Voices, an organization that supports and develops promising women leaders around the world. She recently retired from the Vassar College board of trustees. 

In a statement, Laybourne said: “What an honor to receive this award in Bill’s name. A role model to all of us, Bill was passionate about using business as a jumping-off point to make the world a better place. I love that so many of us, in the formative years of cable, built businesses that gave back to the communities we served. I’m particularly proud of the mentoring efforts we started that now live on all over the world. I started casually asking young women to take a walk rather than going out for a meal. We formalized it in 2006 by launching the first-ever Mentors Walk in NYC, and now there are 175 walks taking place annually. I think Bill would heartily approve of all these wise women giving advice to the next generation of leaders by taking a walk.”

Michael Willner, board chairman of the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center, said: “Gerry is a true trailblazer in the cable industry — from building Nickelodeon into a top-rated network to creating Oxygen and leading Disney/ABC, her career achievements are unrivaled. She has tirelessly served the industry through her work on numerous boards and the thousands of women she has mentored. Her unwavering dedication to the early learning community is game changing. It is a special honor to present my good friend with the 2024 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Past recipients of the Bresnan Award include Pat Esser, Bill Daniels, Decker Anstrom, Ted Turner, June Travis, Brian Lamb and Bill Miron. More about the award and a 2000 Cable Center oral history interview with Laybourne can be found here. More about the Cable Hall of Fame and the upcoming ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom can be found here.

The Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center has slated six leaders in the world of media and entertainment to induct into the Cable Hall of Fame on April 18 at a New York City gala.

The 2024 honorees, chosen for their lasting impact on the connectivity, content, and media industry, are: 

• Liz Claman, anchor, The Claman Countdown, Fox Business Network.
• Bonnie Hammer, vice chairman, NBCUniversal.
• Yvette Kanouff, partner, JC2 Ventures.
• Larry E. Romrell, board member, Liberty Media and Liberty Global.
• Steven A. White, president, special counsel to CEO, Comcast Cable.
• Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, founder and board member, YAS Foundation.

“The 2024 Cable Hall of Fame class is a diverse and influential group of trailblazers who have had a formidable impact on the formation of our industry,” Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s board, said in a statement. “We are looking forward to gathering with our industry colleagues and honoring these six innovators at our celebration at the Ziegfeld Ballroom this April.”

Diane Christman, president and CEO, The Cable Center, added: “This year’s Cable Hall of Fame honorees are some of the most accomplished leaders in the business. It will be a true honor to welcome them to the Cable Hall of Fame.”

A quintet of cable industry leaders and an acclaimed and iconic TV comedy — HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm — will be honored in New York on April 27 as members of the 2023 Cable Hall of Fame. 

The 2023 class of honorees are among 153 luminaries who’ve been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame since 1998 and were selected for their groundbreaking innovation and entrepreneurship in the connectivity, content and media industry. They’ll be inducted at the 26th annual Hall of Fame ceremony, set for the Ziegfeld Ballroom in midtown Manhattan. 

“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 Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center’s executive committee, 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 Syndeo Institute at The 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.”

For more information on the 26th annual Cable Hall of Fame ceremony or to register, please click here. 

Bresnan Award Recipient
David Van Valkenburg
Former CEO/COO, Telewest PLC (U.K.)

With a lifelong dedication to serving others, David Van Valkenburg is known as a humble and ethical man and a fair, straight-shooting boss — a natural recipient of the 2023 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. He attributes his belief in people to both his religious upbringing and to growing up as the eldest of seven sons on a family dairy farm in Michigan, where he learned the importance of treating suppliers and others fairly. He has carried those principles with him throughout his career, unfailingly treating customers and employees with respect.

Van Valkenburg began his cable career with American Television and Communications (ATC) in 1973, when he was hired as a management trainee in the company’s Moraga, California, system. He quickly became GM and regional manager and got a first-hand understanding of customers and their needs. Van Valkenburg went on to senior executive positions with ATC, United Cable, Cox Communications, Paragon Cable and MultiVision. As a senior executive, he supported annual customer satisfaction and employee opinion surveys which frequently resulted in improved customer-facing employee training and more customer-friendly practices and policies.

In 1997, he joined Telewest in the U.K. as CEO/chief operating officer, arriving when the company was in serious financial straits. Soon after he started, he had to lay off 25% of the workforce — about 2,000 people. He visited every office in England and Scotland to deliver the news, a compassionate approach that employees appreciated. Van Valkenburg instituted the integration of all service functions among video, data and voice products, and created competitively priced, customer-friendly product bundles. Within two years, Telewest was listed on the London Stock Exchange and FTSE 100 and recognized by J.D. Power for customer service.

In addition to time with his family, Van Valkenburg volunteers with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s World Mission Board, interviewing prospective missionaries and annually providing feedback to existing missionaries based on personal and supervisor evaluations. Over the last 12 years, he and his wife, Doris, have visited missionaries in 25 countries in South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. With his local church group, he has arranged the drilling of more than 40 wells averaging 500 feet deep in the Ghanaian bush. Access to clean water from these wells meant that people, especially the women who are traditionally responsible for the chore, no longer needed to obtain polluted water from swamps and muddy streams. 

Van Valkenburg advises the industry’s future leaders to get to know their customers and employees. “Know the people who are making the business happen every day and the customers who are paying the bill,“ he said. “Make sure employees are recognized for what they do.“ He often notes that he tries to practice the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would have done unto them. Focus on those with whom you work as unique individuals.”

Tom E. Adams
Former Executive VP, Field Operations
Charter Communications

A career in cable was not on Tom Adams’s radar when he was starting out. The only child of a widowed mother with limited resources, Adams started working construction jobs in Binghamton, New York, at age 14. After earning a bachelor of science in engineering from Florida International University, he interviewed with a couple of big engineering firms. “I wasn’t really thrilled about either of them,” he recalled. 

Broke and looking for a way to “put gas in the car and go to happy hour,” Adams headed home. He ran into a cousin who worked for the local cable company, NewChannels, as it was changing out scramblers for HBO. “He offered to put in a good word for me, and they hired me to do this simple task,” Adams says.

The boss, Jim Streevy, took a liking to Adams and asked him to lead another project when the first one was done. This time, the mission was grounding cable drops. In 1977, he said, “cable was in its infancy and there were limited standards.” Adams and his crew had to check thousands of drops and get them into compliance with the National Electrical Safety Code. 

The spirit Adams found among his fellow employees was contagious. “The enjoyment you saw in their eyes when they went to work … it wasn’t work,“  he recalled. “I thought, ‘There might be a future here for me.’” After a few more technical and construction assignments, Adams entered the NewChannels management training program. System management positions followed, and he led the deployments of Primestar and home security products. 

In 1995, NewChannels merged with Time Warner Cable, which had just started to venture into broadband. Adams’s system in Elmira, New York, became a beta test market for two-way service. “We gave customers storage so they could create their own websites, and people went gaga,” he recalls. Despite some dismay that the first content his customers created was naked photos of themselves, he says introducing broadband was one of the highlights of his career.

Adams rose to executive leadership positions at TWC, moving his family around the country as he progressed. “They made a lot of sacrifices,” he says. He was regional VP of operations serving more than 550,000 Wisconsin customers when former colleagues Tom Rutledge and John Bickham asked him in 2012 to help grow Charter Communications into a great company.  

When Charter merged with TWC and Bright House Networks in 2016, Adams became deeply involved in the largest U.S. cable systems integration in history. He went on to lead field operations for Charter before retiring at the end of 2022. 

He takes special pride in the role he played in developing people and their potential. “Cable is the greatest industry in the world, and it’s going to continue to thrive,” he said. “To do that it’ll take a lot of talented people. You have to invest in people and training.”

Italia Commisso Weinand
Executive VP, Programming and Human Resources
Mediacom Communications 

After a seasick voyage from Italy on the Cristoforo Colombo, 8-year-old Italia Commisso Weinand arrived in New York with her family. Although she didn’t speak a word of English, she made friends quickly and was fluent in her new language within six months. Her parents kept close tabs on their outgoing daughter, so when she was 11, she jumped at the chance to work at her eldest brother’s pizzeria. “That was freedom,” she recalls. She has been enthusiastic about work and helping others ever since.

Commisso Weinand hoped to become a clothing designer. Although she was accepted at the Fashion Institute of Technology, her parents wouldn’t allow her to commute from the Bronx to Manhattan’s Garment District. She managed to feed her interest in fashion with a job at Gimbels department store where she discovered her talent for sales and customer service. “At 18, working three hours a day, I was making better money than the full-time ladies,” she says. 

Raised in a Catholic home, she attended Fordham University, where her social consciousness was elevated as she assisted a group of Jesuit priests educating minorities in the South Bronx. Commisso Weinand fully embraced the Jesuit philosophy that education is a force for social change. Her father, Giuseppe, had instilled a similar philosophy. Having lost her dad at the age of 17, she found him again in these men of the cloth who dreamed of a better world. She calls this her “finishing school.”

After Fordham, Commisso Weinand landed a customer service job at Manhattan Cable. There she fell in love with the young industry, learning the business from the ground up. She rose through the ranks over 19 years with Time Warner, Times Mirror Cable, TCI, and Comcast, where she turned around a struggling New Jersey system. 

In 1995, her brother, Rocco Commisso, then chief financial officer of Cablevision Industries, planned to start a new cable company. He needed an operations expert and convinced his sister to join him as co-founder and operations VP of Mediacom Communications. The plan was for Commisso Weinand to work from home three days a week — an appealing proposition for a mother of a 3-year-old son who was deaf. Before long, part-time work became more than full-time, with regular flights from New York to Mediacom’s first cable system in Ridgecrest, California, on top of demanding family obligations. “I got tested a lot,” she said.

Commisso Weinand has said her superpower is empathy. That compassion inspires loyalty from Mediacom employees — she makes a point of spending time with those dealing with significant personal challenges. As an active member of WICT, she has worked to build pay parity for employees and instituted a long-standing commitment to diversity. 

 She advises future industry leaders to focus on the people who work for them. An avid gardener, Commisso Weinand said: “If I don’t pay attention to my garden, it goes haywire. Life is a garden and people are the fruits of that labor.”

‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’
HBO

“Imitation isn’t the sincerest form of flattery; jealousy is,” according to Jeff Schaffer, producer and showrunner of Curb Your Enthusiasm. For more than 20 years, Larry David’s creation has been making entertainment professionals jealous with its uniquely skewed view of the daily annoyances of everyday social life.

Fresh from the nine-season run of his hit Seinfeld on NBC, David recalled: “I had an office at Castle Rock [Entertainment], who were the producers of Seinfeld, and Jeff Garlin was next door. Jeff said to me, ’What are you gonna do now?’ And I said, ‘You know, I'm thinking about going back to standup. I haven't done it in 10 years.’ And he said, ‘You should film it.’ ” David proposed a mockumentary-style special for HBO combining his standup performance with invented background scenes of the routine hassles involved in preparing for the show. The “day in the life” material became the focus of the 1999 special and then the basis for Curb Your Enthusiasm, which debuted in 2000.

Curb could only have come into being on premium cable. The show is a hybrid of carefully constructed plot and almost completely improvised dialogue — an approach unheard of on network television. “Larry wanted to do all the stories he couldn’t do on NBC,” Schaffer said. “HBO gave him the freedom to do what he wanted. They do a great job of letting the artist achieve his vision.” 

The show presents a fictionalized version of the curmudgeonly David’s day-to-day life in Los Angeles at home, at work and around town, where he regularly runs afoul of conventional social norms and falls victim to elaborate misunderstandings. 

