ARCHIVES :: INDEPENDENT OPERATORS

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07.29.2008		A Short Note From Our Editor Dear Friend of CableFAX, At CableFAX we always jealously guard your time. So here’s a brief note about our awards programs for the remainder of 2008 for CableFAX: The  Magazine.   * Our Most Influential Minorities in Cable issue will be...
07.24.2008		Editor's Note: Heat Exhaustion We trust our summer-themed cover on this edition of CableFAX: The Magazine has put you in a relaxed state, ready to enjoy the pleasures of the season. Recently Johns Hopkins Magazine asked rocket scientist Stephan McCandliss what he thinks about while...
07.24.2008		By the Numbers: 2008 Top Ops Edition [This is an expanded version of the story that appears in the print Top Ops issue.] +4.1%: Q1 ’08 advertising growth for cable (vs. Q1 ’07). +0.8%: Q1 ’08 advertising growth for network television. -5.2%: Q1 ’08 advertising decline for...
07.24.2008		Cuban on HD Fraud, Running NCTA and Gas Prices CFAX: If you ran NCTA for a day, what would be the first thing you’d urge cable operators to do regarding HD? MARK CUBAN: Besides offer HDNet and HDNet Movies? In a perfect world, I would tell them to promote picture quality as a selling point over...
07.24.2008		The Hottest Operators: 2008 Top Ops Awards In the past we’ve honored the MSO of the Year and the Independent Operator of the Year, and left it at that. We’re expanding on that tradition for this summertime edition of CableFAX: The Magazine — there is just too much good work being...
07.24.2008		MSO of the Year: Insight Communications Had you told us one year ago that Insight Communications would be our MSO of the Year we would have laughed, probably not politely. Insight was supposed to be history by now, gobbled up by Time Warner Cable, Jerry Kent or perhaps a private equity firm...
07.24.2008		MSO Sales Team of the Year: Charter Business It would make for a great story if we wrote that the Charter Business sales team performs daily magic, sprinkling pixie dust to enhance sales of voice, video and high-speed access to business customers. Unfortunately, as with many things in business and life...
07.24.2008		MSO Comeback Executive of the Year: Rocco B. Commisso, Chairman and CEO, Mediacom "It's Rocco's year" is a familiar phrase among cable executives. It's hard to disagree. With the Sinclair debacle behind him, Commisso and Mediacom are roaring. After bleeding basic subs since 2005, Mediacom reported a modest gain of 2,000 subs in...
07.24.2008		MSO Tech Innovation Top Ops Award: Pragash Pillai, VP, Strategic Engineering, Bresnan Communications Content is not king — not when it comes to the nitty-gritty competition among cable operators, satellite, the telcos and Internet and wireless distributors. They’re all dealing in the same content, more or less. The race for telecommunications...
07.24.2008		MSO Best Community Service (system) Top Ops Award: Cox Arizona/Cox 7 Arizona Cable operators really had the misfortune to be the early leader in the pay TV game. If they’d followed satellite or the telcos, perhaps consumers would be cursing the satellite guy who shows up three hours late instead of the cable guy. Guess...
07.24.2008		MSO Lifetime Achievement Top Ops Award: Ralph Roberts It ain't over. Ralph Roberts' lifetime of achieving and a little more achieveing to add on to the successes. Comcast clearly is the lead company in cable. And, while Ralph doesn’t run anything day to day now, his influence shows in most everything son...
07.24.2008		Indie Marketer of the Year: Jerry McKenna, SVP/Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Cable One Jerry McKenna gets our top marketer nod because he not only has championed Cable One’s successful forays into digital cable, high-speed Internet and phone service, but he never stops striving for better ways to market the triple play. This year McKenna...
07.24.2008		Indie System Exec of the Year: Amy Tykeson, President/CEO, BendBroadband Amy Tykeson is a hybrid in the best sense of the word. She’s firmly ensconced in the independent camp, a steadfast champion for small and rural cable operators on retransmission consent, net neutrality and other sizzling issues. Yet her knowledge of the...
07.24.2008		Indie Strategic Thinker of the Year: Patrick Knorr, GM, Sunflower Broadband ACA VP/COO Rob Schema says it best. "Nobody plays the cable chess game three to four steps ahead like Patrick does." For an independent operator, Patrick Knorr’s Lawrence, Kan.-based Sunflower Broadband has a tech profile that large MSOs envy...
07.24.2008		Indie Best Community Service: Advanced Cable Communications How involved is Advanced Cable in its community? Enough for Coral Springs, Fla., to pronounce April 2008 Advanced Cable Month in honor of the operator’s 30th anniversary. The designation grabbed our attention. "There has been so much consolidation...
07.24.2008		Indie Best Community Service: Massillon Cable TV Cable operators often reach out to their communities with one-off or short-term events. Not Massillon Cable. In fact Massillon gets the nod from us for community service largely because 2007 marked the 15th anniversary of its Downtown Fun Fest. Staged in the...
07.24.2008		Indie Lifetime Achievement Top Ops Award: Steve Weed, CEO, Wave Broadband This has been a benchmark year for Steve Weed. Wave Broadband celebrated its five-year anniversary and obtained a statewide franchise in California, the only cable company other than Cox to do so. But we’re honoring this Cable Pioneer not only for his...
07.24.2008		CableFAX: The Magazine's 2008 Top 10 Places to Work in Cable We’ve all seen the headlines telling us that jobs are being lost like hair off the head of a hedge fund swindler on the lam. A July 3 New York Times headline: "Employers Cut Workers for a Sixth Month." Is the cable industry a safe place to...
07.24.2008		The End: A Look Ahead at Cable Advertising After you finish reading this magazine, you'll decide to begin something new. So to maintain the CableFAX: The Magazine tradition of ending each issue with a beginning — a look ahead — we’ve assembled senior executives to discuss trends in...
07.24.2008		Independent Operator of the Year: WOW! It’s a rare company that could tempt us to bestow top honors on an overbuilder. But then WOW! (aka WideOpenWest) is not an ordinary operation. “Service driven,” “doggedly competitive” and “obsessively focused on the...