00:01 - Ralph Roberts.

00:01 - You remember the the first day

00:03 - you went home at the end of the day

00:04 - and said, well, I'm in the cable business?

00:07 - Well, I guess that's when

00:10 - I bought the first cable system

00:12 - we ever had in Tupelo, Mississippi.

00:15 - And when I went home after closing the deal,

00:20 - I realized that it was a good business,

00:23 - although I didn't know very much about it.

00:25 - It was a junior sized venture capital company at that time.

00:30 - And then Aaron, who was the manager

00:35 - of Jerrold Systems, was became a broker.

00:39 - And he brokered the two below system.

00:41 - To me,

00:43 - the only thing I know about Tupelo is

00:45 - it was a home of Elvis Presley.

00:47 - And it was somewhere in Mississippi.

00:50 - Did you visit it before you bought it?

00:52 - Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

00:54 - I visited down there and I did a little research

00:58 - with other cable people to find out

01:00 - what kind of an industry it was.

01:02 - But I actually went to have a Tupelo

01:04 - and spent some time there.

01:06 - What kind of industry was it in 1963?

01:10 - In 1963, I

01:12 - think cable was just a beginning industry.

01:16 - They serviced the what we used to call

01:19 - the hinterlands of America

01:21 - that were too far away from television stations

01:25 - and therefore couldn't get decent images on the screen.

01:30 - And so the cable really brought

01:32 - television to the people who normally wouldn't

01:35 - have it or whatever, a little of it.

01:38 - This was before the days of HBO.

01:41 - Yes. HBO

01:43 - changed the whole cable industry.

01:47 - Here was an opportunity to have movies without commercials.

01:51 - And it was on a satellite.

01:52 - So it could go anywhere.

01:53 - Any cable system could pick it up.

01:55 - Up to that point, the major markets didn't

01:58 - seem to feel they needed cable because they had

02:01 - network programing and some local stations.

02:05 - But as soon as HBO had the streets, it was sensational

02:08 - and opened up a lot of doors for us.

02:12 - When when you started the Tupelo system,

02:16 - do you remember how many channels it had

02:17 - or what you charged for it?

02:18 - I think it had

02:21 - really one channel was a cherry picker

02:25 - and he picked off the three networks,

02:27 - whichever programs he thought were most interesting.

02:31 - And I believe we charged $5 a month.

02:34 - It almost looked like a pipe dream

02:37 - kind of a business, because you put up a tower, ran

02:40 - some wires into people's homes, and they paid you $5 a month.

02:44 - That's all you had to do.

02:45 - It was very nice.

02:47 - We did get adventuresome at one point where we tried

02:49 - to introduce another channel and that's

02:52 - we've been talking about that over the years.

02:55 - And that was our meditation channel,

02:57 - fix the camera on a goldfish bowl

03:00 - and you just watch the fish swim

03:02 - back and forth with some background music.

03:05 - That was one of our expensive channels.

03:08 - You did that yourself? Yes.

03:11 - What kind of reaction did you get from viewers

03:14 - or anything better than one was? Good

03:16 - people want more television, regardless of what it was.

03:19 - And we also those days had a fixed camera

03:24 - that would go back and forth over a barometer,

03:28 - a wind indicator, or tell you whether the weather was nice

03:31 - or bad. It could also have

03:33 - out the window to find the same information.

03:37 - At what point did you decide that you had done

03:39 - the right thing in buying the system in Tupelo?

03:42 - Well, I had previously sold a business men's furnishings,

03:47 - which were belts, wallets, jewelry and sold 15,000 stores.

03:52 - And I sold that business

03:55 - and went into a junior

03:56 - sized venture capital operation.

03:59 - People would come in, young guys who had ideas for computer

04:03 - services and others would put up some money,

04:07 - get the bank to put up some money

04:09 - and see if I could get them launched. The

04:14 - it was an awful lot of fun for me because I had the money

04:17 - from the previous business that I had.

04:18 - So I kept the corporate shell and the cash

04:22 - inside the company and use that to the

04:26 - venture capitalists in a sense, in a very small way.

04:32 - So when did it seem like cable was the way to go?

04:36 - Well, I'd gone into some other businesses,

04:40 - used like I had formerly been vice

04:43 - president, marketing and sales of Muzak Corporation.

04:47 - So I knew something about that business and I was going from

04:50 - one little thing to the next

04:52 - until suddenly one day

04:53 - I realized that the cable

04:55 - television business was better than all of them put together.

04:58 - So then I really leaped in with both feet.

05:03 - Were you living in Philadelphia at the time? Yes.

05:06 - Where else did you buy cable systems?

05:08 - Well, we bought cable systems right across Mississippi

05:12 - because we were based there, in a sense.

05:15 - And then further on, the next big move was a cable system

05:19 - in Sarasota, Florida,

05:23 - and discovered that it was the owner of it

05:26 - had, unfortunately, a wooden leg and couldn't climb poles.

05:30 - So he ran the cables in the sand

05:33 - and didn't do very well and the pictures weren't very good.

05:37 - So Dan and I decided we ought to buy that business.

05:41 - And we took in as a partner of the Philadelphia

05:44 - Evening Bulletin, and they put up the money

05:48 - and we ran the business that very well.

05:52 - There was a case where they did get three channels,

05:55 - but the third channel, remember, whether it was ABC,

05:59 - I think was a little weak.

06:01 - It was a big question whether or not people would pay

06:04 - just to have a clear channel when the other two weren't

06:07 - so terrible.

06:09 - And actually, we discovered that they did.

06:12 - And we had a we went like gangbusters.

06:16 - You mentioned

06:17 - Dan Aaron, and you also have another partner, Julian Brodsky.

06:20 - Can you talk about each of them and how you met up with them?

06:23 - Yes, well, Julian was an auditor,

06:26 - and the business

06:27 - that I was in prior to my venture capital days.

06:31 - And he was an accountant

06:35 - working for an accounting firm.

06:37 - And apparently that accounting

06:40 - firm serviced some cable systems.

06:42 - And so he knew a little bit about the cable industry.

06:45 - And when he heard that

06:47 - I bought a cable system in Tupelo, he wanted to

06:52 - get involved in a famous line he likes.

06:54 - The quote is that he said, You can't do this without me.

06:58 - That's how anxious he was to get into the cable business.

07:02 - And that time, of course, I was I have a very meager

07:05 - overhead, not the way it is today, I might add.

07:08 - And we had small offices, a limited amount of space

07:13 - and furniture and jewelry.

07:16 - And I told a story when I said, I don't have room for you here.

07:19 - He said, I won't take up much room.

