TCI Cable
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| Traded as | NASDAQ: TCOMA |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cable television |
| Fate | Purchased by AT&T Corporation for broadband Internet services Cable television systems sold to Cablevision and Comcast |
| Successor | AT&T Broadband |
| Founded | 1968 |
| Defunct | 1999 |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado, USA |
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Key people
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John Malone |
Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, for much of its history controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone.
The company came into being in 1968, following the merger of Western Microwave, Inc. and Community Television, Inc. It was the largest cable operator in the United States at one time.
After going public in 1970, the company grew rapidly, and became the top cable provider in the United States. After a failed merger attempt with Bell Atlantic in 1994, it was purchased in 1999 by AT&T, whose cable television assets were later acquired by Charter Communications and then Comcast Corporation.
After graduating from Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Bob Magness was a cotton seed salesman and cattle rancher. In 1956, he met two men who were stranded and needed a ride. Learning that they wanted to build a community antenna system in Paducah, Texas, he decided to raise the money for a similar system in Memphis, Texas. He sold his cattle, took out a mortgage on his home and borrowed $2500 from his father. His wife did the office work while Bob put up the wires himself.
Two years later Magness sold the system and was looking for a way to invest the sales proceeds. Another cable pioneer, Bill Daniels, told him about a community antenna system in Bozeman, Montana. The Kearns-Tribune Corp., publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune, which owned a cable system in Reno, Nevada, began relaying signals by common carrier microwave from Salt Lake City in 1956. It became a partner with Magness in establishing a partnership for cable TV in Montana. George C. Hatch and Brian Glasmann were also partners in the companies known as Community Television Inc. and Western Microwave Inc. The Magness family moved to Bozeman. Six systems were built, serving a total of 12,000 homes.
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Wikipedia