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

MARK ROBICHAUX is the executive editor of Broadcasting & Cable magazine. From 1989 to 2001, he wrote feature stories as a staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal, covering, among other things, the cable TV industry, small business and alligator farmers. While on book leave in 1999, he was awarded a fellowship at the Media Studies Center in New York.

Praise for CABLE COWBOY

"Cable Cowboy is a first-rate work by a first-rate reporter—excellent, original research on a topic that deserves it."

—Bryan Burrough coauthor of Barbarians at the Gate

"With skill and precision, author Mark Robichaux paints a portrait of a man who is both fox and lamb, cunningly ruthless and surprisingly genuine. . . . We get to watch a man who plays chess against opponents who merely play checkers.And we get a really good read."

—Ken Auletta author of Media Man: Ted Turner's Improbable Empire and Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way

"John Malone's remarkable climb [is] a tale worthy of a great cinematic Western. For the first time, we get a sharp picture of the man behind the mogul, an unflinching portrait of one of the business world's sharpest dealmakers. I dare you to put it down."

—Tom King author of The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood

"Robichaux has provided a smart assessment of the cable industry through the wild narrative of John Malone . . . and turned it into a tale that manages to be both colorful and informative."

—Walter Isaacson President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, former chairman of CNN, and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"A terrific saga of American enterprise—how lonely wires on windswept hillsides were stretched and spun into the Information Superhighway—as seen through the remarkable career of cable television's greatest entrepreneur."

—David Von Drehle author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Publishers Weekly

In 1973, 29-year-old John Malone became the CEO of a debt-ridden Denver cable company, Tele-Communications, Incorporated; in 1998, he sold TCI for $48 billion. In the intervening 25 years he frenetically built a cable and media monopoly. Robichaux, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, pens an account that is part Horatio Alger success story and part cautionary tale of the abuses of unfettered capitalism (the latter a more timely narrative these days). Malone is a complicated hero; focused and driven, he built his empire largely through clever, complicated financing deals that sidestepped bank rules and taxes and enriched an inside group of shareholders. In the spirit of "[c]harge as much as you can for a product...and spend as little as you can get away with," TCI, the author says, provided shoddy service to cable subscribers and bought out potential competitors to keep the cable industry an insular cartel. When local governments protested, Malone cut off service. Robichaux doesn't make much of it, but it's notable that junk bond financier Michael Milken and the former CEO of Global Crossing, Leo Hindery, appear in these pages as Malone's trusted friends. Although he cooperated with Robichaux for this book, Malone doesn't (as do minor characters like Ted Turner) spring to life from its pages. In this, once again, the reclusive Malone seems to have gotten things his way. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.