“The show’s a hybrid,” Schaffer said. “It’s structure, structure, structure, then improv on top. We tell the actors, ‘You can’t make a mistake. We’re gonna play with the scene until we like it.’ The improv feels real because people are really listening to each other. They don’t know what the other person’s going to say. And you get all this great stuff that you weren’t expecting.” The approach works as effectively with regular cast members Garlin, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, and J.B. Smoove as it does with a virtual Who’s Who of celebrity guest stars.

Schaffer believes audiences love the wish-fulfillment they find in Curb Your Enthusiasm — its characters’ ability to say things they imagine saying in similar infuriating situations. He said that goes for David as well. “If real Larry said all the things TV Larry does, real Larry would be in jail,“ Schaffer said. “He aptly said this year, ‘I’m coming back because I’ve realized it’s much more fun to play Larry David than it is to be Larry David.’ ” 

Schaffer said he and David aren’t inclined to think about legacy. “We never sit back and reflect,” he says. With a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in production, he said, “I’m very proud of how funny it is, that it still manages to shock and surprise people, be culturally relevant, say things about right now, and say things that are universal.”

Douglas V. Holloway
President, Homewood Media

Growing up in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Doug Holloway remembers good friends and a large, close-knit family. In 1964, Holloway and his friends were bused from their Black neighborhood to school in an upper-middle-class white part of town. “The kids were pretty accepting of us,” he recalled, but faculty and administrators were another story. “We had to eat lunch in a dingy room next to the school’s boiler room. When we went outside for recess, we weren’t allowed to interact with the local kids.” High school was worse, and the kids were violent. Nevertheless, he said, “we endured, and we prevailed.”

Holloway got the television bug at age 4, when he appeared on Romper Room, a local children’s show. He studied journalism at Northeastern University and then transferred to Emerson College’s television production program. At a news-writing job with a Boston radio station, the Black general manager advised him to create a 20-year career plan. (He later shared that advice with his two sons, who followed his path into the entertainment business.) 

Holloway’s long-term goal was to run a television company. After earning an MBA in finance and marketing from Columbia and a marketing job with General Foods, he joined the strategic planning group at CBS in 1979. Each member of the group had to pick an area of focus. “I was the least senior person in the room, so I got stuck with new technology — cable, subscription TV, satellite delivery.” That led to work as part of the four-person affiliate relations team who launched CBS Cable. Holloway spent weeks on the road visiting cable systems in more than 30 states. He found cable “new and exciting. The [broadcast] network was stodgy and stuck in the old ways — a very closed old boys’ club.” Although CBS offered him a job with the network when CBS Cable was shuttered, he stuck to his plan. Along the way, he co-founded the organization now known as the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications.

In 1983 Kay Koplovitz hired him to help create USA Network’s affiliate-relations department. Over the next 21 years, Holloway helped USA become a cable success story. He was also deeply involved with the industry’s marketing organization, CTAM, serving as board chair and becoming its longest-tenured board member. Holloway was named USA’s president of affiliate relations in 2004, achieving the goal of his original 20-year plan. Still in his 40s, his new plan “was to diversify my skill set and join more boards of companies.”

When NBC purchased USA Networks in 2004, Holloway was named president of cable investments, managing joint venture companies. Sitting on the boards of these companies fit right into his new plan. In 2011, he became president of multichannel distribution at ION Media Networks.

Holloway’s current venture, Homewood Media, is named to pay homage to the community that shaped him. The organization created two urban-focused, multicultural services, URBN-TV and UKW Media, that stream on Roku and Vizio smart TVs, with plans to expand to more platforms. 

Julie M. Laulis
Chair of the Board, President and CEO
Cable One

When Tom Might first asked her to succeed him as CEO of CableOne in 2017, Julie Laulis said no. Although she had been successfully running operations as president and chief operating officer for several years, she had never envisioned herself focusing externally on investors and bankers more than on running the business. “I was afraid I wouldn’t live up to the position,” she said. She talked to her husband, John, who told her she had to take the job to set an example for their daughter. Then she talked to her team. “I said, ‘I’m going to do this because I think it’s best for all of us to have someone you know rather than an outside hire, but we have to understand that we’re all in this together.” Laulis then steeped herself in other companies’ annual reports and cold-called CEOs she admired to ask for guidance.

Laulis’s strong sense of responsibility goes way back. The eldest child of a nurse and an army colonel at the Pentagon, she was a latch-key kid in charge of her three younger brothers — one of whom was blind and mentally disabled — when her parents were at work. As a business student at Indiana University, she switched from microeconomics to a telecom program with a cable television focus that appealed to her. “It was a new industry, so I figured a woman would have a chance,” she recalls. When she graduated, the marketing VP of Arlington Cable Partners offered her a $4.25/hour job as a CSR. Within a week, she was promoted to CSR supervisor. 

From there, she went on to increasingly responsible marketing positions with Jones Intercable. At the company’s Alexandria, Virginia, system in the 1990s, she was instrumental in early forays into telephone and internet service and responded to an overbuild threat from Bell Atlantic.

When Jones Intercable was sold in 1999, Laulis moved to Phoenix with her young family to lead marketing for Cable One’s Norwest division. She was promoted to division VP of operations after a year, and CEO Might offered to send her to Harvard for an Executive MBA. With a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old to raise, her husband offered to put his growing career on pause so she could pursue the 10-week program. “I couldn’t do what I’m doing if John wasn’t doing what he does.” Today, she said, both her daughter and son “believe they can do anything.”

Whenever she can, Laulis still tries to spend time in the field with Cable One associates, encouraging them to think big. “If a CSR can become CEO, you can do whatever you want,” she tells them. “I’ve gotten more opportunities than a person should ever expect. I’ve been exposed to some of the greatest role models. Talent is everywhere, but opportunities — not necessarily. How can we create more opportunities where people can display their talent?”

Wonya Lucas
President and CEO
Hallmark Media

A friend once told Wonya Lucas that data is her love language. The characterization tickles her, and she doesn’t dispute it. Her impressive cable programming career is a testament to the value of understanding and acting on the data about your audience and what they care about.

As a child, Lucas enjoyed performing, but liked the sense of discovery she found in science. Growing up in a baseball-loving family — her father, Bill Lucas, was general manager of the Atlanta Braves, and her uncle was the legendary Hank Aaron — she enjoyed discussing the Braves lineup and player strengths and weaknesses with her dad. Those conversations contributed greatly to her belief in the importance of being a team player.

With a bachelor of sciene in industrial and systems engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, she worked as a sales engineer with Westinghouse for several years before deciding to pursue an MBA. While studying finance and marketing at Wharton, Lucas became intrigued with the entertainment industry. “I didn’t know you could be in the entertainment business until I went to Wharton,” she said. After an internship with Turner Broadcasting, she went to Los Angeles to find a job. Two attractive offers came her way: one from Clorox and the other from an entertainment company. “The people at Clorox said, ‘Come here and get good brand management experience. You can go into entertainment later, but what you can’t do is go into entertainment and then come back to a place like this,’ ”Lucas recalled. “I went to Clorox and they were right.”

A brand management job at Coca-Cola followed, and then Lucas contacted Julia Sprunt, her former boss at Turner, to see about returning. “I was an anomaly,” she says. “Julia set up 37 first interviews for me, and nobody would hire me because I was this MBA working at Coca-Cola.” Then-Turner CEO Terry McGuirk and Sprunt created a corporate marketing manager position for Lucas. Later, as a VP of marketing at TNT, writing a strategic plan for every department earned her a seat at the Turner leadership table. Named senior of marketing and research at CNN, she focused intently on listening to consumers, giving some employees T-shirts that said, “You are not the target audience.”

After that, Lucas’s star kept rising at The Weather Channel, Discovery Communications, TV One and in public broadcasting. Throughout her career, work-life balance and time with her daughters was non-negotiable. “I always made sure I worked for family-friendly bosses who knew my family was a priority,“ she said. 

In 2020, she was offered the top job at Crown Media Family Networks — now Hallmark Media — overseeing the company’s portfolio of entertainment brands. She is building on Hallmark’s strong emotional connection with consumers through more diverse, authentic storytelling. “Pitch a bigger tent,” she advises aspiring leaders. “Lean into the fandom! Lead with the core audience, and balance that with the opportunity audience. The key is to create content that resonates with both.”

The Cable Center named David R. Van Valkenburg to receive this year's Bresnan Ethics in Business Award, to be presented at the Cable Hall of Fame celebration on April 27 in New York City.

Van Valkenburg, who is already in the Cable Hall of Fame, was president of Cox Cable Communications, Paragon Communications and MultiVision Cable Television Corporation during the 1980s and early 1990s, where he brought his focus upon excellent and reliable video service through well-trained employees, The Cable Center said. Van Valkenburg's connections with cable go back to the early 1970s, when he managed the construction and development of new cable systems at American Television and Communications Corporation and United Cable Television Corporation. His final executive management role was as CEO/COO of Telewest PLC in the United Kingdom, where he led the integration of all service functions among video, data, and voice products and created competitively priced, customer-friendly bundles of these products, according to The Cable Center.

Also: Cable Center Names 2023 Hall of Fame Class 

“I am humbled and thrilled to accept this year’s Bresnan Award,” Van Valkenburg said in a statement. “Bill Bresnan was a great friend and colleague throughout my years in the industry. His passion and commitment to doing what is right in today’s business world remains unrivaled, and I am honored to be named this year’s award recipient.”

William J. Bresnan was the founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime board chairman of The Cable Center.

“David’s dedication to our industry and philanthropy embodies the true spirit of the Bresnan Award,” Michael Willner, chairman and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s Board of Directors, said in a statement. “He has worked tirelessly on numerous boards, including showing great leadership on our board, and his commitment to public service is unrivaled. We are delighted to honor him with the 2023 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

“David’s strong leadership and guidance, both on our board and throughout his years in the cable industry are exemplary,” The Cable Center CEO Diane Christman said. The Cable Hall of Fame ceremony will be held the evening of April 27 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. 

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." ■

NEW YORK — Six cable industry veterans are set to be recognized September 15 when The Cable Center’s 2022 Cable Hall of Fame returns as a live, red-carpet event at New York’s Ziegfeld Ballroom. 

It’s the first time the celebration will be staged in person since 2019, as the 2020-21 event was held virtually. 

The honorees profiled on the following pages were selected for their groundbreaking leadership and entrepreneurship. They include cable operators, technologists, programmers and public policy advocates. 

“Our 2022 Cable Hall of Fame class represents the ‘best of the best’ of our industry,” Michael Willner, chairman of The Cable Center board of directors and CEO of Penthera Partners, said. “We are also thrilled to welcome everyone back to the red carpet for our Cable Hall of Fame celebration this fall in New York.”

The six new Hall of Famers will be honored alongside a pair of former cable executives — the late Bill Daniels and recently retired Cox Communications CEO Patrick Esser — as the 2021 and 2022 recipients, respectively, of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. 

Daniels, who died in 2000, was a pioneering cable operator who later became one of the industry’s most influential cable brokers, facilitating many industry-shaping deals. He was also an active philanthropist and a substantial donor to the University of Denver’s business school, now the Daniels College of Business. He spent his final years laying plans for the Daniels Fund, now one of the largest foundations in the Rocky Mountain region. 

Esser retired in 2021 after 15 years as CEO of Cox Communications and 42 years with the Atlanta-based operator. During his tenure as CEO, Cox earned many accolades for celebrating its diverse people, suppliers, communities, products and the characteristics that make each one unique.

The Bresnan Award recognizes the late William J. Bresnan, founder of Bresnan Communications and a longtime chairman of The Cable Center. 

“Bill and Pat’s commitment to the creation and growth of the cable industry, as well as their history of supporting innumerable philanthropic endeavors is truly inspirational,” The Cable Center president and CEO Diane Christman said in a press release. “We are delighted to honor them with the Bresnan Award.”

