Cable television mogul Ted Rogers dies at home at the age of 75
Published Tuesday December 2nd, 2008
TORONTO - In 1950 at the age of 17, Ted Rogers made a list of things he wanted to accomplish in life which included, among other things, becoming a successful entrepreneur.
It's unlikely the self-made billionaire who founded Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX:RCI.B) knew just how prescient that list would turn out to be.
Rogers, who died at the age of 75, got into the communications business in 1960 and transformed his company into a multimedia empire that owns the Toronto Blue Jays and their home, the Rogers Centre, as well as five Citytv television stations across the country and the Rogers cable TV, wireless, radio and television businesses.
In his recent autobiography Relentless: The True Story of the Man Behind Rogers Communications, Rogers described the resistance he faced when he asked his board of directors to invest $500,000 in wireless technology in 1983.
"Every board member voted against me, even my wife," he wrote.
"They forced me to put my own money on the line, which I did. I just knew wireless was the next big thing and I wasn't about to miss it."
Rogers' investment paid off in spades, turning what started out as Rogers Cantel into Canada's largest cellphone company. Today Rogers Communications is a diversified media and sports conglomerate that employs about 24,000 people and is currently worth about $18 billion.
Rogers' success turned him into one of Canada's wealthiest individuals. He was widely regarded as a pioneer of the Canadian communications industry who was willing to invest in brand-new, cutting-edge communications technology.
Perhaps his greatest strength was his ability to size up the latest, communications technology, and then produce a plan and a pot of money to invest in it.
Rogers' early investment in high-speed Internet - making Rogers one of the first cable companies in the world to do so - was one of the pivotal decisions that solidified the company's presence on the market.
Rogers believed that while only a limited number of people would subscribe to high-speed services initially, the investment would pay off in the long run.
The company now has 1.6 million Internet subscribers across Canada.
But not every business decision Rogers made was as successful.
In 1989, Rogers paid $288.7 million to buy 40 per cent of CNCP Telecommunications, which was later renamed Unitel Inc. By 1995, Unitel's debt forced it to restructure and Rogers pulled out, costing the company $500 million.
In his book, Rogers later described this decision as a "the worst business disaster of my life."
While Rogers was widely praised for his business acumen and willingness to take risks, his company was also criticized for taking on too much debt and emphasizing expansion over profitability and dividend payouts.
Tall and sandy-haired, Rogers was known as a workaholic and a demanding boss.
An event that decisively shaped his life was the death of his father when he was just five years old.
Edward Rogers, a radio pioneer who founded Toronto radio station CFRB (for Canada's First Rogers Batteryless), was 39 when he died of overwork and a bleeding ulcer in the late 1930s.
"I didn't get into broadcasting out of any smarts," Rogers once told a reporter. "I was emotionally attracted to it because of my father."
Rogers grew up as part of the establishment in Toronto. He lived in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Forest Hills in mid-town Toronto, and attended nearby Upper Canada College, a school which educated the children of many of Canada's wealthiest families for decades.
His first business foray came in 1960 while articling as a law student. Using borrowed money, Rogers bought Toronto radio station CHFI-FM at a time when it was the only FM station in Canada.
Capital supplied by the wealthy Eaton and Bassett families helped pay for a move into the cable TV business in 1967 that capitalized on the spread of television.
Rogers stayed on top of developments in communications technology his whole life, branching out into cheap long-distance telephone service, cellphones and high-speed Internet. Most recently, the company became the sole Canadian distributor of Apple's spectacularly selling iPhone. In 1991, Rogers was named an officer of the Order of Canada for his business successes.
In later life, Rogers suffered from heart problems and at one point underwent quadruple bypass surgery.
"It seems like I am undergoing some sort of medical procedure every six months or so related to heart failure, or to aneurysms, melanoma, glaucoma and other things," he wrote in his book.
But Rogers didn't let his poor health slow his work habits. Indeed, he was conducting business from his bedside almost immediately after his bypass surgery.
Rogers is survived by his wife, Loretta, whom he married in 1963, and their four children - Edward, Lisa, Melinda and Martha.
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