07:21 - And by the way, Joy, in six foot three, I think

07:24 - giant of a man, he came in with his card table and a chair

07:28 - said, this will be my desk.

07:29 - You know, I don't need any furniture.

07:33 - Dan was very knowledgeable about the cable industry.

07:38 - He had really been through the mill with Gerald

07:41 - and was operating their systems.

07:43 - So when I bought Tupelo below, I told Dan

07:47 - that I wouldn't buy it unless he came with it

07:50 - because I had a

07:51 - little motto Don't ever go

07:52 - into a new business without an expert.

07:55 - And Dan was an expert, and he went to Mississippi

07:58 - quite frequently and made a big success of it.

08:01 - So much so that we were willing to go on to buy more.

08:06 - We also had a very friendly banker, which was very critical

08:10 - with the Philadelphia National Bank.

08:13 - And the man who was my hero there was Jack McDowell.

08:17 - He was a vice chairman

08:19 - and he was sort of like the old fashioned bankers

08:22 - looked you in the eye and shook your hand and said, I like you.

08:24 - I'm going to lend you money.

08:26 - Because when I asked them

08:27 - to get the money to buy out my previous company

08:31 - and he said, I told them

08:32 - we were going to lose the business, I think it was

08:36 - to be sold to Swank

08:38 - and I had an option

08:41 - to get the system.

08:43 - I got the business right of first refusal,

08:46 - and when I exercised that with the help of the bank Mike,

08:49 - I asked him, how am I going to pay the interest?

08:51 - He said, You just raise your salary.

08:54 - Although the interest in those days

08:55 - is only three or 4%, not like it is today.

08:59 - What were you doing?

09:00 - It that this is the Pioneer Suspender Company? Yes.

09:03 - What were you doing

09:04 - at the company

09:05 - at the time that you were in a position to buy it?

09:08 - I was

09:11 - I was the vice president in charge of

09:14 - marketing, advertising, promotion,

09:18 - and I promoted the products

09:21 - the nicest possible way I could by having musical

09:24 - fashion shows.

09:25 - I think we had

09:25 - the first industrial music shows in the United States

09:29 - and they were very successful and our business was booming.

09:33 - So much so that my competitor, Ray Hitchcock, said he'd like

09:38 - to buy us out. And I agreed.

09:41 - Interesting there

09:43 - at that time, sense of belt was just being introduced.

09:46 - These were rebellious slacks

09:48 - and people weren't wearing cufflinks anymore.

09:51 - They weren't barrel cup shirts

09:53 - or tie bars because guys weren't wearing ties.

09:56 - So it looked to me that the products

09:57 - we were selling were going to have a nosedive.

10:01 - So along comes Ray Hitchcock, who wants to have me

10:05 - stop beating up on his customers and bought me out.

10:09 - Interestingly enough, yesterday

10:11 - I received a letter from the president of Sensible

10:15 - who said he read about this story in one of the journals

10:19 - they wanted to introduce himself.

10:22 - He never realized what a motivating factor

10:24 - he was in my life.

10:27 - What's a musical fashion show?

10:30 - Well, and men's fashions are almost no place

10:36 - to go in a newspaper because the big fashion news

10:39 - is about women and

10:42 - women page.

10:44 - The women's page

10:46 - once in a long while would have something about a men's item.

10:50 - But I went to the women's editors

10:54 - and asked him whether they could see

10:56 - the fashion that we were doing, and belts, particularly

10:59 - in elastic belts that were very colored and beautiful.

11:03 - And so I decided that I'd have to have something

11:09 - in New York that would attract these women buyers or

11:13 - PR people, including our own buyers.

11:16 - So we made a show around our own merchandise,

11:21 - like suspenders are a man's best friend.

11:24 - We did all with parody some of the songs.

11:27 - We had music and dance.

11:29 - It was sensational.

11:31 - I did it every year until finally

11:33 - the final year was in Convention Hall Atlantic City.

11:36 - And this really put us on the map

11:38 - with all the department stores and the men's furnishing chains.

11:41 - They all want us

11:41 - to see the hotshot operation that we were running.

11:46 - Did you sell bow ties?

11:48 - We always sold bow ties.

11:51 - You are you were never seen without a bow tie.

11:54 - Is that when you developed fear, a fondness, a bow ties?

11:56 - Well, I don't know. Or just came from.

11:59 - As a matter of fact, I have foreign hand ties at home, too.

12:01 - But somehow, when I go to the closet

12:03 - to pick a tie, it's usually a bow tie.

12:05 - I think they're neater and it is a little distinctive.

12:10 - I must admit.

12:10 - I didn't quite realize

12:12 - I was getting a reputation for just wearing bow ties.

12:17 - Where'd you grow up?

12:19 - I grew up in Queens,

12:21 - City of the South, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

12:24 - And I was New Rochelle, New York.

12:26 - And it was a beautiful city, right on the water.

12:31 - And all the kids, including me, had a little cat boat

12:34 - that we sail around.

12:36 - And it was just a fun place to be.

12:38 - It was still farmland in many areas.

12:41 - Today, of course, it's a metropolis,

12:45 - but it was very, very pleasant growing up.

12:49 - What did your father do for a living?

12:50 - My father was a manufacturing canvased

12:53 - and in addition to that, he had a chain of drugstores.

12:58 - His most famous drugstore was

12:59 - the one on the Biltmore Hotel that later became a bar,

13:03 - and then they tore down the Biltmore.

13:05 - So those days are really gone.

13:08 - He passed away when you were 12 years old?

13:10 - Yes, he was 42 years old and I was 12.

13:15 - So that was quite a shock.

13:16 - Of course, it was a sudden death.

13:21 - Where'd you go then?

13:23 - Well, eventually, a year or two later,

13:28 - my mother

13:30 - took the children and moved to Philadelphia

13:32 - because she had a sister there.

13:34 - And so I got to Philadelphia when I was about 16,

13:38 - and when I was 17, I went to the University of Pennsylvania.

13:42 - So sort of made Philadelphia home.

13:45 - What effect did it have on you to lose your father at age 12?

13:50 - To big shock.

13:51 - I mean, your father stands up for you

13:54 - as one of your idols as you grow up and

13:59 - he was always very attentive to the children.

14:03 - And matter of fact,

14:05 - he took us to the movies the night before he died.

14:09 - And when he did die, my mother came into our room

14:11 - with my brother and I and said, Your dad just passed away.

14:16 - I went in and I was spellbound.

14:19 - I couldn't believe it's possible.

14:23 - How do you think you're different today?

14:25 - Because you lost your dad at such a young age?