Once again, the honoree profiles were reported and written by Erica Stull for The Cable Center. For more on the Hall of Fame gala, go to cablehalloffame.com. 

Patricia Jo Boyers 
President/CEO & Co-Founder, Boycom Cablevision
Chairman of the Board of Directors, ACA Connects 

Patty Boyers has always been the kind of person who sees what needs to be done, and does it. Raised on a row-crop farm in Southeastern Missouri, she grew up accustomed to hard work and self-reliance. Her parents, she said, “knew how to do so much with so little, they could do anything with nothing at all.” She still uses her mother’s hoe and her father’s sharpening file in her large home garden. Boyers was studying journalism at the University of Missouri when her father fell ill, requiring multiple bypass surgeries. She returned home to the farm to help out.

Boyers was in love with a local plumber who “had big dreams about not being a plumber.” Steve Boyers had a small trencher and loved machinery — the bigger the better. The couple married and got into cable construction and custom road boring. They worked together — he as an equipment operator, she as a swamper and bookkeeper for Boyers Communications, contracting with telecom companies. 

In the early 1990s, the Boyerses decided they wanted cable TV at home. The nearest cable operator wasn’t interested in crossing a national forest and dealing with the U.S. Forestry Service, which would have been necessary to deliver service to their area. The couple counted up neighbors, figured there were enough to support a small operation and Boycom Cablevision was born. The process of obtaining that U.S. Forestry permit launched Boyers’s interest in the legislative process. “We learned real quick that you have to be politically active if you’re ever going to get a bureaucracy to do anything,” she said.

Boyers doesn’t see herself as a visionary entrepreneur, but as a practical one who turns big ideas into reality. “I have learned that the harder you work, the luckier you seem,” she said. 

Kevin Casey
President, Northeast Division
Comcast Cable 

Kevin Casey recalls the early days of the modern internet as “one of the most fun and entrepreneurial periods of my life.” Running engineering for Continental Cable at the time and representing the company with CableLabs, he was well-positioned to help nurture the commercial deployment of the internet as it moved beyond academia and the Department of Defense’s research agency. That work would help revolutionize an industry, and, Casey said, “our industry has changed the world.”

Today, as president of Comcast’s Northeast Division, Casey is at the forefront of broadband development, leading an operation serving millions of customers across 14 Northeastern states from Maine through Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The journey began in Long Island, New York. Casey had decided to become a U.S. Secret Service agent, inspired by a football coach who had served there. While in college, Casey got a summer job with the local cable company, climbing poles and running cable. “It gave me the bug,” he said. He later joined Cablevision Systems full-time to build one of the country’s first urban cable systems, in Boston.

He got a business science degree in electronic technology while also working and learning the cable industry. Cablevision led to Continental and then to MediaOne, where he moved into operations. He was executive VP of operations for AT&T Broadband before joining Comcast in 2002.

Chris Lammers 
COO Emeritus and Senior Executive Adviser
CableLabs 

Doctor, lawyer, CableLabs chief: Chris Lammers’s love of learning has led him to varied educational and career pursuits, culminating in 25 years with the industry’s innovation and research and development lab as chief operating officer.

Growing up in California’s San Fernando Valley, Lammers set his sights on medical school, but decided partway through his undergrad education that business was more appealing than a medical career. With a B.S. in psychology from Stanford University and extensive coursework in economics, he attended the University of Chicago’s JD-MBA program. “My objective was to use law school as the foundation for a career in business, gain experience across a number of different industries, find what I liked and what challenged me, and get into that business,” he said.   

Landing at law firm Cooper, White & Cooper in San Francisco, he became lead attorney for Western Communications, the cable division of the firm’s client, Chronicle Publishing Company. He was a junior partner at the law firm when Ed Allen, Western’s CEO, offered him a job. Lammers went on to become CEO.

He joined CableLabs as chief operating officer in 1997 — the year the organization introduced DOCSIS 1.0 and, with it, the dawn of the broadband revolution. Now “semi-retired”, he continues to handle special projects as COO emeritus, with primary focus on supporting SCTE and its integration into CableLabs.

Tina Perry 
President
OWN TV Network & OTT Streaming 

Tina Perry was enthusiastic about the entertainment industry long before she knew it was a business she could be a part of. When she started college at Stanford, she said she had no idea how television was made; she just loved to consume it. 

Perry’s father owned Black barbershops in Oklahoma City, which inspired
her own entrepreneurial urge. She decided to pursue a career on the business side of entertainment and media. A mentor advised her that law school would be a good way to prepare. “Technically, the whole [entertainment] industry is a negotiation,” she was told. She attended law school at Harvard.

With no show business connections and college debt to pay off, Perry joined a
New York law firm immediately after graduation, working on IPOs and governance matters for corporate clients. She kept networking and educating herself on the ins and outs of the entertainment industry. 

Her patience was rewarded when she was hired to work in the legal department at VH1. She later transferred to MTV in Los Angeles.

Perry heard that Oprah Winfrey was hiring for a planned cable network, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. She joined OWN as VP of business and legal affairs in 2009. The network launched two years later. 

In 2019, Perry was named president of OWN, with responsibility for all operational and creative areas of the network, and now also oversees OWN’s digital division. 

John Porter 
CEO
Telenet Group Holding 

A world traveler since childhood, John Porter has always had a spirit of adventure. His father was in advertising and moved the family to London in the early days of commercial television. Porter became interested in world history and geography as he grew up, and lived in the former Yugoslavia for two years before returning to the United States as a young adult.

After receiving a history degree from Kenyon College, Porter was living in New York with four roommates. Porter thought he saw potential in cable TV. He started knocking on cable company doors, and found a receptive ear at TelePrompTer, soon to become Group W Cable. His boss-to-be said, “if you speak Croatian, you’re smart enough to join our management development program.” 

He moved up quickly at Group W, Warner Cable and then Time Warner Cable. He was looking for an international opportunity when one arose to build a new cable company in Australia. He started AUSTAR, a Liberty Global company, and led it from 1995-2012, when it was acquired. Porter remembers the ’90s at AUSTAR as the most fun times of his career. 

In 2013, Porter became CEO of Telenet, Belgium’s leading telecom and entertainment provider. Under his leadership, Telenet has diversified its portfolio, built the largest 1 Gigabit-per-second broadband network in Europe, made moves in entertainment and is generally seen as a trailblazer in European telecom and entertainment. 

The Hon. Michael K. Powell 
President & CEO, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association
Former Chairman, FCC

Michael Powell’s path toward positions at the top of the U.S. communications landscape led from Vietnam, where he was born while his father, future Secretary of State Colin Powell, was serving there. Powell grew up in the military and attended William & Mary on an ROTC scholarship. At 24, while on a training mission with the U.S. Army’s 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany, a catastrophic jeep accident set him in a new direction away from a planned military career.

Powell went to work at the Department of Defense, and to law school at Georgetown. He served as a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and at a private law firm, and then joined the Department of Justice as chief of staff with the Antitrust Division.

He had a long-standing fascination with communications technology, and in 1997 President Bill Clinton nominated Powell for an open seat on the Federal Communications Commission. In 2001, President George W. Bush named him chairman.

At the FCC, Powell developed a special appreciation for the cable industry. Five years after he left the commission, NCTA approached him with its top job. As its leading spokesperson, Powell said, “There’s a great deal of integrity, a sense of history, and pragmatism in the industry that allows us to represent members in an honest, forthright way. … They’re also shockingly innovative.” ▪️

 The Cable Center said Wednesday that it has named two former cable executives — the late Bill Daniels and retired Cox Communications CEO Patrick Esser — as recipients of its 2021 and 2022 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

The award recognizes the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the board of The Cable Center. The award will be presented at the 25th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, September 15 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

"Bill and Pat’s commitment to the creation and growth of the cable industry, as well as their history of supporting innumerable philanthropic endeavors is truly inspirational," The Cable Center president and CEO Diane Christman said in a press release. "We are delighted to honor them with the Bresnan Award."

Daniels, who died in 2000, is the 2020 Bresnan awardee and was an early pioneer in the cable industry. He started out building cable systems in the western part of the country, later forming Daniels & Associates, which became the consummate cable broker, facilitating many deals that shaped the cable business. He also was an active philanthropist,  providing significant support to innovative education efforts. He founded Young Americans Bank in 1987, the world's only bank exclusively for kids, and made substantial donations to the University of Denver to incorporate ethics, values, and personal integrity into the business school curriculum. The business school was later renamed the Daniels College of Business in his honor.

Daniels spent his final years laying plans for the Daniels Fund, which is now one of the largest foundations in the Rocky Mountain region, continuing his legacy of compassion and generosity across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming through grants, scholarships, and an ethics initiative.

"On behalf of the Daniels Fund, I am honored to accept this award for Bill Daniels," Daniels Fund president and CEO Hanna Skandera said in a press release. "He would have been extremely proud to receive this recognition along with Pat. He dedicated his life to the cable industry and to giving back to his community. His commitment to ethics and to being a steward of the next generation of leaders was unrivaled and we continue to see the impact of that commitment today."

Esser retired in 2021 after 15 years as CEO of Cox. A 42-year veteran of the company — he joined Cox in 1979 — during his tenure as CEO, Cox earned many accolades for celebrating its diverse people, suppliers, communities, products and the characteristics that make each one unique. Esser has personally been recognized with several industry awards including the Cable Advertising Bureau’s President’s Award, NCTA’s Vanguard Award for Leadership, Multichannel News’ Executive of the Year, NAMIC’s Living Legend Award and Hall of Fame inductions by both The Cable Center and Broadcasting+Cable

Also: Cable Industry Execs Salute Cox’s Patrick Esser

Esser currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of C-SPAN as well as a national Trustee and member of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He also served many years on both the board of CableLabs and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

“I am thrilled to accept the Bresnan Award,” Esser said in a press release. “Bill Bresnan was not only a mentor, but also a friend, and I greatly admired his passion for our industry and to doing what is right in today’s business world. I am humbled to be named this year’s award recipient and I am thrilled to be recognized alongside Bill Daniels.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business Award was created to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bill Bresnan’s long-standing commitment to ethics in business, and demonstrating societal, community, and philanthropic engagement.

“Bill and Pat have been two of the most passionate and innovative members of our industry. Their dedication to people and philanthropy exemplifies what the Bresnan Award is all about,” Michael Willner, chairman and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in a press release. “Pat has shown outstanding leadership at the helm of Cox Communications and his dedication to our industry and to supporting his community is extraordinary. Bill helped found the cable industry and his entrepreneurial spirit was at the core of its growth and success. We are honored to recognize both Bill and Pat.” ▪️

With vaccination levels approaching 70% of the adult population, several cable and broadcast conventions are planning on making the 2021 slate at least partly an in-person experience for the first time since 2019.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 66% of U.S. residents aged 18 and older have taken at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 57% are fully vaccinated. 

The National Association of Broadcasters is kicking off its NAB Show Oct. 9-13 in Las Vegas. Actor and comedian Jim Gaffigan is slated to perform live at the NAB Show Sunday Kick Off at 4:15 PST on Oct. 10.

“After a difficult year and unfortunate hiatus for the NAB Show, we look forward to celebrating the opening of the show floor with the ever talented and hilarious Jim Gaffigan,” NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith said in a press release. "His notoriously fun and entertaining performance is ideal for this momentous occasion as we reunite and re-engage in Las Vegas.”

Also as part of the event, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt anchor and award-winning journalist Lester Holt will be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame on Oct. 11.

Like some other organizations, NAB was forced to move the dates for its 2021 confab because of the pandemic. The 2021 event was originally scheduled for April 11-14, but it was decided in September 2020 to move the event to October.

