Former Time Warner Cable CEO Joseph J. Collins dies at 81
Joseph J. Collins, a central determine in tv’s evolution from broadcast dominance to cable and web, died final Thursday at his residence in Weekapaug, RI, in response to a household spokesman. He was 81.
The veteran cable chief — whose management roles spanned HBO, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and extra — emerged as probably the most consequential figures within the media biz, serving to reposition cable as greater than only a supply system for TV.
Lengthy earlier than broadband web took off, Collins was among the many trade leaders who noticed that the identical networks carrying premium programming may in the future ship high-speed information and alter how People lived, labored and consumed content material.
He held prime roles at a number of of the trade’s greatest firms during times of great transition.
In 1984, he was named president of HBO, the place he helped regular and strengthen the premium community because it established itself as a dominant model.
Collins later returned to American Tv and Communications (ATC), the place he had risen via the ranks, finally serving as chairman and CEO.
Following ATC’s merger with Time Warner Cable in 1992, Collins led the mixed firms as chairman and CEO, overseeing a interval of growth and technological evolution that helped lay the groundwork for broadband’s eventual explosive development.
He later headed up AOL Time Warner Interactive Video, the place he pushed early efforts to merge TV and internet-based companies. After his retirement, he was elected as an unbiased director on the Comcast board in 2004.
“Joe was instrumental in constructing the primary cable methods, upgrading them to ship tons of of channels, then video on demand, and at last the broadband streaming and web apps that all of us use every single day now,” former Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes mentioned in an announcement.
Born July 27, 1944, in Troy, NY, Collins got here of age simply as TV, telecommunications and computing had been starting to intersect.
He graduated from Brown College in 1966 and earned an MBA from Harvard Enterprise Faculty in 1972.
He additionally served within the US Navy, reaching the rank of lieutenant and incomes the Vietnam Fight Motion Ribbon for his service throughout the Vietnam Warfare.
Collins was broadly credited with advancing hybrid fiber-coaxial structure, the technical spine that will allow high-speed cable web throughout the States.
Media titan John Malone, who earned the nickname “Cable Cowboy,” as soon as advised his group, “if I’ve a coronary heart assault, name Joe Collins.”
Collins additionally performed a job in shaping coverage, serving twice as chairman of the Nationwide Cable Telecommunications Affiliation and contributing to the event of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996.
The longtime exec was additionally a founder and a md of C-SPAN and a board member at TriStar Photos and TBS, the place he performed a pivotal position in Turner’s 1996 merger with Time Warner.
He acquired the cable trade’s Distinguished Vanguard Award for Management in 1997 and was inducted into the Cable Corridor of Fame in 2001.
In later years, Collins acquired and operated a number of boatyards and served as chairman of Aegis Holdings, a non-public funding agency.
He was additionally an avid tennis participant and an achieved mariner, typically spending time aboard his boat alongside the Rhode Island coast.
He’s survived by his spouse of 54 years, Maura McManman Collins; his kids, Maura Farley Lucke, Elizabeth Dempsey Fitton, Joseph Jameson Collins Jr. and Kathryn “Tryn” Collins; and 11 grandchildren.
A funeral is scheduled for April 13 in Rhode Island.