14:28 - Well, I really don't know.

14:31 - I think I'm very attentive to the family and

14:36 - I have

14:38 - some marvelous kids, a good wife.

14:41 - And I think I just I never took the business home with me.

14:45 - I go home, I talk about what the kids did every day,

14:48 - or my wife

14:50 - sort of is able to shut it off.

14:52 - And I think that's partially because I

14:55 - felt I had a responsibility to know what was going on

14:57 - with the kids and the wife.

15:00 - What can you tell me about your mother?

15:03 - Well, I was considered a mama's boy.

15:05 - My mother could do no wrong.

15:07 - She everything she did was right,

15:10 - and she was very encouraging to me

15:13 - and to my brother and sister.

15:15 - She would tell us that

15:16 - we really could do anything we wanted to do.

15:18 - We just tried hard enough and do things that we enjoy.

15:23 - If you're going to have a life

15:26 - and an occupation, you should try to find

15:29 - that which makes you happy and enjoy doing.

15:32 - And her remuneration was not the measuring point.

15:35 - I think it was sense of accomplishment.

15:40 - So she was very encouraging to her children,

15:42 - particularly if she had no husband.

15:43 - It was money ever a problem.

15:46 - After your father passed away,

15:47 - did he leave you in pretty good shape?

15:49 - Well, it was in the middle of the depression.

15:51 - He died in 1933.

15:54 - And the only money we had

15:56 - was the insurance money, which he had.

16:00 - And we knew we had to move out of our house and give up.

16:05 - We had a chauffeur lost that, and

16:09 - we we scrambled around, but

16:14 - we always managed somehow.

16:16 - And I always had

16:17 - a little business on the side going somewhere or either

16:21 - making bus schedules and selling ads or filing.

16:25 - I had a little orchestra for dances

16:29 - and we always had something

16:30 - that I could make a few extra bucks.

16:32 - Did you play an instrument?

16:34 - I played the piano a little bit.

16:35 - Not not great kind of music or big jazz, popular music.

16:41 - You know, you always in those days, you

16:43 - learn classical music that you're parents for.

16:46 - Get a teacher and make you sit inside and learn how to play

16:49 - instead of going outside having a ballgame.

16:52 - But I've always enjoyed popular music.

16:56 - You still play the piano?

16:57 - I play a wee bit of piano, that's all.

17:00 - Each year I learn one new song.

17:04 - Although I do play by year end part.

17:06 - What's the most recent song you learned?

17:08 - I'm Scott Joplin.

17:10 - That's the one I'm working on.

17:12 - Hard things. Yeah.

17:14 - Do you remember the first job you ever had?

17:22 - First job

17:23 - I ever had, I guess.

17:29 - I guess it was at Penn as the University of Pennsylvania.

17:34 - I had worked out a program

17:39 - of selling blocks to the students,

17:42 - and I sold advertising on the back of the blotter.

17:47 - Now, for people

17:47 - who are too young to remember, what is a blotter?

17:51 - Well, a pen used to have wet ink.

17:53 - And you filled your fountain pen with things you wrote.

17:57 - And the ink came out making the letters,

18:00 - and you had to put a blotter on top of it because

18:03 - the ink was still pretty wet.

18:05 - If he didn't want this myriad blotter that,

18:08 - you know, amazing that you ask me that question,

18:11 - I just thought everybody would know what a fountain pen is.

18:14 - But apparently or. Right.

18:15 - They haven't been around for a long time.

18:19 - But from being in

18:20 - the position you were in, how did you

18:23 - how did you end up being able to go to pen?

18:27 - Well, in those days,

18:29 - a semester of school cost $400.

18:32 - And if you could eke out $5 a week

18:35 - allowance or $5 a week from selling blotters or

18:39 - something else, you had enough to buy lunch and a few books.

18:43 - So it was even though $400 doesn't seem like much today,

18:48 - it was substantial in those days.

18:51 - So for a whole year at $800.

18:54 - And my mother was able to scratch that around.

18:58 - Did she work?

18:59 - She opened up a dress shop in Germantown

19:04 - and ran that for a while.

19:06 - She was always trying to do something.

19:09 - Was it successful?

19:11 - It wasn't as successful as she would have liked

19:14 - if she closed it up.

19:15 - She did it with aunt, with her niece

19:18 - who lived in Philadelphia

19:20 - and was fairly well-off.

19:26 - What did you study at Penn?

19:27 - Marketing.

19:28 - You get a B.S. in economics from Penn.

19:31 - Undergraduate Boarding School and most major was marketing.

19:38 - What attracted you to marketing?

19:39 - Well, I think I'm a natural salesman.

19:41 - Before I lost my voice.

19:44 - And I enjoy selling things and concocting ideas

19:48 - and making a product that other people might want.

19:55 - You remember your first sales job?

19:58 - Well, pardon me, was it the blotters?

20:01 - Could have been the blotters.

20:02 - But then I also expanded my operation.

20:04 - I sold eggs to the fraternity houses.

20:07 - I bought them in New Jersey

20:08 - and I could sell them for $0.10 a dozen more by bringing them

20:11 - over the bridge

20:12 - and selling them to the fraternity houses at Penn.

20:15 - That brought in a little money.

20:19 - As a salesman, how are you taking rejection?

20:22 - Oh, I'm very good at that.

20:24 - I figure if you get two rejection

20:27 - and you need one acceptance and you're feeling great again,

20:30 - so you just stick with it.

20:34 - So you graduated from

20:36 - Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania.

20:38 - I was 21 in 1941, 41 at the start of the war,

20:43 - start of the war.

20:45 - Well, I had applied for a naval commission

20:47 - in my junior year, and I got the commission and

20:53 - I then was sent to war production school

20:57 - where we learned about manufacturing

21:00 - and the school got us jobs that were about 30 of us.

21:04 - My job was with Westinghouse Electric,

21:07 - and it's a steam turbine plant

21:10 - and message engineering,

21:13 - which is time study was taught to us all.

21:15 - That went on for about nine months

21:19 - and I hadn't gone to officer's training school yet,

21:21 - which you're supposed to do, but I was very anxious to get in

21:26 - and I was got myself asked for

21:29 - by the commandant of the Fourth Naval District.

21:32 - That's one way you could move faster if you had a sponsor.

21:36 - I met the commandant and he took a liking to

21:38 - me and requested me to be in

21:42 - commissioned officer as soon as possible.

21:45 - And then I went to work for him at the Navy Yard

21:48 - here in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia.

21:50 - And he if you can believe this, I was there for four years.

21:53 - I couldn't get out.