NAB has said it is going ahead still with the NAB Show in 2022 on April 23-27 in Las Vegas.

The Society of Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable-TEC Expo will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta and will be a hybrid in-person/virtual event, according to organizers. Last year’s Cable-TEC Expo broke records with more than 3,000 people attending the Opening General Session of the all-virtual event. 

The SCTE also said it will hold a joint forum linking the Cable-TEC Expo with the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology (BEIT) Conference in Las Vegas on Oct. 12. 

According to SCTE, joint sessions will include live, interconnected presentations and audience questions originating from both Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta and the BEIT Conference in Las Vegas, with hosts at each location to field questions and moderate the conversations. The dual-site event will include live panels and interactive discussions that explore timely topics, such as dynamic ad insertion and NextGen TV.

Global marketing organization DPAA said it will hold its Video Everywhere Summit in-person at the Chelsea Piers in Manhattan on Oct. 12.

“Regions are opening up and it’s time for us to all reconnect in-person,” DPAA president and CEO Barry Frey said in a press release “After careful consideration and talking with members, brand and agency leadership we decided to hold this year’s Summit in-person as our community needs to reconnect in person.”

IBC, the big international content and technology convention in Amsterdam, is slated for an in-person gathering Dec. 3-6 at the RAI Amsterdam complex. The theme is Come Together Again.

The 2022 Consumer Electronics Show, which was all-digital in January 2021, is expected to be a hybrid in-person and virtual event, slated for Jan 5-8 in Las Vegas.

“We’re thrilled to return to Las Vegas – home to CES for more than 40 years – and look forward to seeing many new and returning faces,” Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro said in a press release in April. “Hundreds of executives have told us how much they need CES to meet new and existing customers, find partners, reach media and discover innovation.”

As was reported earlier, The Cable Center’s induction ceremony for the 2021 class of Cable TV Pioneers will be held  on Oct. 11 in Atlanta, as part of the SCTE-Cable-TEC Expo.

The Cable Center’s 2021 Cable Hall of Fame celebration will be held virtually, on Oct. 20.

The Cable Center said Tuesday that it has named cable icon Ted Turner as the recipient of the 2020 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. The award will be presented at the Center’s 23rd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, scheduled for April 29, 2021, at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

An entrepreneur, philanthropist, sportsman, and environmentalist, Turner founded CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel and TBS, the nation’s first “superstation” using satellite technology to carry its signal nationwide. Through Turner Broadcasting, he also purchased the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team (now owned by Liberty Media) and the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team (now owned by Apollo Global Management co-founder Tony Wessler). Throughout his career, Turner also launched Cartoon Network, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and served as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner.

“Ted is a true industry trailblazer and his commitment to humanitarian, conservation and environmental causes is incomparable,” The Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in a press release. “We are delighted to honor him with this year’s Bresnan Award.”

A noted philanthropist, Turner has given to many causes but is probably best known for his $1 billion donation to establish the United Nations Foundation to support humanitarian work around the world. He also created the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which sought to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, and has provided extensive funding to conservation efforts through his Turner Foundation. He launched the charitable Goodwill Games and also signed The Giving Pledge, committing more than half his wealth to good deeds.

“Ted’s passion for the cable industry and his commitment to philanthropy is at the core of the Bresnan Award,” said Michael Willner president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s Board of Directors in a press release. “His entrepreneurial aptitude helped to form our industry and his dedication and support of numerous philanthropic and environmental causes is extraordinarily generous and unprecedented. We are honored to recognize him with this year’s Bresnan Award.”

The Bresnan Ethics in Business award was created in 2011 to honor outstanding men and women in the cable industry who best exemplify Bresnan Communications founder and longtime Cable Center chairman 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.

“It is an incredible honor to be recognized for accomplishments that were considered by many as genius and maybe a bit outrageous. Creating CNN, pretty much against all odds and with the support of my fellow cable pioneers, was a mission of pure joy and determination, surpassed only by my work and dedication to conservation and the environment,” Turner said in a press release. “Bill was a good guy, and I admired him for his integrity and good works that he upheld through every aspect of his life. My time in the cable industry was a big adventure and I treasure the lifelong friendships I made. I am humbled to receive this year’s Bresnan Award.” 

Turner was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in 1999, the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2007 and has received a Peabody Award and the Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute. An endowed professorship at the George Washington University’s (GW) School of Media and Public Affairs is also being established in his honor, as well as the creation of the Ted Turner Exhibition Hall and Legacy Gallery at the University of Georgia.

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; C-SPAN founder Brian  Lamb and NCTA executive June Travis. Last year’s winner was the late James Robbins, former CEO of Cox Communications. 

In December, WarnerMedia (which owns CNN) dedicated the news network’s Techwood Campus in Georgia to Turner, who a year prior told 60 Minutes he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. 

Alfred Liggins literally grew up in the media business. He was 7 when he and his mother, Cathy Hughes, moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes worked as sales manager at WHUR, Howard University’s commercial radio station, and Liggins would head there every day after school to do his homework.

After high school, Liggins moved to Los Angeles to work in the music business while attending night classes at UCLA. He got a job at Light Records, a gospel music company, but had his eye on secular music. Thinking he had a job lined up at Motown, he quit Light Records. That’s when he learned “my first lesson of employment: never quit the job you have until you are absolutely certain of the job you think you’re going to get,” he said. The Motown job fell through, and Liggins was unemployed.

Hughes convinced her son to return to D.C. to work for her company, Radio One, which consisted of one station, WOL-AM. He joined Radio One as WOL’s account manager. Two years later, Hughes acquired a second station, WMMJ, and kept looking for acquisitions. Liggins worked his way up to president and treasurer as the company grew to three stations. As business partners, Liggins and Hughes made an excellent team. He was the financial expert, while she was the creator of programming that served listeners’ interests.

Before turning over control of Radio One’s operations, Hughes insisted that Liggins get an MBA. He graduated from the Wharton School of Business in 1995. On graduation day, Liggins told his mother that he planned to take Radio One public to enable larger-scale expansion. He was named CEO in 1997, with Hughes as board chair. Radio One went public in 1999, and the IPO made it possible for the company to grow quickly. Today, the Radio One network comprises stations in 16 urban markets.

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The strategy of buying small, underperforming urban stations and refocusing them to serve their communities’ demographics worked well. But Liggins also credits federal diversity and minority broadcast ownership policies for helping Radio One succeed. “I’d like to say that all of our success has been because we’re brilliant operators,” he said. “But no matter how smart you are, if you don’t get an opportunity to perform, you can’t win.”

Cable came into the picture for Liggins in 2004 with the launch of TV One, in partnership with Comcast. The cable channel was just the second to offer African- American entertainment, launching with 2.2 million households. TV One was designed to serve African-American adults who wanted an alternative to BET. Today, TV One serves 59 million households, offering “original programming, classic series, movies and music to its diverse audience of adult black viewers.”

Under Liggins’ leadership, Radio One continued to expand. In 2017, it was renamed Urban One and now comprises cable, radio, syndication, web and marketing properties, the largest U.S. multimedia company dedicated primarily to serving African-American, urban audiences.

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.”

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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.

In 1964, after his parents dropped him off at the University of California at Berkeley, freshman economics student Jeff Marcus wandered over to Sproul Plaza, where “a scraggly-looking guy was giving a speech.” The speaker was Mario Savio, a riot ensued, and Marcus witnessed the start of the year-long student protest that came to be known as the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, a landmark in the civil liberties efforts of the ’60s. He described the experience as “a Forrest Gump moment.”

Like the Tom Hanks character, Marcus has been part of remarkable change. Unlike Forrest, his involvement was far from accidental.

In his junior year, Marcus worked as a garbage truck driver from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. Meanwhile, “my roommate would leave for work at five in the afternoon and be home by nine,” he said. “He was selling cable door to door, and I figured he had a better job and was making twice what I was.” Marcus followed his roommate’s lead and made six sales during his first night in cable.

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After college, Marcus went on to sales and marketing jobs at companies including Sammons Communications, and then started a successful cable brokerage in 1976. But he soon began thinking about becoming a cable operator. “I realized it was better to own the asset than to be the asset,” he said.

Marcus bought a 2,000-subscriber system in Wisconsin. When TCI’s John Malone skeptically asked, “what do you know about operating a cable system?” Marcus replied, “Well, you do it — how hard could it be?” TCI became his partner, and the young entrepreneur started Marcus Communications in 1982 with 9,400 subscribers. The company merged with Western Tele-Communications in 1987 to become WestMarc Communications, with Marcus as CEO. In 1990, he founded Marcus Cable, which ultimately served more than 1.25 million customers in 17 states.

“What attracted me the most was giving people a service they were happy to pay for,” he said. “When your name is on the door, you want to be proud of what you’re offering.”

Marcus Cable was the largest privately-owned MSO when it was sold to Paul Allen’s Charter Communications in 1998. The sale was bittersweet for Marcus. Although he missed running the company, he had been “dedicated to making sure that the people who were involved in the effort had a stake in the outcome. [The sale] made more money for so many people than they could ever have imagined. That was sweet.”

Marcus became president and CEO of AMFM Inc., the nation’s second-largest radio company, and then joined private-equity firm Crestview Partners in 2004, leading investments in OneLink Communications, Insight Communications, the restructuring of Charter Communications and Wide Open West. He retired from Crestview at the end of 2018. He now serves as chairman of WideOpenWest.

Marcus remains bullish on the industry he helped build and grateful for his 52-year career. “It’s been a great ride,” he said.

Cathy Hughes was supposed to follow her mother into music. Her mom played in an all-women’s swing orchestra, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, and “she was determined that I would be Beyoncé,” her daughter said. Instead, Hughes got into media, where she has been breaking ground for 40 years.

Married and a mother at 17, Hughes began her media career in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where she worked at KOWH, an African American-owned AM radio station. In 1973, the then-single mom moved with her son, Alfred, to Washington, D.C., where she lectured at Howard University’s School of Communications and worked as sales manager for the university’s radio station, WHUR. There, she created the distinctive “Quiet Storm” format that revolutionized urban radio. She would become Washington radio’s first female general manager.

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In 1980, Hughes purchased her first radio station, WOL Washington, applying to 32 banks before finding a lender to help finance the deal. At the AM station, she introduced another new format to the nation’s capital, “Talk from a Black Perspective.” Unable to afford to hire talk-show talent, she became the station’s morning show host. Five years later, Hughes’s son, Alfred Liggins, joined WOL as an account manager. WOL turned its first profit in 1986, and the next year, Hughes bought FM station WMMJ, also in Washington. Her company, Radio One, became an urban radio market leader with stations in multiple formats across the country.

Liggins took on more responsibility as Radio One grew, and in 1994 he took over day-to-day operations, with Hughes as CEO. Hughes said it was a smart move to make the transition when she did, instead of waiting until she was ready to retire, as many heads of family-owned businesses tend to do. “Parents wait too long to let go,” Hughes said. “It’s so hard to give the combination to the vault to the same child who would lose the keys to the front door.” The mother-son business partnership has endured and thrived. Liggins became CEO in 1997; Hughes is chair.

Radio One made its IPO in 1999, and Hughes became the first African-American woman to chair a publicly traded company. Hughes entered the cable industry in 2004 with the launch of TV One, in partnership with Comcast. The new cable channel was just the second entry into the African-American market. By 2006, TV One was available in more than 33 million households. Radio One was renamed Urban One in 2017, and is today a multimedia enterprise with radio stations, cable networks, syndicated programs, websites and marketing properties under its umbrella.

Hughes was inducted into the Black History Hall of Fame in 2000 and has received many awards and honors over the course of her career. In 2016, Howard University announced the naming of the Cathy Hughes School of Communications.

“My goal was always to be of service to my community,” she said.

