The Morning I Knocked on John Malone’s Locked Door

In November 1983 the Great Thanksgiving Blizzard arrived over Denver with over 20 inches of snow the city locked down schools and businesses shuttered and Stapleton Airport closed Yet from the snow swept runway of Newark we boarded the first flight in for the reopening of Stapleton three of us from the fledgling cable network UTV Talkamp8209Back Television Our destination a scheduled meeting with John C Malone and Robert amp8220Bobamp8221 Magness of Teleamp8209Communications Inc TCI then the dominant force and arbiter in the cableTV worldNo phone lines were working No assurances that Malone or Magness would even be present Schools were closed traffic halted snowbanks towered I stayed overnight at the airport Hilton marched through halffrozen drifts walked from terminal to hotel where not even a restaurant remained open joined by UTV founder Frank Damp8217Alessio and President Richard Levinson Early the next morning coat collars up we trudged through locked doors at TCI headquarters in Englewood Colorado After minutes of knocking Bob Magness emerged in socks bewildered by anyone who was there Malone and Magness had slept in the office for three nights the few people awake that week who believed the industry was moving whether the world paused or notMalone and Magness did not hide the truth at first amp8220You cannot expect funding at this timeamp8221 they said But then they shifted For the next two and a half hours they opened up their perfectstorm strategy how cable distribution would scale how programming carriage and funding networks would align and how a tiny TalkBack network might position itself for survival and growth They sketched out the blueprint We didnamp8217t record it we lived it And I as one of their earliest believers took that plan and made it my ownWhen I launched The Myers Report in 1984 born of that morning with UTV folded and the business landscape shifting the playbook I followed had its origins in that snowstorm meeting Cable networks agencies marketers I advised them in a transforming industry always with Maloneamp8217s timetable and insight in mindA decade later at an industry event I thanked John for giving me not only his blueprint for the future but for trusting a young executive early in his career I asked him to share what came next He smiled and leaned close said simply amp8220Just follow Liberty Mediaamp8221 That moment colloquial yet powerful proved to be prescient Malone had built and folded spun off and reacquired From TCI to Liberty Media he rewrote the rules of cable and contentamp8220The key to future profitability and success in the cable business will be the ability to control programming costs through the leverage of sizeamp8221 Malone told analyst David Wargo in 1982 He did not speak in fluff He spoke in math scale cashflow leverage amp8220They havenamp8217t repealed the laws of arithmeticamp8230 yet anywayamp8221 he quipped As I listened in 1983 snowcrusted and wideeyed I understood that the future was not arriving next year it was arriving while we were bundled in scarves knocking on locked doors and asking to sit with the decisionmakersJohn Malone for me was not simply the most influential driver of the cable industry he was a human being who extended trust and foresight at a moment when almost everyone else hunkered down and waited He stayed in his office He waited in socks for a young network to walk through the door in snow boots And then he shared the road mapThat moment anchored my career I didnamp8217t just report on the industry I participated in it I lived with the powers in Denver Long Island Boston and Philadelphia I tracked the acquisitions and the leveraged rollups and I aligned my vision with Maloneamp8217s I listened to the Madison Avenue halls of influence But I added something my own humanity my own intelligence and a belief that market insight meant more than spreadsheets it also meant stories relationships decisions made in airports and snowstormsIn the years since Maloneamp8217s legacy has grown he led TCIamp8217s transformation into the largest US paytv operator in the 1980s and then built Liberty Media into one of the largest global media holders His reputation earned epithets like amp8220Cable Cowboyamp8221 a nod to his frontierscale mindset in an industry that once dared not dream Yet behind the legend was a man who counted on the small meeting the handshake in the snowstorm the young executive ready to step up Thatamp8217s why this is more than a business story itamp8217s a tributeJohn thank you for guiding our industry Thank you for trusting me I watched you move two steps ahead and I chose to move right beside you The blueprint you drew that morning remains alive in the work I continue to this day The wires may change the screens multiply the storms differ but the DNA of strategy trust and foresight remains And because you trusted early I was ready to follow not just your blueprint but our shared future

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The Morning I Knocked on John Malone’s Locked Door

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