LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida — ACA Connects said Monday (July 25) that it has re-elected chairman and vice chairman Patricia Jo Boyers and Mike Bowker to those positions for another two years, while five incumbent board members received new three-year terms. 

Boyers is president and CEO and co-founder of Boycom Vision, while Bowker is chief operating officer of Cable One, both member companies of ACA Connects.

“I am honored to continue as chairman of ACA Connects at a time when the challenges have never been more serious or consequential,” Boyers said in a press release. “As in the past, my role is to ensure that ACAC staff have the tools they need to work on our behalf and our members have all the information they need to ensure positive outcomes, especially as government broadband dollars begin to flow to the states.”

Small cable operators are facing several regulatory and legal challenges, including  major government action in promoting broadband deployment via the Commerce Department’s $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

“I’m very pleased to continue to serve with Patty Boyers in these important leadership roles at ACA Connects, an organization that protects and promotes the interests of more than 600 independent video and broadband providers in the hallways of government in Washington, D.C., and increasingly across the U.S.,” Bowker said. “With a massive influx of government broadband money on the way, we will do everything we can to ensure this funding is used wisely in helping close the digital divide.”

ACA Connects president and CEO Grant Spellmeyer thanked Boyers and Bowker for their leadership and dedication to the organization.

“As ACAC’s new leader, I am truly appreciative that Patty and Mike have agreed to work with me and the ACAC staff over the next two years to build on the many successes we had over the past few years,” Spellmeyer said. “With Patty and Mike at my side, I am confident that ACAC can meet the challenges ahead in advancing the interests of our members.”

ACAC’s election results were announced today at ACAC’s annual Members Meeting at the 17th Independent Show here. The Independent Show is a  gathering that unites a range of industry participants, including company leaders, informative speakers, tech vendors and various supporters of the independent video and broadband industry.

In other election results, ACA Connects also elected five incumbent members of its board of directors to new three-year terms: Leslie Brown, SVP and general counsel, Breezeline; Carla Framil-Ferran, VP of legal, Liberty Puerto Rico; Ed McKay, executive VP and chief operating officr, Shentel; Drew Petersen, SVP, corporate affairs, TDS; and Bob Wieand, controller, Service Electric Cablevision. 

“The Board of Directors elected today have the talent and deep experience that will surely translate into future success for ACAC. Their advice and guidance will be invaluable in telling our Members’ story and highlighting all the great things happening in their markets and communities fueled by a light-touch, investment-friendly regulatory environment,” Spellmeyer said. ▪️

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

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

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

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

• Kevin Casey – President, Northeast Division of Comcast Cable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More information on the event can be found here. ■  

Smaller cable operators are clearly pleased with their association leadership.

MCTV president Bob Gessner has been re-elected chairman of the American Cable Association's board of directors and Patricia Jo Boyers was reelected vice chair. Both are two-year terms.

"With the hard work of our ACA members as our foundation, we look forward to working with the entire ACA Board to continue our leadership role in telecommunications policy debates in Washington, D.C.," Gessner said. 

"As always, ACA is ready to work with federal policymakers to encourage further investment in our communities," said Boyers.

Gessner and ACA have been at the forefront on tech policy issues in Washington, and even a bit ahead of the curve. Back in 2016, Gessner was warning that edge providers did not necessarily deserve the virtuous actor label they had in D.C., something that has come to the fore in recent months.

And just this past March, Gessner was tapped by the House Energy & Commerce Communications Subcommittee to regulatory relief for smaller operators, which is right in ACA's wheelhouse.

Also elected to new, three-year, terms on the board were Marie Censoplano, SVP and general counsel, Vyve Broadband; Matt Dosch, COO and EVP, Comporium; John Gdovin, EVP and chief administrative officer, Patriot Media Consulting (RCN, Grande, Wave); Jim Gleason, president and CEO, Vast Broadband; and Tina Pidgeon, general counsel and SVP of governmental affairs and chief compliance officer, GCI.

The Pittsburgh-headquartered American Cable Association (ACA), and its sister organization, the Lenexa, Kan.-based National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), have been, for many decades between them, advocating for and representing their hundreds of cable TV, phone, and broadband members in their business and governmental endeavors.