Growing up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., Dave Watson thought his future would be in soccer. He played for the University of Richmond and even got a U.S. Soccer coaching license. Although he didn’t continue in sports, building and coaching strong teams has always been important to him.

The son of an attorney, Watson thought he might pursue law while studying political science. Instead, he got into the wireless phone business. It was 1984, and the recent breakup of AT&T had made new spectrum available. He opened a Washington, D.C., sales office for Bell Atlantic Mobile, and then moved two years later to Metrophone, a privately owned mobile company, where he handled marketing and sales. By 1991, Metrophone’s owners were entertaining a number of offers to buy the company. Comcast wasn’t among the likely suitors, but was interested in getting into the mobile business. Comcast even recruited Watson for a senior marketing job in Philadelphia, which he declined.

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A few weeks after Watson turned down the offer, Metrophone announced it would, in fact, be sold to Comcast. Assuming he was already out of favor with the new owner, Watson figured he’d soon be out of a job. When a group of Comcast executives arrived at the office, he was ready for the axe to fall and was surprised when CEO and founder Ralph Roberts asked to meet with him privately. “My stomach dropped,” he recalled. “Not only did I think I was about to be fired, but by the founder himself.”

However, he said, “Ralph sat me down and, instead of sending me packing, he laid out his vision and asked me to stay.” Watson remembers this pivotal moment in his career as a “remarkable gesture that, I learned, was very much in character for Ralph.”

Watson joined Comcast Cellular Communications and led the company until its sale in 1999, when he transitioned to Comcast Cable as executive VP of marketing and customer service. “It was an exciting time for the industry, and cable had incredible potential,” he remembered. “Our entire organization was thinking ahead and working to build a next-generation network that today, two decades later, continues to power our technologies and innovation.”

Following Comcast’s 2004 acquisition and integration of AT&T Broadband, Watson was elevated to executive VP of operations, becoming chief operating officer in 2010, and then CEO of Comcast Cable in 2017. He has been responsible for driving Comcast Cable’s operating strategy and execution, leading its emergence as the nation’s largest gigabit speed internet provider and pay TV service and creating a business services organization that is the company’s largest contributor to revenue growth.

Far removed from the soccer field, Watson remains focused on his team. “If you’re part of a team, your job is to make the team successful,” he said. “If you’re leading a team, make sure the members of the team are great. And when you find opportunities, do something about them.”

The Cable Center named seven industry luminaries to its 2020 Cable Hall of Fame class, tapping a wide range of industry executives who will be feted at an April 30 red carpet event at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York.

The honorees were chosen for leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation in the cable industry. Since 1998, 140 individuals have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“The 2020 Cable Hall of Fame class represents every facet of our industry,” Michael Willner, Penthera CEO and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in a statement. “They have helped to change the entertainment world we now live in and continue to create new and innovative video consumption models.”

The 2020 class members are:

Bridget Baker, CEO, Baker Media, and co-founder of CNBC

Jim Blackley, adviser to the CEO and former EVP of IT and engineering, Charter Communications;

Cathy Hughes, founder and chairwoman, Urban One;

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

Jeff Marcus, Cable pioneer and founder of Marcus Cable;

Dave Watson, president and CEO, Comcast Cable;

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

“Our industry would not be the same without the significant contributions of the 2020 Cable Hall of Fame honorees,” The Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in a statement. “What an honor it will be to recognize them at our Cable Hall of Fame celebration on April 30.”

In addition to the class of 2020, the ceremony will also recognize this year’s winner of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award, who had yet to be announced at press time.

Profiles were written by Erica Stull.

For more information on the celebration, visit cablehalloffame.com.

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.

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.”

The Cable Center said Carla Hall, co-host of syndicated lifestyle series The Chew, will emcee the 21st annual Cable Hall of Fame ceremony on Wednesday, April 4, at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.

In addition to The Chew, where she is seated alongside restaurateur and Iron Chef America star Michael Symon, and entertaining expert Clinton Kelly, Hall is best known as a competitor on Bravo’s Top Chef and Top Chef: All Stars, where she won over audiences with her fun catch phrase, “Hootie Hoo!” and her philosophy to always cook with love. Hall’s approach to cooking blends her classic French training and Southern upbringing for a twist on traditional favorites.

RELATED: Cable Center announces 2018 Hall of Fame class

“We love watching Carla on The Chew and are absolutely thrilled to welcome her as our master of ceremonies for the Cable Hall of Fame celebration,” Jana L. Henthorn, CEO of The Cable Center, said in a release. “From our six incredible honorees to our thoughtfully curated ‘cable-to-table’ event menu, this really is the industry event you don’t want to miss. We can’t wait to welcome our industry friends and associates to the red carpet in NYC!”

The Cable Hall of Fame celebration will begin with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner and the induction ceremony honoring: Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, creator, AMC; Nomi Bergman, president, Advance/Newhouse; John Bickham, president and COO, Charter Communications; Balan Nair, president and CEO, Liberty Latin America; Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO; and Neil Smit, vice chairman, Comcast Corp. The event program will also include the presentation of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award to June Travis. A festive after-party concludes the evening’s activities.

READ MORE: Stephanie Ruhle to Host the 2018 WICT Signature Luncheon

The Cable Center has named June Travis, former executive VP and chief operating officer of the National Cable Television Association, the 2018 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award recipient. The award honors the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the board of The Cable Center. Travis will be presented the industry accolade at the 21st annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, April 4 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City, the Cable Center noted in a release.

“I am honored to be recognized as this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award recipient,” Travis said in the release. “Bill was a friend and colleague whom I admired greatly. He displayed integrity and high ethics in every aspect of his life, and I am humbled to be named this year’s award recipient.”

“June has helped to shape the cable television industry with her vision and guidance,” Frank Drendel, chair of the board and founder of CommScope, chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee and past Bresnan Award recipient, added. “She demonstrated ethics in every aspect of her career, and we are thrilled to present her this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

READ MORE: Cable Center rounds out 2018 Cable Hall of Fame class

Travis was EVP and COO of NCTA from 1994 until she retired from the cable television industry in 1999. Earlier she had been president and COO of Rifkin & Associates, a Denver-based cable company. She had also served in executive positions at American Television and Communications Corporation, the predecessor to Time Warner Cable. 

She has served as an officer and board member for CommScope, NCTA, C-SPAN, Cable in the Classroom, TechCorps and Women in Cable Telecommunications, and chaired the industry’s political action committee, CablePAC, for nine years, the Cable Center said. 

“June’s involvement through boards and organizations in both the cable industry and in her community has been phenomenal, and she has provided thought leadership in so many areas of our industry,” Jana L. Henthorn, president and CEO, The Cable Center, said. “We are delighted to honor her as this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award honoree.”

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 21st annual Cable Hall of Fame will be held on April 4, 2018 in New York City at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. Since 1998, 127 leaders have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. For more, see www.cablehalloffame.com or call 720-502-7513. 

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.

Washington — There will be a lot of new wrinkles surrounding the Cable Hall of Fame’s 2017 induction ceremony, set for Washington, D.C.’s Grand Hyatt on April 26.

For one thing, the 20th annual ceremony will no longer coincide with INTX, the annual convention of NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which had also been set for the nation’s capital before the trade group opted to “sunset” the event last year. For another, The Cable Center for the first time this year will honor a television series — HBO’s groundbreaking 1999-2007 mob-and-family drama The Sopranos — as a member of its class of enshrinees. Accepting will be the show’s creator, David Chase.

Other inductees are: Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal; Jill Campbell, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cox Communications; Michael T. Fries, CEO of Liberty Global; Ken Lowe, chairman, president and CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive; and David Zaslav, president and CEO, Discovery Communications. Honorees were chosen for their leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation in media.

Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News and host of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, will serve as master of ceremonies.

“This year’s Cable Hall of Fame honorees are truly the best of the best,” Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in a statement. “They are leaders of some of the most influential companies in the world, and have shaped the industry’s operations, programming and our society. We are thrilled to induct our first series into the Cable Hall of Fame as well. The Sopranos was the seminal series that proved television was more than the broadcasting networks alone, and we are excited to pay tribute to the impact it had on the growth and success of our industry.”

Also to be honored in Washington is CommScope founder Frank Drendel, the 2017 recipient of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.

Since 1998, 121 men and women have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame, the Denver-based Cable Center said.

“It is an honor to welcome these individuals into the Cable Hall of Fame, and to recognize our first television program,” Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in a statement. “The passion, drive and thought leadership displayed by all of the honorees has steered our industry into the international powerhouse it is today, and we look forward to celebrating their achievements at the Cable Hall of Fame celebration.”

Profiles provided courtesy of The Cable Center.

Steve Burke
CEO, NBCUniversal

As the son of broadcasting mogul Dan Burke, and brother to Bill Burke, co-founder of Argos Pictures, you could say that Steve Burke has the media business in his DNA. In fact, Burke has credited his father as one of his greatest influences

“He taught me, by example, you can have a successful career without sacrificing your family life,” Burke said.

Burke knows about success. A career trajectory beginning with 12 years at The Walt Disney Co., where he advanced to president and chief operating officer of Euro Disney; and culminating with chief operating officer of Comcast, gave him the necessary skills to take the helm as CEO of NBCUniversal when Comcast acquired it in 2011. He has innumerable accomplishments overseeing the film, television and theme park companies that comprise NBCUniversal. The NBCU portfolio carries some of the most popular programs on television today. On the theme park side, Burke has fans of the Harry Potter franchise under his spell with attractions in Orlando, Fla.; Los Angeles; and Japan.

Burke credits this success in part to NBCUniversal’s culture, which he fostered. “We have some of the best people in the industry working at NBC, our cable channels, Universal film, our theme parks and more. We also have a culture where people genuinely feel like they are part of a team.”

Burke’s management philosophy? Think like an owner, not a renter.

“When you have a company as big as ours, you need to have talented executives who treat their part of the company as if it was their own,” he said. “We allow them to confront problems and make decisions that are at times unpopular, but are for the long term good of the business.”

He learned this from his other mentor, Comcast founder Ralph Roberts. “He was someone who built for the long-term. He was a wonderful man who made every room he was in more productive because of his presence.”

Throughout Burke’s long career, his family has anchored him. “The most important thing in my life by far is my wife and five children. They have given me the greatest joy and they are good at putting me in my place when I deserve it.”

Jill Campbell
Executive VP and chief operating officer, Cox Communications

Early in Jill Campbell’s career at Cox, she took some advice from Curt Hockemeier, her boss at the time, to get an MBA and move into an operations role. Although there were a growing number of women in marketing, communications and finance, there weren’t many women in operations.

Campbell earned her MBA in 15 months while simultaneously working full-time and raising her family. Gradually, she started taking on more operations work. When Hockemeier left to get his MBA, he appointed her as acting general manager, a path she continued on that led to her becoming the highest-ranking woman in cable operations today.

Campbell has been at Cox for 35 years and acknowledges that staying with one company for an entire career is unusual these days. “But it’s not unusual at Cox,” Campbell said. “I know many Cox employees who’ve spent 20, 30, 40 years at Cox.” She credits this phenomenon to the company’s culture.

“It started with founder Gov. James Cox, whose philosophy was to treat employees well and with respect. At Cox we believe that focusing on employee engagement creates happy and productive employees, who then go on to serve our customers well. This approach is in our DNA.”

Campbell’s career ascent was comprised of a series of moves — six in 10 years. “At the time, it was considered a requirement to have field GM experience in order to advance, she said. “Looking back, I’m not sure all the moves were necessary, but I learned a lot from each one, so I have no regrets.”

Campbell also credits her success to a network of supportive mentors including Pat Esser, John Dyer and Claus Kroeger, who gave advice and provided opportunities. As a result, Campbell is passionate about promoting the careers of others, especially women, minorities and those in the LGBTQ community. “As you get up higher in the ranks, I feel it’s important to reach down that ladder and pull people up with you.”

