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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cable Center said Tuesday that its 23rd annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration, slated for Oct. 20, will be held virtually.

“After much thought and consideration, The Cable Center decided that it was best to host our Cable Hall of Fame event virtually at this time,” The Cable Center president and CEO Jana Henthorn said in a press release. “We are eager to gather in spirit with the industry on October 20, and finally have the opportunity to celebrate our honorees.”

The celebration will air on C-SPAN 3 at 8p.m. ET and be available for view simultaneously on C-SPAN.org. The program will also be featured in the C-SPAN Video Library and available for on demand viewing immediately following the event.

The Cable Center had hoped to hold part of the celebration at its regular venue -- The Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City -- allowing those that couldn’t make the trip to participate virtually. Now it appears that the entire offering will be held online. 

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

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

“This year has proven that our industry is extremely resilient and creative, and the Cable Hall of Fame will be no different,” Michael Willner, president and CEO of Penthera Partners and chairman of The Cable Center’s Board of Directors, said in a press release. “We have some fun surprises in store as we roll out the red carpet virtually for our honorees and we are thrilled that C-SPAN has agreed to air this engaging celebration. We can’t wait to induct our 2020 class and hope that everyone will support this must-see event by not only viewing but also through our unique sponsorship opportunities.”

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

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.

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.

Less than 18 months after it received a $125 million capital infusion from private equity firm Crestview Partners, overbuilder WideOpenWest is set to test the public markets, filing the preliminary documents for an initial public offering that could raise as much as $750 million.

UBS Investment Bank and Credit Suisse are serving as joint book-running managers for the offering.

WideOpenWest, which has about 486,400 basic video customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee, hasn’t determined which exchange it will trade on or how much stock it will offer. In a prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 23, WOW said that it could raise about $100 million from the offering, but some outlets have estimated that figure will grow to as much as $750 million.

Crestview purchased a 30% interest in Wide Open West in December 2015 from Avista Capital Partners for $125 million. In addition, Crestview partner and Marcus Cable founder Jeffrey Marcus was named chairman of the overbuilder. Avista still owns about 60% of the company.

Under Crestview WOW has made some acquisitions – it purchased Atlanta area cable operator NuLink for about $54.3 million in August. But overall, the overbuilder has been patient on the deal front. While other private equity-backed operators have been hunting down targets – TPG Capital purchased overbuilder RCN and Grande Communications in August for $2.25 billion -- WOW has sat on the sidelines, content to focus on customer service and product packaging.

Marcus, who built Marcus Cable from scratch in the 1980s before selling it to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 1998, said in a July interview that one of WOW’s main directives would be to offer video, voice and data services in packages that consumers want. So-called skinny bundles have been the rage with other operators and over-the-top service providers and he believed WOW was positioned to differentiate itself even further through targeted offerings.

“I think the content providers are going to have to figure out where they want to play, where their bread is buttered and how they want to provide their programming,” Marcus said in July. “I think that HBO Now and CBS and others that provide OTT programming are doing it in a way where they are putting their toe in the water, and it’s good for the cable operators to provide for their customers.”

Back in July, Marcus said that while WOW would look at every opportunity that comes up, there was no burning need to increase scale.

“It’s all opportunistic,” Marcus said. “When I started Marcus Cable with 18,000 subscribers, I had no idea that it would get to 1.3 million. One thing led to another and we took advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. I think that’s what is going to happen here.“

WOW has managed to grow revenue in 2016 to $1.2 billion after a few lean years. In 2014, the company laid off about 275 workers to compete more efficiently.

WOW hasn’t set a date yet for the IPO, but having a public currency could make it easier to buy other smaller companies or even be purchased itself. WOW has about the same number of video customers as another small public cable operator – Cable One – which has been considered a take-over target for years. Cable One, which went public in 2015, agreed in January to purchase NewWave Communications for $735 million in cash.