21:54 - I was in the Bureau of Ships. I was declared essential.

21:56 - I knew all the rules and regulations

21:59 - because I'd gotten in early enough

22:00 - to learn all the new ones.

22:02 - So I stayed there for four years.

22:05 - I worked on the Bureau of Ships at that time.

22:08 - Did you enjoy it?

22:09 - Oh, I loved it. It was marvelous.

22:11 - I was with much older fellows

22:14 - and they all seem the same once they put a uniform on.

22:18 - It's only when

22:18 - you met the wives that you realized

22:20 - that they were older than you by a lot.

22:22 - But I.

22:23 - I really learned an awful lot

22:25 - about cost control and about inventories

22:28 - and other things about manufacturing and building.

22:32 - And it was

22:33 - very I went to school there, too.

22:37 - I was there so long whenever somebody died.

22:39 - I was a pallbearer. Really?

22:43 - I can't complain.

22:44 - I was a little embarrassed about being in Philadelphia.

22:46 - Everybody else was overseas.

22:48 - I had a brother who also with us,

22:51 - a sailor and a small boat man from New Rochelle.

22:55 - He was married and had a child and he was out on a sub chaser.

22:58 - Then six months from the day he was inducted as an officer

23:02 - in the Navy, I just sat there and thought of,

23:06 - You ever think about making the Navy a career?

23:09 - No. By the time the war was over,

23:13 - most of the people were offered a promotion

23:16 - if they would stay six more months.

23:19 - But I was so anxious to get out.

23:21 - I turned it down and left and I went into business with

23:26 - a naval officer.

23:27 - His name was Carol Stover, who was a very good engineer.

23:31 - And what the idea was, we were going to search

23:34 - for inventions or products that we could sell

23:37 - to the manufacturing companies

23:40 - who no longer had the war work

23:43 - because that was all canceled, all their contracts.

23:47 - And we developed a couple of little things

23:49 - not too successfully until one day my partner said,

23:53 - Let's manufacture a golf club.

23:56 - He's a very good golfer.

23:58 - They explained to me that all the companies

24:00 - like Spalding

24:01 - and everybody else

24:01 - were all tooled up

24:02 - for military stuff and nobody was making golf clubs.

24:06 - So he said the one club in the back

24:08 - that every good golfer might change is his putter

24:12 - because putters are all distinctive.

24:15 - Why don't we manufacture putters?

24:16 - I have a little machine

24:17 - shop in Germantown, could make a mirror

24:19 - and you can go out and sell them.

24:21 - So we did that. I got a car.

24:24 - This putter was a centric putter because you could have

24:27 - an upright medium or flat lie depending on how you stood.

24:32 - You could so the putter would be any one of three positions.

24:36 - So I made a display that had a little hole in it.

24:39 - You could open up the display

24:41 - in the pro shop or wherever I was selling it.

24:43 - I take a ball putt, it goes up the hole and comes back to you.

24:47 - Well, the minimum water was $3 and the clubs were $10 each.

24:52 - We figured they cost we retail for ten.

24:55 - We sold them six.

24:58 - And I went from Philadelphia to Florida selling golf clubs.

25:02 - I stopped at every shop

25:04 - and eventually we got a mailing list

25:06 - for all over the United States with their credit ratings,

25:09 - and I sold them. One day,

25:13 - Bob Hope was coming to Philadelphia

25:15 - to give a show, and I got the for a photographer

25:19 - at the Inquirer. They kept me backstage.

25:22 - I went up, came off the stage after his show.

25:25 - I ran up to him and said, Mr.

25:26 - Hope, my name is Ralph Roberts.

25:28 - I'm a veteran.

25:30 - I'm manufacturing this club.

25:31 - Could I take a couple of pictures of you

25:33 - holding the club?

25:34 - He said, Sure, kid. And he takes the club.

25:37 - He puts within the hall, nice club.

25:40 - Meantime, the photographers clicking away with the pictures.

25:43 - A week later I had this big brochure.

25:45 - Bob Hope centric Potter new thing on the market.

25:49 - I mailed it out to all the pro shops

25:53 - and we the office business.

25:56 - I never bothered to get his permission,

25:58 - but I did send them a copy of the brochure.

26:01 - Did you ever get a club?

26:04 - I guess we set up a club and the brochure.

26:06 - Years later I had Bob Hope and an ad for Father's Day

26:12 - on for men's wear belts and stuff,

26:15 - and he remembered that this kid came up, got this picture.

26:20 - So it really was very nice.

26:22 - One day

26:24 - I was out putting, I hit the ball and the putter

26:27 - bent like this one over the whole shaft collapsed.

26:31 - So I called up my partner and I said, What happened?

26:34 - He says, I forgot to send them to the hatred place

26:37 - and they're also after the last big shipment.

26:40 - So I said, I think it's time for us to go out of business.

26:43 - We don't want those clubs back.

26:45 - So we closed shop and went out of business.

26:48 - That was the end of my manufacturing.

26:53 - You didn't think to sell the company or

26:56 - work at that point?

26:57 - We were just took to the hills or wasn't going to sell.

27:02 - Do you ever, ever hear any upshot?

27:04 - Did anybody ever track you down after that?

27:06 - You know, what business did you go into then?

27:10 - Well, then I went into the advertising agency.

27:12 - I went to work for an advertising agency

27:14 - that really was my first job, I guess, where

27:17 - I showed up every day and got paid for it.

27:19 - The company was called.

27:20 - I kinda later merged in with some of the larger agencies

27:25 - and one of my clients was Muzak

27:28 - and had an idea of how to sell

27:31 - Muzak and I worked with the local franchisee.

27:36 - That's where Muzak was set up.

27:39 - And then one day I received an offer from the chairman

27:42 - of Muzak,

27:44 - Bill Burton, for Batman

27:46 - and Bowls around the Muzak he also owned.

27:49 - And so I called Peter Britannica,

27:51 - that's the University of Chicago.

27:54 - And they were looking for a sales promotion,

27:56 - marketing, advertising person and

28:00 - they interviewed me.

28:01 - And before you know it, I was working in New York.

28:05 - I commuted every day for several years.

28:07 - I didn't want to move there

28:08 - because I didn't know how long I could stay in that job.

28:11 - These are very high powered people,

28:14 - the New York advertising guys.

28:15 - But I managed to do very well here

28:18 - and eventually I was somebody

28:21 - up for the Pioneer Bell's company out of.

28:24 - I went to that.

28:25 - What was that? Located in Philadelphia.

28:27 - That was located in Philadelphia.

28:29 - Did you have a mentor anywhere along the way?