Campbell’s leadership philosophy is all about surrounding herself with really smart people and giving them the opportunity to do the things they love. “For me, the best solutions come from brainstorming with my team. If we’re talking legacy, I’d like to think that cultivating exceptional talent at Cox would be mine.”

‘The Sopranos’
Television drama series,
HBO David Chase, creator

For 20 years, The Cable Hall of Fame has celebrated the contributions of more than 120 cable-industry innovators, but before this year, it has never recognized a television series. This year, HBO’s The Sopranos and its creator, David Chase, are honored as a show that more than revolutionized the cable scripted drama, but changed the way which such series are both created and watched.

Many people have written about the series, but none more prolifically than TV critic Alan Sepinwall, whose books The Revolution Was Televised and TV (The Book), co-written with Matt Zoller Seitz, dedicate considerable ink to The Sopranos. In an interview with The Cable Center, Sepinwall said, “The Sopranos was the Big Bang of the cable drama explosion that led to TV’s golden age.

“Before The Sopranos, cable television didn’t get any respect. Along comes The Sopranos, which inspires other cable networks — FX, Showtime, AMC — to introduce exceptional original programming, and flips the paradigm on its head so that cable is no longer a sideshow but the main attraction.”

The Sopranos , which centered around New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his family and associates, flaunted television convention in previously unthinkable ways. There was no hero, and in fact, few truly likable characters. Nevertheless, the characters’ depth, nuance and preoccupation with everyday problems — often with grim humor — made them relatable, and had viewers rooting for a sociopathic antihero.

“Chase worked on some of the best shows ever made [his prior credits included The Rockford Files and Northern Exposure], but those were never enough for him. He really wanted to make movies,” Sepinwall said. “He assumed the pilot would be turned down and he would turn it into a movie. When it was picked up, he was insistent on pushing the limits and creating the show on his own terms.”

Many in the industry believe the post-Sopranos wave of antihero-driven series such as Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, The Americans and more, would not have been possible before Chase changed the rules.

Moreover, Chase kept changing the rules up to the series’s last second — with a finale that refused to tie everything into a neat bow. Ten years later, fans are still talking about the mid-scene, mid-song cut to black.

Sepinwall, who secured the sole post-finale interview, got few answers from Chase. “When it cut to black, I laughed out loud. The ending was so David — defiantly anti-climactic. The one thing he said to me was ‘It’s all there.’ You can make of that what you will.”

What we make of it is that since The Sopranos, television has never been the same.

Michael T. Fries
CEO, Liberty Global

As Michael (Mike) Fries tells it, “We started this company with $20 million and a good idea. People outside of the U.S. wanted CNN and MTV and nobody was bringing it to them.”

Nearly three decades later, Liberty Global has become the largest international TV and broadband company in the world, with operations in 30 countries, 40,000 employees and 75 million video, broadband, voice and mobile subscribers.

Fries was employee number five at what became UnitedGlobalCom and ran business development, then Asia-Pacific operations, through most of the ’90s. He returned to Denver as president and chief operating officer just before the dotcom bubble burst, leading the company through several transactions with longtime investor Liberty Media, resulting in the formation of Liberty Global in 2005 with Fries as CEO.

Liberty Global has played an integral role in globalizing the cable industry, something Fries said “is important now more than ever, when you look at our competitors.” By bringing content to international markets, launching DOCSIS around the world and collaborating with the Reference Design Kit (RDK) consortium on advanced video, the U.S. cable industry finally has a chance at global scale, thanks to Fries and Liberty Global.

It was Fries and Liberty Global that coined the term “triple play” in an annual report nearly 20 years ago. Since then, they’ve led the industry on broadband speeds and adding mobile to that product bundle.

Fries has only worked for two people, UGC founder Gene Schneider and Liberty Media founder John Malone, and he has high praise for both. “Gene Schneider was one of the original cable pioneers — tough as nails but a true gentleman. I learned a lot from him.” As for Malone, Fries said: “No one sees all the moving pieces like John Malone. He’s really a scientist masquerading as a media mogul.”

Giving back is important to Fries. As lead vocalist of a rock cover band comprised of CEOs, he has found an enjoyable way to help raise millions for charitable organizations in the Denver area. “It’s all about having a good time, for a good cause.” Fries also chairs Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art and was an early investor in the city’s charter school programs.

Fries is extremely proud to be part of the cable industry and he makes sure his international team understands their role in this legacy. “I remind them that we may have been pioneers outside the U.S., but we stand on the shoulders of giants’ right here in America.”

Ken Lowe
Chairman, President and CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive

Ken Lowe grew up in rural North Carolina where he was hooked on radio at a young age. Building a radio station in a shed on his family farm at age 10, he practiced not just the art of radio broadcasting, but also started his first entrepreneurial enterprise, bringing in a DJ (the kid who had the records) and a sales person.

Radio continued to open many doors for Lowe. He worked at a radio station through college, Harte-Hanks Broadcasting through the 1970s and eventually joined E. W. Scripps in 1980 as general manager of its radio properties. Additionally, Lowe was fascinated by architecture. “I worked for my uncle who was a contractor and almost changed my major to architecture.”

Lowe also made documentary films in college. “While I could tell stories on the radio, I loved the visual storytelling aspect,” he said. It was this confluence of interests that eventually led Lowe to connect the dots and create HGTV.

In 1994, Lowe pitched E.W. Scripps on the idea he’d been ruminating on for years — a network focused on the home, targeted toward women, whom he believed were underserved in media. Lowe secured the necessary funding after a dramatic presentation to Scripps’ newspaper-based board by correlating sections of the newspaper with corresponding networks (front page as CNN; sports page as ESPN), illustrating the lack of an analogous network for the home and garden section. Right away, HGTV attracted a loyal audience that extended beyond women, creating a robust lifestyle category which expanded to brands including Food Network, Travel Channel and DIY Network.

“Though initially focusing on women, one of the ironies is we’ve gotten more men into the kitchen and more women into home remodeling,” Lowe said. “This was not the case 20 years ago.”

The Scripps networks launched the careers of primarily unknown talent. “I was not looking for stars. I wanted people who knew their craft — where it’s their passion and they’d be doing it even if they weren’t on TV. This authenticity is one of the reasons we’ve succeeded.” Scripps Networks Interactive continues to build its brands around the world, with international revenues representing around 20% of the business.

“I felt all along that the categories we were in were not isolated to America,” Lowe said. “People care about their homes, love food and are interested in travel no matter where they’re from.”

David Zaslav
President and CEO, Discovery Communications

David Zaslav’s cable career all started with a blind cover letter. At the time, Zaslav was working as a corporate attorney, where his clients included then-fledgling cable programmer Discovery Communications.

Zaslav was quickly smitten with the business: “Seeing John Hendricks’s vision for Discovery and the future of cable was a huge moment for me,” he recalls. So, when a Multichannel News story with the headline “NBC Wants to Get Into Cable” hit the press, Zaslav didn’t waste time, sending a blind cover letter to legendary NBC boss Bob Wright.

“I told Wright, if you are serious about launching CNBC and your cable business, I’m all in,” Zaslav recalled. “I joined NBC and never looked back.”

As one of the first hires at NBC cable, Zaslav built a suite of networks including CNBC from the ground up, rising in the ranks to lead the business over the course of two decades. Then came another call from Discovery — this time to become its CEO. Joining in 2007, Zaslav quickly moved to boost Discovery’s performance, paving the path for its IPO one year later and expanding globally with new channels and brands.

Under Zaslav’s watch, Discovery launched some of its most successful and fastest-growing networks, including Investigation Discovery, Velocity and OWN, a joint venture with Oprah Winfrey. Zaslav also led Discovery’s acquisition of Eurosport and rights to the Olympics, which will air on Eurosport and its digital properties for the next decade beginning with the 2018 Winter Games.

Today, much of Zaslav’s focus is on reaching Discovery’s more than 3 billion global viewers at a time when technology is changing how they consume content. “Reaching every person on every screen and platform is a top priority for us,” Zaslav said. To do so, Discovery is fast expanding how its fans stay connected to its content, from TV everywhere to virtual reality, shortform video and partnerships with leading streaming and SVOD services.

After three decades in the business, Zaslav is also finding ways to give back, using Discovery’s brands to raise awareness and take action against wildlife extinction and other environmental issues. In 2016, Zaslav spearheaded the launch of “Project C.A.T.: Conserving Acres for Tigers,” a historic partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to restore the wild tiger population through protected sites.

“For more than 30 years, Discovery has documented the natural world and its wonders across our channels,” Zaslav said. This is just one way we can give something back.”

Frank M. Drendel
Bresnan Ethics in Business Award Recipient

Frank M. Drendel is chairman of the board and founder of CommScope. He served as its CEO from its founding in Hickory, N.C., in 1976 until its acquisition by The Carlyle Group in January 2011, which took the company private.

He has served as chairman since 1997, when CommScope was spun off from General Instrument as independent, publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Drendel’s entrepreneurial drive and business vision led to his acquiring a struggling cable product line called Comm/Scope from his then-employer, Superior Continental, and launching a standalone company in 1976. This same drive and vision has guided CommScope for nearly four decades — under Drendel’s leadership, CommScope has grown into a multibillion dollar global leader in infrastructure solutions for communications networks, with a who’s who roster of customers that spans the globe.

Through organic growth and the acquisitions of Avaya Connectivity Solutions in 2004, Andrew Corp. in 2007 and TE Broadband Network Solutions in 2015, CommScope established leadership positions in key markets — wireless, business enterprise, telecom and cable television/ residential broadband — that continue today.

While at CommScope, Drendel also served as a director of GI Delaware, a subsidiary of General Instrument, and its predecessors from 1987 to 1992, a director of General Instrument from 1992 until 1997, and a director of NextLevel Systems from 1997 until January 2000. Prior to his founding of the company, Drendel held various positions within the Comm/Scope division of Superior Continental from 1971 to 1976.

Drendel is a director of the NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, and the SCTE Executive Council. Drendel previously served as a director of Sprint Nextel Corporation from 2005 to 2008 and as a director of Nextel Communications from 1997 to 2005. He also served on the board of directors for Tyco International, The Cable Center and C-SPAN.

An active member of several National Cable & Telecommunications Association committees, Drendel has been a recipient of various NCTA awards, including the Challenger Award, Associates Award and the President’s Award. He has also received several honors for his contributions to the industry, including:
● Induction into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2002.
● An Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development in 1985 for his and M/A-Com’s contribution to anti-pirating satellite TV encryption and scrambling technology.
● The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian award given by the State of North Carolina, in 1999.
● The 2013 North Carolina Technology Association Outstanding Achievement Award.

According to sources, Washington, D.C.-based NCTA: The Internet & Television Association is looking at April 27 for the event it signaled could be in the offing after the trade group pulled the plug on INTX, its annual trade show, which was to have been held in April in the capital.

April 27 would be the day after the Cable Hall of Fame ceremony in Washington, which features top cable executives from NBCUniversal, Discovery Communications, Cox Communications, HBO, Liberty Global and Scripps Networks Interactive, and those in town to honor them, so it would make sense to capitalize on that concentration of industry executive muscle. The event will be by invitation only, sources said, and NCTA targeted “very high level” guests, which sadly might rule The Wire out.

NCTA had signaled the event would not be a downsized version of INTX, so no convention center or display floor. An NCTA spokesperson had no comment at press time.

