Rogers Cable - History

History

Rogers was one of the first cable-system operators in Canada, having secured licences covering much of the then city of Toronto in the mid-1960s. One of the first important acquisitions was in 1979, when Ted Rogers purchased a controlling interest in Canadian Cablesystems (CCL), which operated cable companies across Ontario, including the then City of North York, Oshawa/Whitby, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Brantford, and Newmarket, and joined the CCL properties with his cable interests. In 1980, Rogers purchased Premier Cable, which controlled the system in Vancouver, parts of Ontario, and had investments in Irish cable companies in Dublin, Galway and Waterford. In 1986 Rogers sold their shares of Irish companies to the Irish state broadcaster (RTÉ) and state telecoms company (Eircom), these cable companies are now part of the UPC Ireland network. Rogers continued to buy other operators, the largest such acquisition came with Rogers' 1994 acquisition of Maclean-Hunter, at that time also among the largest cable operators. Through its acquisition of Maclean-Hunter, Rogers has also owned cable systems in the United States, which it sold to Comcast in 1994. In 2008, Rogers announced a takeover offer for Aurora Cable, a cable service provider in York Region, Ontario (pending approval by Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)).

1981- Rogers starts to operate in U.S. cable market. Wins franchises in Orange County, California, Minneapolis, and Portland and purchases the cable system in San Antonio

February 1, 1983- First Choice Pay Per View was offered throughout the Rogers Cablesystem Network.

1989- Rogers sells U.S. cable assets for over $1 billion profit and invests profits in wireless sector. Paragon Cable owned by Houston Industries which became the largest cable provider in Minnesota with 177,100 subscribers in the Twin Cities and South Central Minnesota. Due to the Rogers United States acquisition Paragon expanded to serve other states, such as California, Oregon, Florida and Texas.

Paragon Cable acquired the United States version of First Choice PPV which was similar to the First Choice Pay Per View offerings in Canada.

Paragon Cable still aired the First Choice Pay Per View network until the late 1990s when Time Warner would buy the assets of Houston Industries, who owned and operated Paragon Cablesystems.

Rogers partners with Canadian Pacific in CNCP (later renamed Unitel) and enters long distance telephony market in 1992 after a historic CRTC victory.

The Rogers Telefund is established to contribute to the production of quality independent Canadian television programming.