Content area
Full Text
[Image omitted] - (http://www.fiercecable.com/story/verizon-using-redbox-instant-and-ellipsis-build-virtual-pay-tv-platform/2013-11-14)
I've been thinking about how to tell the story of John Rigas, the cable pioneer who founded Coudersport, Pa.-based MSO Adelphia Communications ever since I visited Pennsylvania in early November to attend an event hosted by the nation's largest cable company - Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA).
The 260-mile drive from my home near Syracuse, N.Y., to Comcast's headquarters in Philadelphia brought me within 70 miles of the Allenwood federal prison complex in White Deer, Pa., which is currently home to the former Adelphia chairman and his son Tim Rigas, Adelphia's former CFO. The Rigases, who were convicted on charges of wire and securities fraud in 2004 - a scandal that rocked the cable industry and pummeled the stocks of public cable MSOs - began serving their prison terms at a jail in North Carolina in 2007. In November 2011, they were transferred to Allenwood, which is 10 miles from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Williamsport and 100 miles from their homes and families in Coudersport. John Rigas, now 89, isn't scheduled to be released from Allenwood until January 2018. Tim Rigas is scheduled to be released in June 2022.
As a reporter covering the cable industry, much of my focus these days is on Comcast, which celebrated its 50 th anniversary last month. Adelphia was once the third largest cable MSO, with more than 5 million subscribers, and would have celebrated its 60 th anniversary last year. The company's name has come up in recent weeks in stories speculating about cable consolidation. Some reports have suggested that Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) could be carved up similar to the way Time Warner and Comcast split most of Adelphia's cable systems in a $17.6 billion deal they struck in 2005, three years after Adelphia filed for bankruptcy protection.
Few of those stories have mentioned the Rigases, who had Thanksgiving dinner last week for a seventh year in prison. I haven't thought much about the Rigases in recent years, but that trip I took through Pennsylvania last month brought back memories of the Adelphia trial, its bankruptcy, and even my college newspaper days, when I first wrote about John Rigas.
The Adelphia founder was on the board of trustees at my alma...