The source said NCTA appears to be looking at a mix of speakers and tech demonstrations — as well as a lunch — at a half-day, afternoon conference to be held at the event space at Union Market, which bills itself as a “unique warehouse event venue” with 22-foot tall ceilings and exposed concrete floors. Holding it in the afternoon could be an accommodation to Cable Hall afterparty revelers. This year, the Hall isn’t competing against other INTX-related events, so the afterparty, possibly including cast members from inductee The Sopranos, could be more popular than usual.

A cable-industry source who confirmed the date said it appeared to be targeted primarily at D.C. policymakers. That would certainly make sense for a trade group run by a technology and policy uber-wonk, Michael Powell, whose resume includes commissioner and chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Given the Washington location, and the current industry interest in what the Trump administration and new FCC chair will do about net neutrality, broadband subsidies, privacy, business data services and more, a policy-centric conference would be a good fit.

Assuming the venue is correct — and we have it from multiple well-informed sources — then the conference will be held “directly above the artisanal marketplace, which houses over 30 of the top food producers in the region.”
Count us in, and pass the focaccia.

Google Assistant Wasn’t Much Help At YouTube TV’s Launch Event
Google-owned YouTube put on a technologically glitzy presentation for the media introducing its new YouTube TV streaming service that will at launch offer 40 channels of live cable networks for $35 a month. The March 1 event, held in Los Angeles but simulcast to offices in San Francisco and New York, gave a detailed look at what You- Tube director of product management Christian Oestlien dubbed “a chance to reimagine television for the YouTube generation.”

After successfully showing gathered reporters the various technological features of YouTube TV — including simple search options, ease of recording to the service’s unlimited DVR and the ability to cast YouTube TV to a large screen through Chromecast-enabled devices — executives had less success with a Google Home-driven, voice-based innovation that is expected to debut a few months after the actual YouTube TV launch.

In theory, the Google Home integration will allow consumers to control every aspect of YouTube TV through voice commands, from recording favorite shows to changing channels, Oestlien said. But several attempts to use the feature during the press conference failed, ending with the computerized Google Assistant voice cryptically saying that “something went wrong” or “there was a glitch.”

Attendees politely giggled at the flub, but The Wire suspects YouTube will make sure that feature is purring at launch.
— R. Thomas Umstead

Split in the Ticket? Trump, Pence Differ On Anonymous Sources
The Trump administration has a bifurcated view of journalists and unnamed sources.

President Donald Trump, addressing a conservative conference in Washington, said journalists should not be allowed to use sources unless they name them.

But interestingly, that came while White House officials were planning to brief reporters on the president’s budget on the condition that they be identified as unnamed sources.

Then there is the source-protecting history of Vice President Mike Pence.

As a member of Congress, and as a former radio talk show host, Pence was a strong supporter of a federal shield law to protect reporters against government attempts to make them name unnamed sources.

It may have been an exercise in wishful thinking, but shield law backer Sen. Dick Durbin (DIll.) talked up the Pence connection in a speech to broadcasters in town to lobby the Hill and the Federal Communications Commission.

“Maybe Vice President Pence can persuade President Trump to work with us to finally pass a federal shield law that protects reporters’ sources in all 50 states,” he said.

As we said, wishful thinking.
— John Eggerton

The Cable Center said that Frank M. Drendel, chair of the board and founder of CommScope Inc., has been named the 2017 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award recipient. The award honors the late William J. Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and longtime chairman of the board of The Cable Center. Drendel will be presented the industry accolade at the 20th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration on April 26 at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington, D.C.

“It is a true honor to be named this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award recipient,” Drendel said in a release. “Bill served as the best example of what ethics in business should be, and it is with great appreciation that I am being recognized with this award in his honor.”

“Frank has spent his entire career as a visionary leader and mentor in the cable television industry,” Nick Davatzes, chief executive officer emeritus, A+E Networks, and chairman of the Bresnan Award selection committee, said in the release. “He exemplifies ethics in business, and we are thrilled to present him this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award.”

Drendel served as CommScope’s chief executive officer from his founding of the company in 1976 until its acquisition by The Carlyle Group in January 2011. He has served as chairman since 2011. While at CommScope, Drendel also served as a director of GI Delaware, a subsidiary of General Instrument Corp. and its predecessors from 1987 to 1992, a director of General Instrument Corp. from 1992 until 1997, and a director of NextLevel Systems Inc. (which was renamed General Instrument) from 1997 until January 2000. Before founding of the company, Drendel held various positions within the Comm/Scope division of Superior Continental from 1971 to 1976.

Drendel is a director of the Internet and Television Association (NCTA) and the SCTE Executive Council. He previously served on the board of Sprint Nextel Corporation, Nextel Communications, Inc., Tyco International Ltd., The Cable Center and C-SPAN.

Drendel has previously been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame; won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development and received various NCTA awards. Other accolades include the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian award given by the State of North Carolina; and the 2013 North Carolina Technology Association Outstanding Achievement Award. He graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing.

“Frank served as an invaluable member of our board and served as vice chairman for seven years. We are so pleased to honor him as this year’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award honoree,” Jana L. Henthorn, president and CEO, The Cable Center, said in the release. “His dedication and steady guidance over the years has been instrumental to The Cable Center and to our entire industry.”

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. Previous recipients can be found at this link.

The Cable Center has named the 2017 class of the Cable Hall of Fame, to be inducted in Washington, D.C., on April 26. For the first time, the class includes a TV show.

The inductees are: Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal; Jill Campbell, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cox Communications; Michael T. Fries, CEO of Liberty Global; Ken Lowe, chairman, president and CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive; The Sopranos, the HBO series, with the induction accepted by David Chase, the show's creator, and David Zaslav, president and CEO, Discovery Communications.

The 20th annual ceremony will be held during the time when the NCTA had planned to hold its former annual convention in D.C. before opting to "sunset" the convention. The Cable Center had previously said it was keeping the date in D.C. for the Hall of Fame event. The Cable Center has not named the specific venue in D.C. for the ceremony yet. The event's web site is www.cablehalloffame.com.

In a release, the Cable Center said the honorees were chosen based on their leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation in media. As for including a TV show for the first time, the center said The Sopranos and its creator, Chase, "will be acknowledged for the impact the program had by catapulting HBO and the entire cable community into groundbreaking scripted storytelling."

“This year’s Cable Hall of Fame honorees are truly the best of the best,” Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors, said in the release. “They are leaders of some of the most influential companies in the world, and have shaped the industry’s operations, programming and our society. We are thrilled to induct our first series into the Cable Hall of Fame as well. The Sopranos was the seminal series that proved television was more than the broadcasting networks alone, and we are excited to pay tribute to the impact it had on the growth and success of our industry.”

“It is an honor to welcome these individuals into the Cable Hall of Fame, and to recognize our first television program,” Cable Center CEO Jana Henthorn said in the release. “The passion, drive and thought leadership displayed by all of the honorees has steered our industry into the international powerhouse it is today, and we look forward to celebrating their achievements at the Cable Hall of Fame celebration."

Since 1998, 121 men and women have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame, the Denver-based Cable Center said.

Get more #INTX2016 news.

The 2016 Cable Hall of Fame inductees are a group of significant players from a wide variety of industry disciplines, from present-day leaders in technology and operations to the executive who helped launch one of cable’s iconic programming services to a pair of key political power players with front-row seats to this year’s intriguing presidential election.

The new honorees include Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe; Pat Esser, president of Cox Communications; John D. Evans, chairman and CEO of Evans Telecommunications; Tom Rogers, non-executive chairman of TiVo; Robert J. Stanzione, chairman and CEO of Arris, and John O. “Dubby” Wynne, retired president and CEO of Landmark Communications, who helped that company launch The Weather Channel.

All will be honored at the 19th annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, set for Monday (May 16) in the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. The gala event, to benefit The Cable Center in Denver, coincides with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s INTX: The Internet and Television Expo.

“I am thrilled to welcome these seven industry leaders into the Cable Hall of Fame,” said Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and the chairman of the 2016 Cable Hall of Fame selection committee. “This year’s class members represent so many different aspects of our industry — from programming to operators, to technology and equipment. Each one of them has had a unique and immense impact on the growth of the cable industry and its influence on today’s society.”

Also to be honored at the Hall of Fame ceremonies — in his hometown of Boston — is Continental Cablevision co-founder, chairman and CEO Amos Hostetter, 2016 recipient of the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award, named in honor of the late William Bresnan, founder and chairman of Bresnan Communications and a longtime member of the Cable Center board (see profile).

Katty Kay, lead anchor of BBC World News America, the BBC’s flagship U.S. newscast, will return to emcee the Boston event. She also hosted the 2012 Hall of Fame celebration.

“We are delighted to have Katty Kay return as the master of ceremonies for our Cable Hall of Fame celebration,” Jana Henthorn, president and CEO of The Cable Center, said. “The Cable Hall of Fame is the premier event that honors our industry, and I look forward to welcoming industry friends and associates as we gather to salute our seven honorees.”

Special thanks to Erica Stull of Stull WordWorks for honoree profiles.

Amos B. Hostetter Jr.
2016 Bresnan Ethics in
Business Award Honoree

Long known as a role model and industry statesman, Amos Hostetter is a natural fit for the Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Over the course of his more than 50-year career, Hostetter has consistently demonstrated ethical leadership and personal commitment to community and society.

The co-founder, chairman and CEO of Continental Cablevision entered the cable industry in 1963. That’s when he and Amherst fraternity brother Irv Grousbeck each came up with $1,500 to build cable operations in Tiffin and Fostoria, Ohio. From that humble beginning and 4,000 subscribers, Continental Cablevision grew to serve 4.2 million customers across the U.S. before it was purchased by US West in 1996. Continental was the nation’s third-largest cable MSO at the time.

Unlike many cable companies that got bigger through acquisition, Continental grew by building new franchises, a process that put company leaders in close contact with local franchise officials. The early days of cable franchising were rough and tumble, with operators and communities aggressively pressing negotiating advantages. Unimpeachable ethical standards were a trademark of Continental’s franchise activities, and the “square shooter” reputation helped the company succeed.

“The single most important thing I did to maintain ethics in the company was recruiting,” Hostetter said. “Irv and I wanted people with a well-tuned moral compass. The standing rule was, ‘don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read about in the newspaper.’”

Hostetter has served as a board member and chairman of NCTA, and he was a highly respected representative for the cable industry. In his 1999 interview for The Cable Center’s oral history program, Hostetter told interviewer Steve Nelson that cable was an industry that can do well by doing good. “I think the companies that have set a standard of service and performance and contribution to their communities have in fact been the companies that have financially done the best … I would certainly argue that that was Continental’s objective in its years in business.”

Hostetter was a founding board member and former chairman of C-SPAN and of Cable in the Classroom. He also served on the boards of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Children’s Television Workshop. Today, he is chairman of Pilot House Associates.

His charitable work includes positions as chair emeritus of the WGBH board of trustees and Amherst College, and trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Mika Brzezinski
Co-Host
MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’

With more than two decades on air and multiple best-selling books to her credit, Mika Brzezinski has earned her place in the spotlight. The co-host of one of cable’s most popular news shows started out in Hartford, Conn., as a broadcaster, editor and reporter with WTIC-TV. Brzezinski went national in 1996 as a CBS News correspondent and anchor. Her work for CBS included live reporting from lower Manhattan during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. She moved to cable in 2007 as co-host of Morning Joe, where she provides counterpoint to the comments of co-host Joe Scarborough.

Politics and hard work come naturally to Brzezinski. Growing up during the Carter administration as the daughter of national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and sculptor Emilie Brzezinski, she was exposed early to big ideas and remarkable people. The family hosted dignitaries, including the pope, and the budding journalist had a view of work-life balance at the highest level. She said her father’s political experience, writing and ability to communicate policy helped prepare her for her current job. And she credited her mother for fostering her career commitment.