28:32 - That I mentor anyone?

28:33 - You have a mentor?

28:36 - I guess the closest thing to that would have been my brother,

28:39 - who was a little older than I was

28:42 - and the

28:43 - one who was on the sub chaser on the subject.

28:46 - And my wife's father

28:54 - was a very good

28:56 - financial man and I spent many hours

29:00 - talking to him and playing chess.

29:05 - What kinds of things would you talk about?

29:08 - Well,

29:10 - he was very heavily involved in the security business.

29:14 - And I remember one day the market dropped precipitously

29:19 - and I said, Boy, you must feel terrible today.

29:22 - How much money he must have lost.

29:24 - He says, well, you don't lose it till you sell it.

29:26 - And I think these companies are going to come back.

29:29 - And that's the kind of thinking this guy had.

29:32 - And we talk about the war

29:36 - family and that sort of thing.

29:39 - Now, getting back to the cable business,

29:42 - which we talked about in the beginning,

29:44 - first of all, where did the name Comcast come from?

29:47 - Well, it seemed obvious to me,

29:49 - and I'm surprised that people asked that question

29:51 - because it looks like it's a sugar in a grocery store name.

29:55 - It was a contraction between communication and broadcasting.

29:59 - And come past.

30:03 - Remember who came up with it? Me.

30:06 - Remember the day, the conversation that.

30:08 - No, I think we were just playing around with names

30:13 - and somehow this one popped out

30:18 - and it's been a very good name because I

30:20 - have an advertising background.

30:21 - Obviously,

30:23 - if you have a name

30:24 - that's a new word, it's much safer for copyright

30:28 - than if you just take something called U.S.

30:30 - cable company.

30:31 - It's not so easy to protect, as would be star

30:35 - names like Xerox, Kodak.

30:37 - Those are the Muzak

30:39 - or names that are contractions

30:41 - or made up words.

30:44 - When did you start using the name Comcast?

30:47 - I think it was about 1965.

30:50 - So in that area there

30:54 - was your first cable system

30:55 - in Pennsylvania,

30:59 - first cable system in Pennsylvania?

31:03 - Well, we had applied for a franchise

31:06 - to build a cable system in Philadelphia.

31:09 - And I think really that was the first one.

31:11 - I maybe

31:12 - this one was that one was the Philadelphia franchise

31:15 - probably about 17 years ago because the franchise

31:18 - was 15 years.

31:19 - We just had a renewed

31:21 - that's how I remember how far away it was.

31:24 - Yeah.

31:25 - Over those years since you started

31:27 - using the name Comcast,

31:28 - a lot of cable companies have coming on.

31:30 - A lot of cable companies have fallen by the wayside.

31:32 - Why has Comcast, first of all, stayed in the business

31:35 - and second of all, gotten to be the size that it is today?

31:38 - I think one edge that I had

31:42 - and the bank sort of recognized it was

31:45 - I was very financially tuned in to

31:51 - how to run a business as far as making money is concerned.

31:55 - At the same time, I had a promotional background

31:59 - and those

32:00 - two are not normally found in the same person.

32:04 - The bank really believed in me, this Philadelphia

32:06 - National Bank, and

32:10 - they sponsored almost every project that I had.

32:13 - I could go in there and I'd say, Could you buy me $1,000,000

32:19 - of some equity?

32:20 - You maybe, maybe 5050 in equity in that.

32:24 - And I usually found that was something you could do.

32:28 - And then

32:30 - I had each cable system

32:33 - borrow its own money so that it wasn't a corporation

32:36 - borrowing the money

32:37 - and then feeding it out to different cable systems.

32:41 - The cable manager knew how much debt

32:44 - was on that business

32:45 - and how much interest he had to pay every year.

32:48 - So it put the responsibility on his manager on each system

32:52 - and I knew that if one of them went broke,

32:55 - went down the drainpipe,

32:57 - the loan was against that system and all the other systems

32:59 - would be protected, they wouldn't be endangered.

33:03 - They paid a little more interest to do that,

33:05 - but you could go to bed every night.

33:07 - So each system was its own company

33:10 - with its own financial management.

33:13 - That unusual in the cable industry?

33:16 - I think it is.

33:18 - In those days, if there were multiple system operators,

33:21 - it was easier to borrow money

33:24 - for the whole thing because you had all the assets

33:27 - of the company up against the loan.

33:29 - So the lender felt more comfortable so that was probably

33:34 - more likely than not.

33:35 - In the early days,

33:36 - cable operators went to somebody like Economy Finance

33:40 - who charge 15% interest because they didn't have any

33:44 - money themselves, the cable guys.

33:45 - But I was always able because I had the back money

33:48 - that I got from the original business as support,

33:52 - and I never felt that I was impossible to make a loan.

33:56 - Well, we did learn that

33:59 - the first loans were seven years.

34:01 - Most cable

34:03 - operators could make a loan for seven years with their bank.

34:06 - But after I was in Tupelo for the first three years,

34:10 - I realized you could never pay it off

34:12 - because you keep making extensions.

34:14 - First you say, I'm only going to build 100 homes a mile.

34:17 - Then the next thing I was 75 homes, about 50 homes a mile.

34:22 - And but you kept feeding the money back in the business.

34:25 - And when I went to the bank and said,

34:27 - if we keep this up, we'll never be able to pay it back

34:30 - four years, the

34:32 - banker said to me, Let's go find a life insurance company

34:35 - who are accustomed to making long loans like ten years.

34:40 - So we found a home life insurance company

34:43 - and we borrowed money for 12 years

34:46 - and that set a precedent for the way we operated.

34:49 - We always had long terms to pay off the debt.

34:54 - What kind of hurdles did you have to overcome?

34:56 - Was there a time when you thought that

34:58 - this is not the business to be in, it's time to get out?

35:02 - I never thought that.

35:03 - I always thought this was a very unusual business

35:07 - and the more creative

35:08 - we could become and programing which we were really behind

35:12 - the times and in much of our own,

35:16 - that this was a very, very good

35:18 - business, that the heavy capital investment that required

35:23 - gave you some exclusivity because a lot of people weren't

35:26 - willing to put up that kind of money

35:28 - to build a cable systems,

35:29 - almost like duplicating the telephone company.

35:32 - So we have this industry is built on

35:35 - the ability of the operators to get enough money

35:38 - to upgrade their systems.

35:39 - Just like today, all of our systems are upgraded

35:43 - at this point in time

35:45 - so that they can have two way communications.

35:47 - Cable for years just was one way.

35:51 - Now it's no longer one way opens up a whole new

35:56 - Pandora's box of problems, but also some riches to

36:00 - what became of Philadelphia National Bank.

