Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business

By Mark Robichaux

An inside of examine a cable titan and his industry
John Malone, hailed as one of many nice unsung heroes of our age via a few and reviled by means of others as a ruthless robber baron, is printed as just a little either in Cable Cowboy. For greater than twenty-five years, Malone has ruled the cable tv undefined, shaping the realm of leisure and communications, first together with his cable corporation TCI and later with Liberty Media. Written with Malone's unparalleled cooperation, the enticing narrative brings this debatable capitalist and businessman to lifestyles. Cable Cowboy is straight away a penetrating portrait of Malone's advanced character, and a charming background of the cable television undefined. advised in a full of life sort with particular info, the e-book exhibits how an unassuming copper strand began as a backwoods antenna provider and have become the electronic apprehensive procedure of the united states, an evolution that gave U.S. shoppers the quickest path to the net. Cable Cowboy unearths the forces that propelled this pioneer to such nice heights, and captures the immovable conviction and quicksilver brain that experience outlined John Malone all through his occupation.

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Malone locked the auditors out, taking offense on the shock stopover at and Hickey’s failure to offer him a courtesy name. Shapiro known as Malone, yelling, to dealer peace. Malone and Hickey endured to butt heads, yet Malone knew what lay forward for him. The board of administrators, regardless of how inspired with him, wouldn't make him the chairman and CEO of common software on the smooth age of 30. 31 9486_Robichaux_01. f. qxd 8/28/02 9:53 AM web page 32 32 C A B L E C O W B OY As Malone used to be studying another lesson in company politics (Hickey used to be made CEO), Jerrold used to be promoting lots of its cable platforms to shave off debt, and targeting its center undertaking as a cable apparatus provider. One bidder used to be Bob Magness of TCI, who Malone knew was once amassing colossal debt. while Magness provided to shop for Jerrold’s cable platforms, Malone quoted his boss, Shapiro, joking, “Look, Bob, we don’t wish any Portuguese escudos. we need cash—coin of the world. ” 7 by means of the autumn of 1972, the 2 males had develop into quickly acquaintances, albeit from assorted coasts and diversified eras. On one among Malone’s visits to TCI in Denver, Magness requested the younger guy in his designated Texas drawl, “ What do you consider popping out the following to Denver and working our convey? ” eight 9486_Robichaux_01. f. qxd 8/28/02 9:53 AM web page 33 three money move y 1973, Bob Magness had ultimately put one wager too many. His success was once catching up with him. Mounting a last-minute rescue plan to elevate new cash to repay debt that used to be coming due, Magness had cajoled a consortium of banks into offering TCI with $78 million in bridge financing (i. e. , a non permanent mortgage with the next floating rate of interest) with the idea that TCI could simply pay it again a short while later after elevating $100 million by way of promoting extra stocks at the inventory industry. Merrill Lynch had signed directly to deal with the financing, supplying an important vote of self belief in TCI, and his new CEO, the 32-year-old John Malone may take care of the remaining. yet in an issue of months, rates of interest persevered to bounce larger, and information of Kahn’s conviction and fiscal chicanery at TelePrompTer positioned a damper on traders’ appetites for cable. Then, on the worst attainable second, SEC regulators halted the secondary inventory providing merely days ahead of it used to be to ensue, which intended TCI couldn’t pay again the massive bridge personal loan. Regulators have been afflicted by means of a TCI subsidiary referred to as nationwide Telefilm affiliates (NTA), which was once TCI’s budding new programming arm dependent in la. TCI owned seventy eight percentage, and it used to be a automobile for amassing videos and previous television sequence that can B 33 9486_Robichaux_01. f. qxd 8/28/02 9:53 AM web page 34 34 C A B L E C O W B OY offer programming for TCI cable structures. NTA already owned the rights to a trove of previous motion pictures, together with John Wayne’s videos, vintage cartoons, and the library of sequence that introduced NBC, together with Bonanza, I secret agent, and excessive Chaparral. NTA used to be run through Magness’s accomplice and good friend, George Hatch, who together with his spouse and kin, owned broadcast television stations, radio houses, and cable platforms in Utah.

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