Rogers Communications founder and CEO dies

Canadian communications pioneer Edward Samuel "Ted" Rogers, died at his home this morning in Toronto at the age of 75. Tech Media Reports looks back at a few of the industry issues he has championed over his long career.As the founder and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc., Rogers was known for his indefatigable drive in building his company into a Canadian and North American leader in wireless telecommunications, cable television, broadcasting, publishing and more.Within regulatory and policy circles, Rogers reputation as a proud nationalist, a generous philanthroper, and relentless maverick is legendary. Never one to shy away from a battle, Rogers spent a career challenging both the CRTC and Industry Canada on everything from competition in the telecom industry and spectrum auction rules to Canadian content, foreign ownership and over-the-air digital TV. Here's just a small sample of some of the issues he's championed over the past few years:Cellular roaming and tower sharing (February, 2008)In a conference call with financial analysts earlier this year, Rogers took aim at Industry Canada for adopting provisions that would mandate incumbent carriers to allow new entrants to roam on their wireless networks and share towers."Nobody is going to go roaming on an old CDMA network that's about to crash," he said. "So all going to come on ours. And isn't that wonderful? We're going to get some revenue for a while. But we will build out capacity, say for the next five years, and then these guys put in their own and I've got empty wires all over the place and I'm out a couple of hundred million bucks in building this stuff that now nobody is using. So these are real problems for us, real economic hardships for us." The CEO wasn't done there, arguing that Industry Canada didn't have the right to amend the company's spectrum licences. "You can't give a guy a licence for 10 years, ask him to invest $5 billion and then say ‘Oh, we're going to change the terms of your licence after three or four years,'" Rogers said. "Under all this is our position that we cannot tolerate to have our licences amended and that's the bottom line." On setting aside AWS spectrum for new entrants (September, 2007)In a speech to the Canadian Club, Rogers said reserving spectrum for new entrants would amount to a discount on spectrum "worth hundreds of millions of dollars" and would be "a direct gift and subsidy from the tax payers of Canada." These well-financed communications companies "would be the all-time corporate welfare bums in Canadian history." In addition to highlighting Canada's competitive wireless prices, he warned the government there could be dire consequences if it reserves spectrum and at the same time eliminates restrictions on foreign investment."It would be a grave mistake for the government to subsidize the new entrants. For one thing these folks may not be in the business for the long haul. In a few years, the foreign ownership regulations may well change and the new entrant may be able to take the spectrum they just bought and very well flip it to a US, European or Asian carrier who wants to enter Canada. Instead of creating competitive advantage for Canada the government may be financing some instant ‘flippers' who sell it to foreign interests. Have we not experienced enough hollowing out of corporate Canada already?"On broadcasters converting to digital transmission (December 2006)Rogers has also challenged the contention by some broadcasters that upgrading their transmitters to high definition would be too costly, and that over-the-air transmissions should be abandoned altogether. He claimed the transmission piece of the puzzle is already in place for many OTA broadcasters but investing in studio and production equipment is a different matter: many broadcasters are opting to simply important their HD programming hours from the US rather than make original content in HD here, he said."So if you have a high def set, you see this glorious picture for all the American programming, and then when Canadian programming comes up it is just not as good. So it builds up a feeling of Canadian being inferior to American, which I think is detestable."Giving back to the communityNamed Outstanding Philanthropist of 2002, Rogers and his wife Loretta have given millions of dollars and much of their time to educational and health-related charities, including the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Toronto General Hospital, and Sheena's Place, an agency supporting those affected by eating disorders.In a speech last year, Rogers said he made a conscious decision in his early days in business to give back to the community."Giving is in the heart of everyone - from a small donation from a young person to a large donation from an older person. Our family's purpose is to try and assist in each generation having more opportunity than the last. We feel that the single, most important factor is improved access to higher education."Rogers was made an Officer of The Order of Canada in 1990 and was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2002, he was the first Canadian named to the Cable Hall of Fame in Denver, Colorado, and was inducted into Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame in October 2006. In October this year, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Ontario Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient in recognition of his innumerable contributions to the regional and national business scenes.With the purchase of Toronto FM radio station CHFI in 1960, Rogers began what would soon become one of Canada's largest communications empires, and one of its few remaining family-owned communications companies. His early career focus on FM radio quickly expanded to encompass broadcasting, cable television and telecommunications. Rogers pioneered numerous communications ventures, transforming Rogers Communications into an industry leader.His successor as CEO will be addressed by the company's board of directors, which plans to form a special committee to lead a search considering internal and external candidates. In the meantime, Rogers chair Alan Horn will continue to serve as acting CEO and lead the company's office of the president.Funeral arrangements will be announced by the family.

Rogers Communications founder and CEO dies

Broadcast | December 2, 2008

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