36:04 - They got sold and I got sold to a bank, of course, states,

36:11 - and now they're sold to

36:14 - another bank.

36:16 - Do you still do your business with that one bank or have you?

36:19 - So the business is spread

36:23 - so big.

36:23 - Our company has a market value of about $40 billion.

36:28 - So we're involved with many banks

36:31 - and many investment bankers.

36:34 - As your company has been headquartered in Philadelphia?

36:36 - Yes, well, we were we were headquartered

36:39 - really in Bella Kenwood, which is a suburb, Philadelphia.

36:43 - But then we got the Philadelphia franchise.

36:45 - We offered to come into the city,

36:48 - have our corporate offices here

36:49 - for at least one year, and that was 17 years ago.

36:54 - And they're still here.

36:55 - But I've lived in Philadelphia or the area since

36:58 - I moved from New Rochelle.

37:01 - As the company has grown, has there

37:02 - been pressure to move the headquarters to New York

37:06 - or Denver or another any other city?

37:10 - Only in one case, when we were

37:12 - planning an acquisition, the company

37:16 - that was being acquired wanted to move the offices.

37:18 - But other than that, Philadelphia has been our home.

37:23 - How has business changed since you started out

37:25 - and you mentioned

37:26 - that one gentleman who believed in handshake deals is is that

37:31 - is that can deals still be made with handshakes today?

37:36 - I'm sure there is.

37:38 - What happens is the way a deal is usually done

37:41 - is you get together with the person you're in our case,

37:44 - we've only been a buyer, try to strike a deal

37:48 - that seems to be acceptable to both parties.

37:52 - And then you

37:52 - bring in a million lawyers and get the things signed up.

37:55 - So the handshake deal really

37:59 - was a banker

38:01 - to a prospective borrower who the banker had faith in.

38:06 - It's not so unusual then,

38:07 - because if you look at some of the industry,

38:10 - the Japanese who loan money to the Bank of America,

38:14 - to all the movie producers, they did it because Mr. G.

38:18 - And then he liked you.

38:20 - And that's the way it was here.

38:23 - You still have your system.

38:24 - Tupelo Oh, yes, that's

38:27 - I, I keep thinking,

38:29 - I tell everybody it's the birthplace of Elvis Presley.

38:32 - How can you sell it

38:36 - now? Along the way you bought the QVC network.

38:39 - Yes. Is that the first program you got into?

38:42 - Well, I'll tell you about how we bought QVC

38:46 - being in the advertising business.

38:48 - I spent a lot of time looking at different kinds of ads.

38:52 - And there was one series of ads called

38:54 - that were done by the Franklin Mint.

38:56 - What the Franklin Mint did was they made coins.

39:00 - They were coins that would say the sea.

39:02 - Here's a coin set of the presidents and sterling silver.

39:06 - So much money you can pay for it so much a month.

39:09 - Here's

39:11 - another coin from some other commemorative idea.

39:14 - And they sold a barrel full of coins

39:18 - and the ads were absolutely compelling.

39:21 - Wonderful.

39:23 - So much so that the Time Warner bought the company

39:26 - believing that they would have this mailing list in this town

39:30 - and they would be able to sell products

39:34 - that Warner Brothers might develop to this vast

39:37 - market of the Franklin Mint.

39:41 - Well, the Warners didn't do too well with it, and they sold it

39:45 - to a man and a wife who lived in California.

39:48 - Now an hour in Philadelphia, running the Franklin. Then

39:51 - one day in comes a guy who tells me

39:53 - that he's covenant not to compete.

39:57 - He started the Franklin men he sold at the Warners,

40:00 - and now he's deciding whether he should go into the

40:04 - catalog business

40:06 - or television merchandizing, as he called it.

40:10 - I said, Are you them?

40:11 - His name is Joe SIEGEL, said Mr.

40:13 - SIEGEL, are you the man who invented the Franklin Mint?

40:16 - And that was wonderful ads, he said.

40:18 - Absolutely, I'm the guy who did it.

40:20 - I got up from my chair very dramatically.

40:23 - I went over to the door of my office and I closed it

40:26 - and I said, Mr.

40:26 - SIEGEL, forget about the catalog business.

40:30 - You should go into television merchandizing.

40:32 - And if you do, I'd like to buy

40:34 - as much of your company now that you'd let me buy.

40:38 - And I'll guarantee you're getting you

40:40 - 1 million customers inside of 12 months.

40:44 - I couldn't believe it.

40:45 - And we made a deal.

40:47 - And then he went out and I called up every cable guy

40:51 - I knew, and I said, Look, you ought to put this in.

40:54 - They're going to give you a 5%

40:57 - of the cash sales, go to you for your company.

41:01 - And in addition to that, this company is going to go public

41:04 - and make you make more money in the stock.

41:06 - And you will.

41:07 - And I think ever four the 5%

41:10 - and there will be some basis

41:13 - of how many subscribers or how many shares you'll get.

41:16 - Well, everybody

41:18 - almost everybody bought a deal and the story

41:23 - company just burst forth as gigantic.

41:27 - And it's been very successful and Mr.

41:32 - SIEGEL was very rich.

41:33 - And Comcast got control of the company

41:36 - in partnership with John Malone, who had started another

41:40 - merchandizing company that hadn't done quite so well.

41:43 - And we merge the two businesses together and we ended up with

41:47 - managing the company and Mr.

41:50 - Steagall was still around.

41:53 - She's still involved with QVC, he's an advisor.

41:56 - He comes in and comes around.

41:57 - He's a man who is very entrepreneurial.

42:00 - He started a hotel, had four or five projects

42:04 - going all at the same time.

42:05 - He gets bored with it when he's too long in one company.

42:08 - He's very smart

42:11 - now. Comcast, too, also a few years ago

42:13 - bought the Philadelphia 76 years, the Philadelphia fliers.

42:16 - Can you talk about how that came about?

42:19 - Well, the day we announced

42:21 - we bought them, our stock went down 20%.

42:24 - We thought that having control of the sporting

42:29 - activities of popular like hockey and basketball,

42:34 - that we could develop a sports channel.

42:36 - That would be something that Comcast could

42:40 - use to sell more subscribers.

42:42 - And in order to do that, you had to have

42:45 - control of the game. So

42:50 - when a proposition was offered to us

42:52 - to buy the Sixers and the Fliers and the stadium,

42:57 - we grabbed it

42:58 - knowing about this channel we were going to create.

43:01 - Wall Street didn't see it that way.

43:03 - They said nobody goes in the sporting business to make money

43:06 - because you have to pay these players.