“She was always an artist first and a wife and mother second,” Brzezinski recalled. “To be a better mother and wife, she needed to foster her passion for art. In doing so, she taught me how to be the best version of myself by following my own passions. I respect my dad for so many reasons, but one of them is his faith in my mom and her talent.”

As the demands of covering a presidential campaign increase, Brzezinski recharges by running. Central Park is her favorite route when on home turf, and she often conducts interviews and business calls as she runs. A student and chronicler of the unique challenges women confront in their careers, Brzezinski is an advocate for women in the workplace — especially through her Know Your Value campaign. She advises the next generation of female journalists: “Don’t apologize — speak with conviction and confidence. Don’t worry about making everyone comfortable — command respect first and friendship will follow.”

Pat Esser
President
Cox Communications

Growing up in Algona, Iowa, Pat Esser was hooked on cable early. The future Cox executive was dazzled when cable came to town and his family suddenly had access to 12 TV channels.

“Our rotary antenna was our portal to the world,” he recalled. As a youngster, Esser also learned about personal commitment to customer service while running deliveries for his family’s dry-cleaning business. “I understand what it means to have your family name on the door. I fully appreciate what the Cox family feels about their company.”

Esser got his first cable job climbing poles and then making door-to-door sales calls while studying at the University of Northern Iowa. After graduation in 1979, Esser joined Cox as director of programming with the company’s new cable system in Hampton Roads, Va. He returned to UNI to earn a master’s degree in communications media and then came back to Cox for his first big professional challenge: building the company’s advertising sales division, known today as Cox Media. “Building a cause, building a business” was the source of some of his happiest memories, Esser said.

Named Cox’s corporate vice president of advertising sales in 1991, Esser became the company’s Western division vice president of operations in 1999. Promotions continued, and he was ultimately named president of Cox Communications in 2006.

Esser has led the Cox team through a range of business obstacles over the years, but none would be as challenging as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Cox operates in Louisiana markets, and Katrina was devastating for the company’s employees and communities, as well as its cable plant. “Being part of that recovery, how Cox responded to our people, our customers, changed me forever,” Esser recalled. “[Cox chairman] Jim Kennedy didn’t blink. He said, ‘Make sure we know where our employees are at, make sure they’re OK, that they know we’re going to rebuild the market and they’ll have jobs.’”

That experience was one of many that cemented Esser’s passion for his job. “I’ve been at Cox 37 years, and I still love coming to work,” he said. “My heart rate still picks up.”

John D. Evans
Chairman and CEO
Evans Telecommunications

John Evans has been a leader in media from an early age. He served four years as a U.S. Navy communications officer during the Vietnam buildup, and was put in command of Navy television worldwide at 26. He went into radio after the service, but saw cable television as a “sunshine industry” with huge potential.

When American Television and Communications offered him a cable-system job in Charleston, W. Va., in 1972, he grabbed it. In 1976, Arlington TeleCommunications Corp. (ARTEC) recruited him to head up the creation of the first cable system in the Washington, D.C. area. Because it served members of Congress, FCC commissioners and other federal officials, the Arlington system played an outsize industry role as cable grew and drew greater scrutiny.

When ARTEC’s investors sold in 1983, the system became Hauser Communications’s flagship operation. Evans became president of Hauser Communications, working with industry visionary Gus Hauser for more than 12 years.

Even with an impressive cable operations background, Evans may be best known for his contribution to programming. In 1977, he went to lunch with an old Navy buddy, Brian Lamb, who was then Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine. Evans commented that the House of Representatives had just installed closed-circuit cameras. The two friends talked about beaming the House’s closed-circuit feed across the river via microwave to the Arlington system for public distribution.

“Maybe we could open the government up,” Evans recalled thinking. He believed doing so might prevent another Vietnam War. “We filed for a microwave license from Capitol Hill to our headend site, and agreed to provide free of charge all the technical space and facilities.” That was the start of C-SPAN.

Evans has been on the National Cable & Telecommunications Association board of directors since 1981 — the organization’s longest-serving board member. He has also been a C-SPAN board member since the network’s inception in 1979. Public service is a strong value for Evans. He represents the industry as the only nonacademic trustee of Internet2, an advanced, higher-education technology community connected by 18,000 miles of fiber backbone.

Designated a “Patron of Diplomacy,” Evans serves on the U.S. Department of State’s Fine Arts Committee and its LGBT Global Equality Fund. As founder of the John D. Evans Foundation, he is committed to social justice, AIDS vaccine research, environmental protection, technological innovation, education and the arts.

Tom Rogers
Chairman
TiVo

If Tom Rogers were a superhero, he might be known as the “Rejuvenator.” Over the course of more than 30 years in telecommunications, TiVo’s chairman has made a specialty of bringing organizations back from the brink. “I guess I’ve always had fun when something that looked like it was over and irrelevant was born again,” he said.

Rogers’s early fascination with media was inspired by an eighth-grade social studies teacher. “He brought media into the classroom as a way of understanding the world,” he says. Rogers was probably the only teenager in Scarsdale, N.Y., with his own TV Guide subscription who also had a fascination with the magazine’s weekly column on the FCC and industry activity.

After graduating from Columbia Law School and working for two years with a Wall Street law firm, Rogers began his telecom career in 1981. He was hired as senior counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Telecommunications, Consumer Protection and Finance Subcommittee, with responsibilities that included FCC oversight and drafting the Cable Act of 1984. The ’84 Act, he said, “was very much about unleashing the cable industry’s potential for more channels to develop, which was a key theory of the case.” Even with his belief in the promise of cable, Rogers said, “it surprised me just how many channels, how much content, how many sources of information, ultimately emerged.”

He joined the private sector in 1987, going to NBC and quickly becoming first president of NBC Cable, starting up the division and launching CNBC. Rogers then led Primedia for four years. The company owned media properties ranging from Cable World to New York magazine.

He then joined TiVo in 2005 as CEO. As cable operators developed competing digital video recorders, TiVo’s successful run appeared to be in jeopardy. Rogers attacked that issue with a vengeance by bringing TiVo ultimately to a full embrace by the cable industry and setting the company back on a path to growth. TiVo now serves about 75 operators in more than 30 countries. In May, the company agreed to be acquired by Rovi in a deal valued at about $1.1 billion.

Rogers advises the next generation of cable programming executives not to “rest on existing models, but know that if you don’t push to the next level, someone else is gonna push there and make you less meaningful or relevant in a changing content distribution and viewership world … No matter how many noes others say you will get, if you’ve got the right plan, the cable industry will listen and ultimately buy in.”

Joe Scarborough
Co-host
MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’

Joe Scarborough has always dreamed big. As a kid, he wanted to be “an all-star shortstop in the major leagues and a guitarist in a band bigger than the Beatles.” And he has been talking about politics most of his life.

The Morning Joe co-host enjoyed watching the news with his father from an early age. “We would watch election night returns together,” he recalled. “Those were some of my earliest and best memories with him.”

As an attorney in Florida, Scarborough continued to pursue his interest in politics. He ran as a Republican in Florida’s 1st Congressional District, seeking to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent. Scarborough won that vote and went on to serve four terms in Congress, representing Florida from 1994 to 2001 and serving on the Judiciary, Armed Services, Oversight and National Security committees.

After leaving Congress, Scarborough found his way into cable as host of Scarborough Country, an evening political show on MSNBC. When Don Imus left the network’s morning show in 2007, Scarborough lobbied to replace him. Morning Joe debuted in July 2007.

Scarborough said he believes his time as a politician gives him valuable perspective as a political commentator. “When I was a congressman,” he said, “I witnessed politics up close and saw what happened behind closed doors. That insight allowed me to call out politicians when they weren’t being straightforward with the voters and the press. Being a politician … has always enhanced my analysis and given me better intuition in interviews.”

In addition to his career as a political representative, cable commentator and author, Scarborough has almost achieved one of his early dreams. They’re not bigger than the Beatles, but Scarborough’s band, Morning Joe Music, is an important part of his life. The nine-piece group performs regularly in New York, and recently went on the road for a gig at South by Southwest in Austin. Scarborough plays guitar and sings lead.

“I just love music,” he said. “It’s great to share the experience with other people — especially members of the band who have become my friends. I love the process from start to finish.”

Robert J. Stanzione
Chairman and CEO
Arris

“When a door opens, walk through.” Robert Stanzione’s advice to future cable engineers has guided his own career and yielded tremendous results.

As a kid in South Carolina, Stanzione dreamed of being an architect, an airline pilot or an engineer. He chose the third option, earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Clemson University and a master’s in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University. “Engineering was and still is a great basic education; a way to get started in industry,” he said. “The rest of it was on-the-job training.”

AT&T gave the young engineer room to explore. He spent 25 years with the company, eventually moving into general management. Stanzione was introduced to the exciting world of cable when he managed an AT&T-Bell Labs project with ANTEC Corporation. “It was sort of a skunk works within Bell Labs, the first hybrid fiber-coax in the industry. I became fascinated, not only with the technology, but with the dynamic aspects of the cable industry and the people in it … It was ready, aim, fire; let’s try it out, see if it works, and if it works, we’ll deploy it.”

Nortel Networks and ANTEC formed a joint venture in 1995 and recruited Stanzione to start Arris Interactive. It was an exciting time as the cable industry prepared to introduce telephone service. Stanzione recalled: “It was a fairly radical idea in the early ’90s that a cable operator could offer reliable telephone service. It was a lot of fun being at the front end of that and seeing our products going into networks all over the world that allowed cable companies to offer reliable two-way service. We knew the technology was solid, but we didn’t know whether the industry would accept the responsibility of this culture of reliability. It came through with flying colors.”

Stanzione and his team worked their way through the telecom crash of 2001, subsequently building Arris into a Fortune 500 enterprise through a series of strategic mergers, acquisitions and the internal development of advanced broadband and video platforms. He has walked through lots of doors over the years, and advises others to do the same.

“Just have fun!” he advised. “[Cable] is such a dynamic business. It always has been and will continue to be. Look forward, try new things.”

John O. “Dubby” Wynne
Retired President and CEO
Landmark Communications

Although he wasn’t a weatherman, Dubby Wynne has always known which way the wind was blowing in cable. He and his Landmark colleagues seized an opportune moment in the industry’s growth to build The Weather Channel, an international institution.

A talented high school athlete, Wynne liked competition and change. “I went to law school because I thought I wanted to go into politics, and quickly learned that isn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a businessman.” He joined Landmark in 1974 and was in charge of the company’s broadcasting and video division and new business development by 1980.

“It was one of those crazy times,” he said. “Cable programming provided a rising tide for lots of us. We got a lot more responsibility than we would have gotten in mature industries.”

When broadcast meteorologist John Coleman proposed creating a national TV-weather service for cable, Wynne was intrigued, but believed that local weather was the real opportunity for a new network supported by advertising. Wynne’s team created a device to insert local National Weather Service forecasts into cable system headends. The Weather Channel was ready to roll in 1982.

Wynne remembers, “When we launched our service, most people were just laughing at [the 24-hour weather concept]. Although in some areas like New York City, people already carried an umbrella all the time. In California, they said, ‘I don’t care, it never rains here.’ But we knew from our television and radio experience that weather in most communities was a subject of high interest.”

After a year, Wynne and team realized their ad-supported financial model wouldn’t work. “We needed subscriber fees. We showed our finances to the cable operators. It was just a few pennies per subscriber, but getting that done was what made The Weather Channel successful.”

Retired since 2001, Wynne continues a full schedule of philanthropy and volunteer work, including improving the state of Virginia’s approach to economic development. “I don’t think there’s any better feeling than helping other people improve their lives,” he said. “When you take somebody who doesn’t have much, help them break through, when you help an institution get better … it’s just gratifying.”

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.