In the case of the NCTC, it stands as an amalgam of nearly 950+ small-to-mid-sized U.S. cable operators, typically negotiating with large to small programmers for mass-volume rates that are the core of multiyear programming distribution agreements. As for ACA, its home base staff of eight, together with its communications VP, Ted Hearn, and legal senior VP, Ross Lieberman, both in Washington, DC, run the ACA cable telecom and media policy show for its 850 cable system constituents.

Since 1997, the ACA has been lead by veteran policy influencer, Matt Polka, himself an experienced  lawyer (See, “Mixed Signals,” 12-10-2012, “The ACA’s Amazing Bandwidth), while the NCTC takes its direction from CEO and president Rich Fickle, whose NCTC tenure dates back to 2011, and who hails from corporate industry experiences with AT&T, Ascent Media, and Deluxe Entertainment.

ACA and NCTC today serve cable systems ranging from fewer than 100 subscribers to the largest, such as Mediacom, with roughly a million. As another example of the organizations’ scope is the roughly 7  mil. subscribers the ACA represents today in Washington, DC and in statehouses across the nation.

While serving July 28-30, in Kansas City, MO, as an opening panelist at the 2014 ACA/NCTC Annual Summit called The Independent Show, I had the opportunity to ask Matt Polka whom he recommended among the organizations’ up-and-coming leaders and as the better spokespeople for the two groups. Without hardly a hesitation, Matt barked out, “No problem, Gesner and Boyers.”

Robert Gessner, ACA Chairman; former NCTC chairman; and President, MCTV, Massillon, OH

The initial walk away I had from my half hour on the ACA/NCTC exhibition floor with Bob Gessner was that of a leader with fervent passion, unique articulation, and a tough competitive streak. When it comes to the ACA and small town cable in America, the guy can talk (which is meant only in a positive way)!

Gessner’s is a slightly larger than average ACA system, at about 40,000 current subscribers. He pointed out that for the ACA membership, the median system size is 900 subscribers, while the average size is about 4,000 subscribers.

Gessner’s initial focus was on the enhanced competition felt by ACA members these days. “Everyone these days is a competitor…Internet, TV, phone,” he mused. “So many of the smaller ACA and NCTC systems do not have the resources to be super active and aggressive,’ Gessner lamented. “Our industry must make the transformation from mere linear content offerings, and from being a tax collector for the content companies (who see the U.S. consumer as an annuity and a guaranteed periodic payment). Because that is unsustainable, and at the current rate, subscriber fees will double in five years, to $100,” Gessner challenged.

For the best future, the new ACA chairman believes that the proper transition for small-to-midsized cable operators will be one with an “infrastructure based on choice, and based on the subscription model; we will all get to a pure IP model, the only question is how soon.”

Yet, once that IP transition does occur, Gessner worries further about what he termed “the cable-ization of the Internet,” where the “content guys” quickly take over the Internet (just like they did in the 1970s with early national cable).

Finally, a few years down the cable road, Gessner – like his peers in this article – predicts the current cable content model will break, and “when it breaks, they will have to fix it,” he concludes. 

Patricia Jo Boyers, Vice Chairwoman , ACA; President, BOYCOM, Poplar Bluff, MO

The  current vice chairwoman of the ACA has been in the cable business in small town American for the past 22 years; she and her husband, Steve, still run BOYCOM together for their nearly 5,000 subscribers.

Boyers quickly reeled off four key small-to-midsized cable business challenges, when I asked for her list.

These are 1) industry consolidation 2) lack of choice 3) price increases and 4) subscribers having to pay for what they don’t want.

Her southeastern Missouri system has not yet fully upgraded from analog to digital, mostly due to monetary restrictions. That means today most of her system serves a broadband-only component. Although the Boyers’ BOYCOM has begun the costly upgrade process, which is well along, it has been tough, she says, because smaller systems, especially closely held ones like hers, do not have the access to financing that the larger ones do. Mrs. Boyers describes her home county as “perpetually impoverished,” which makes her task even tougher, she states.

When asked what she sees for her company five years hence, she believes her access into the homes of her customers will be lead by the Holy Grail of future residential telecom and media, that of the “smart pipe,” which offers a core Media Gateway-type product that vastly enhances access to content via multiple devices around the home. “Internet Protocol (IP) is about the future, and we have a bright future, because cable is best equipped to do that,” she concludes.

Jimmy Schaeffler is a telecom/media author and chairman and CSO of the Carmel-by-the-Sea-based streaming/broadband, broadcast, and pay TV/video consultancy, The Carmel Group (www.carmelgroup.com).