43:08 - So much is impossible.

43:10 - But that didn't bother us because we knew that channel

43:13 - would be very popular and it gets the highest ratings

43:15 - of any channels that we have on cable today.

43:20 - And it's we've got about two and a half million subscribers,

43:24 - just the ones that we have from New England or

43:27 - I guess New Jersey down to Florida.

43:31 - How did the opportunity come your way to buy them?

43:35 - Well, we had a reputation around town

43:39 - of being very entrepreneurial and willing to try new things.

43:43 - And the guy who had the Sixers name was Harold

43:47 - Katz decided that he'd maybe like to cash in.

43:51 - And he passed the word up through the sporting fraternity.

43:55 - And one of them, a man named Snyder,

43:58 - who owned the hockey team.

44:01 - The stadiums came at us

44:03 - like maybe you guys would be interested

44:05 - in getting into the sporting world. It's a lot of fun.

44:08 - We love it.

44:09 - So we looked at it and went through

44:12 - and bought the ownership.

44:14 - But we kept Mr.

44:16 - Snyder so marvelous businessman and knows the sports world

44:20 - as our partner.

44:22 - He owns a major portion of the company and he runs it.

44:25 - We're

44:27 - pacifiers when it comes to the fights,

44:30 - but we really are out of it.

44:32 - We don't manage the that part of the business,

44:35 - but we do manage

44:36 - the cable part where we have this wonderful channel.

44:41 - Are you much of a sports fan yourself?

44:43 - Not really.

44:44 - My son Brian is a complete sports fan.

44:48 - I somehow or other matter of fact,

44:50 - I never saw a basketball game before we bought him.

44:52 - I saw it on television, but I never was there.

44:55 - But now I've become more enthusiastic than I ever

44:59 - was or I ever thought I'd be.

45:02 - Can you talk a little bit

45:03 - about the relationship between sports and cable?

45:06 - Well, there's two things in the world

45:09 - that people can't do without.

45:10 - One seems to be movies and the other sports

45:13 - and people that are 100% involved in the sports

45:17 - will do anything to see the games or to know about them.

45:21 - And so

45:24 - I think that it's necessary for cable to have a

45:27 - representative on their channels that they carry lots of sports

45:32 - and of course, movies, particularly movies

45:35 - without commercials, which is same as HBO.

45:37 - The idea was people love it,

45:40 - they can't get enough of it.

45:43 - Or the problems that come along with the popularity

45:46 - of sports on cable mean,

45:47 - do you get to the point that you're

45:48 - kind of held hostage

45:50 - by the sports that were very definitely held hostage

45:53 - by some of the programmers who have sports?

45:56 - Because

45:59 - they insist that

46:00 - we carry other channels in order to get the sports channels.

46:04 - So this is a problem that the operator has

46:08 - with some of the

46:11 - suppliers of programing

46:14 - and you mentioned your son Brian, can you talk a little bit

46:17 - about him? What does he do for Comcast?

46:20 - Well, son, Brian is a perfect

46:23 - example of somebody being brainwashed

46:26 - to run a business.

46:27 - He started in high school.

46:29 - He was very anxious to come to work for Comcast.

46:32 - So your oldest son is a number who we have three sons

46:38 - and he went to work for the company

46:41 - and during his high school years and when he finished school,

46:46 - when he graduated from the Wharton School,

46:49 - he came and said, you know,

46:51 - the Wharton School can get us all these jobs

46:53 - and these investment

46:54 - banking houses and banks and insurance companies.

46:57 - But I don't want to go to work for

46:58 - am I just want to work for Comcast.

47:01 - So I kept telling him he should go out and

47:03 - get some experience somewhere else and bring it in to us.

47:07 - So now I want to go to work for Comcast.

47:09 - Finally, one day

47:10 - he said to me, You know, I think you're rejecting me.

47:14 - I'll took a gulp.

47:16 - I said, You can come tomorrow, start tomorrow.

47:20 - And I sent him out to

47:23 - Westmoreland, which is a cold steel area,

47:27 - Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, to be an apprentice.

47:31 - He climbed the poles.

47:32 - He made installations.

47:34 - He started at the bottom.

47:35 - And I explained to him, I said, you know,

47:37 - I never run a cable system myself,

47:40 - but today everybody around me knows all about it,

47:42 - probably more than I do.

47:44 - And if you want to

47:46 - run this place, you got to know what they're talking about.

47:49 - So when they come in and tell you something

47:51 - you can sense with a gut feeling,

47:53 - whether you're hearing a story right or not.

47:56 - So he went through

47:57 - several years from one move to the next to the next.

48:01 - Did he like that part of it?

48:02 - Insulation and climbing poles.

48:04 - He wasn't married and it was fun.

48:08 - One story I like to think about,

48:10 - I was working in West Wall and he said, You call me up one day.

48:13 - He says, You know, Dad, these guys are terrific.

48:15 - When they finish work, they all go to this bar

48:17 - and I drink lots of beer and these waitresses come around

48:21 - a slap them on the backside.

48:22 - This just having a marvelous time.

48:26 - So he really learned the hard way

48:30 - and it's worked out extraordinarily well.

48:33 - He is very smart.

48:35 - He has something I like to think of as street smarts.

48:38 - He can't be fooled too easily and he's imaginative

48:43 - and people like him and he happens

48:46 - to be a nationally ranked squash player.

48:49 - So and a very good golfer.

48:51 - So we have all you need to be successful in business.

48:57 - At what point did he work his way back to

48:58 - corporate headquarters?

49:00 - I think is probably second year.

49:04 - And I think that we put him in Trenton.

49:07 - He was in

49:10 - and in Michigan, it was a system up there that we put him in.

49:14 - So he were and also we were in the music business at that time

49:18 - because my brother, who had the same background

49:21 - as I did, he was an advertising guy

49:25 - and he was around when they had a

49:28 - big advertising thing with Revlon and he was recruited

49:32 - to go to music, same as I was,

49:35 - because we knew we never lost contact with our music.

49:38 - People.

49:39 - And he became executive vice president of music.

49:43 - And then we started to buy music franchises

49:46 - and we ended up with 18 of them, the largest music distributor,

49:51 - and we decided to sell that business,

49:55 - use the cash to buy more cable.

49:59 - So that was his music still basically

50:01 - in the same business, elevator music,

50:04 - we call

50:05 - it plan music, which we call our second drive

50:10 - today.

50:10 - You can get 30 or 40 channels of programing,

50:13 - I believe, from Muzak.

