Former Time Warner Cable CEO Joseph J. Collins dies at 81

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 last Thursday at his residence in Weekapaug, RI, according to a household spokesman. He was 81.

The veteran cable chief — whose management roles spanned HBO, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and more — emerged as certainly one of the most consequential figures in the media biz, serving to reposition cable as more than just a supply system for TV.

Long before broadband web took off, Collins was among the trade leaders who noticed that the same networks carrying premium programming may in the future ship high-speed data and alter how Americans lived, labored and consumed content.

Joseph J. Collins, a former Time Warner Cable CEO, died last week at his residence in Rhode Island. Getty Images

He held top roles at a number of of the trade’s greatest corporations during durations of great transition.

In 1984, he was named president of HBO, the place he helped regular and strengthen the premium network because it established itself as a dominant model.

Collins later returned to American Television 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 corporations as chairman and CEO, overseeing a interval of expansion 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 providers. After his retirement, he was elected as an unbiased director on the Comcast board in 2004.

“Joe was instrumental in building the first cable systems, upgrading them to deliver hundreds of channels, then video on demand, and finally the broadband streaming and internet apps that we all use every day now,” former Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a press release.

Pictured on Nov. 14, 1997 at the Cable Ace Awards Collins (proper), then-chairman & CEO of Time Warner Cable, is introduced with the Distinguished Vanguard Award by his good friend Ted Turner (left) then the vice chairman of Time Warner.  Courtesy of the Collins household

Born July 27, 1944, in (*81*), NY, Collins got here of age just as TV, telecommunications and computing had been starting to intersect.

He graduated from Brown University in 1966 and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1972.

He also served in the US Navy, reaching the rank of lieutenant and incomes the Vietnam Combat Action Ribbon for his service during the Vietnam War.

Collins was widely credited with advancing hybrid fiber-coaxial structure, the technical spine that would allow high-speed cable web across the States.

Media titan John Malone, who earned the nickname “Cable Cowboy,” as soon as told his team, “if I have a heart attack, call Joe Collins.”

Collins also performed a task in shaping coverage, serving twice as chairman of the National Cable Telecommunications Association and contributing to the development of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Collins performed a pivotal position in the evolution of tv’s transition from broadcast to cable and finally the web. Getty Images

The longtime exec was also a founder and a boss of C-SPAN and a board member at TriStar Pictures and TBS, the place he performed a pivotal position in Turner’s 1996 merger with Time Warner.

He obtained the cable trade’s Distinguished Vanguard Award for Leadership in 1997 and was inducted into the Cable Hall 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 also an avid tennis participant and an achieved mariner, often spending time aboard his boat alongside the Rhode Island coast.

He is 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.

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