Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business

by Mark Robichaux

On that afternoon in 1952 when he unwittingly started on his cable career, Magness had walked into a cotton gin near Memphis, Texas, to do a little business. He knew most of the men there but couldn't place the two men talking to the ginner. He surmised from the conversation that their pickup truck had thrown a rod as they were driving back to Paducah, Texas, and that they were stranded at the gin. Magness offered the pair a ride. They visited for the next couple of hours, stopping to grab a burger, and the two men told him they had just built a big "community antenna system" that helped folks in tiny Paducah get broadcast TV signals from bigger markets far away. Community antenna television-they called it CATV Magness thought his riders were intriguing, but once in Paducah, he dropped them off and thought nothing more of it. Days later a business partner mentioned to Magness that "if you knew how to get into something called the CATV business, I understand that's a license to steal." To which Magness replied, "Hell, I know how to get in."' The next morning, Magness drove out and talked with the two men he had picked up, who introduced him to the owners of the Paducah cable system. They gladly showed Magness how the operation was financed and gave him key contacts.