50:14 - So it's almost any kind of music

50:16 - you want, whether you want to pay your bar

50:18 - or you want to your factory or office,

50:20 - and it's still going strong.

50:22 - I think there's more music sold today than there ever was.

50:27 - A You mentioned Brian, you have other children?

50:30 - Yes, I have

50:33 - two girls and three boys.

50:35 - What are they doing now?

50:37 - They're all have their own careers.

50:40 - They're all different.

50:41 - Nobody else in Comcast, none of them are interested.

50:44 - They're all interested in other subjects.

50:46 - And they've moved around a bit.

50:47 - Part of the philosophy do something that you make.

50:50 - You're happy not just to make money, but to enjoy it.

50:54 - And you still together with your partners,

50:56 - your original partners, with Comcast doing Brodsky.

50:58 - And yes, Julian Brodsky is probably one

51:02 - of the smartest financial men and women in this industry.

51:06 - But in almost any industry is very creative financial mind

51:11 - and Dan

51:17 - ran the cable operation and Julian provided the money.

51:22 - He eventually I was less involved with the banks

51:25 - and he was more involved than with the insurance companies.

51:28 - And he had some very ingenious ideas about different kinds

51:31 - of ways of borrowing money and bonds and

51:35 - convertibles, you name it.

51:37 - We had it and Julian was right up to snuff, and he's still here

51:41 - today, and he's now running a venture capital fund

51:47 - very successfully that we gave a bunch of money

51:50 - to join and said, here, see what you can do with it.

51:53 - And he's been marvelous at developing new places

51:57 - for making money outside the cable industry.

52:00 - And Dan Aaron dinner.

52:02 - And unfortunately, he got Parkinson's disease and

52:07 - he's not

52:10 - well with all the troubles he's got.

52:14 - He had time to write a book

52:16 - and the book is called Take the Measure a Man.

52:20 - And it's a whole history of his life coming from Germany

52:25 - as a refugee and the problems that he had

52:29 - until he finally rose up to become chairman

52:31 - of the National Cable Television Association.

52:34 - So he was an outstanding operator.

52:37 - So we had two very talented people, and I was just lucky

52:41 - to be there, to be carried along with him.

52:44 - What kind of schedule do you keep now?

52:47 - Well, I'm I'm supposed to work four days

52:50 - a week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

52:53 - and then occasionally on Friday.

52:55 - And that's my schedule.

52:58 - And then I read it. But you still ride horses?

53:02 - Yeah, well, I have two homes.

53:03 - One is in Center City, Philadelphia,

53:05 - where I can go home from work or easily.

53:09 - And the other is a farm that I have out about 50 miles away.

53:14 - And I have horses on there and that's hard country.

53:18 - You join the hunt.

53:19 - If you live out there

53:21 - and you have a horse that's a jumper and one that can.

53:25 - And so I enjoy doing that.

53:27 - You still now do that jumping over fence

53:29 - and not as much as I did, but I still do it.

53:32 - You go on fox hunts? Yes.

53:35 - How do they work?

53:37 - As exciting as can be.

53:40 - You. They have a

53:43 - hounds.

53:43 - They're called the animals.

53:45 - Chase the fox and sniff him out.

53:48 - Find out where he's going and we say after

53:52 - the horse, people on horseback race after the hounds

53:55 - and the fox changes direction very frequently.

53:59 - And so the thing moves to another place.

54:01 - And I've been out there where there's 150 hunters,

54:05 - all dressed exactly alike, have a black

54:07 - hat and a black jacket, khaki pants and a black helmet

54:14 - by him.

54:15 - And you just as the most gorgeous sight

54:18 - you ever saw, just running over the meadows.

54:21 - There's thousands of acres out there where we hunt

54:25 - that are farmland, and the farmers

54:27 - give you permission to go over that land.

54:30 - No foxes killed,

54:32 - the fox goes to ground and then they master

54:37 - the hounds and send you off in another direction.

54:40 - What does that mean? Fox goes to ground?

54:43 - Well, he goes in a little hole that the foxes find

54:47 - and matter of fact, this particular hunt

54:49 - in some instances creates these holes.

54:52 - So the foxes go in there and be saved.

54:57 - I've never seen a hound catch a fox.

55:03 - Now, you turned 80 not too long ago.

55:06 - Did you?

55:07 - What did you think about at the time on turning 80?

55:09 - I thought it was terrible.

55:11 - That's impossible.

55:12 - I can't imagine people being 80 years old.

55:15 - Well, yeah, I know.

55:17 - You plan on continuing coming in to work four days a week.

55:21 - If I if they'll let me, I'm very happy to do so.

55:24 - The worst thing, I think for some

55:27 - people, retirement is difficult because.

55:30 - You don't know what to do with yourself.

55:32 - You get bored. And the old joke,

55:35 - my wife wishes I wouldn't

55:37 - come home for lunch every day, but that's what happens.

55:40 - So other people who have a hobby or some strong interest

55:45 - can take advantage of retirement and devote more time to that.

55:48 - And they enjoy that as much as they do the other work.

55:51 - I really don't have a strong hobby

55:55 - that would be of great interest

55:58 - as compared to being involved in the company.

56:02 - Do you watch much television?

56:04 - No, it's hard to watch because I leave the office late

56:09 - and by the time I get home

56:11 - and go out for dinner or something, I go to bed

56:15 - and I don't see half the shows on television.

56:19 - The people we're talking about, except some special case

56:22 - where you deliberately do so, give a kind of vision for what

56:29 - Comcast might be ten years or 20 years from now.

56:32 - I think Comcast can be a leader

56:36 - in the tremendous new concepts

56:40 - that are being developed through communications.

56:43 - I mean, the Internet is absolutely staggering.

56:45 - What it can do and what the ramifications are.

56:48 - That's why all these companies were created overnight

56:52 - because of the Internet.

56:54 - They didn't have the financial wherewithal

56:56 - and they didn't have a good business plan.

56:57 - So some of them didn't make it.

57:00 - But I've seen things that are almost impossible.

57:03 - I was in England at our operation.

57:06 - That's a QVC operation just a couple of weeks ago,

57:10 - and they're developing things for interactive television.

57:13 - I and by instantaneously you can do things

57:17 - that you could never do before.

57:19 - Once the systems were made two way,

57:21 - it opened up a whole new opportunity.

57:25 - So hopefully we will be an opportunity

57:28 - and I hopefully will be leaders.

57:31 - How would you like to be remembered

57:35 - as being a nice guy who worked hard

57:38 - and made a few buck?

57:42 - Ralph Roberts, thank you very much.

57:43 - My pleasure.

57:45 - Thank you for inviting me.