Lo-Res, 6 mb - Making Connections - Time Warner Cable

Gene Schneider was one of dozens of cable industry
pioneers who credited industry leader Bill Daniels with
helping them get a start in the cable television business.
16 Making Connections : Time Warner Cable and the Broadband Revolution
Daniels built an insurance business in Casper
to pay the bills and support his family. But he
couldn’t get television off his mind. The allure
was especially strong since Casper residents
didn’t have a broadcast station of their own, and
the locale was too far from Denver, the nearest
city of any size, to pick up signals.
By 1953, after learning of community antenna
television, Daniels was determined to bring the
new medium to Casper. Bouncing the idea off
some friends in the oil business, he was put in
touch with Richard and Gene Schneider, two
Army-trained engineers. They agreed to be the
system operators, as soon as Daniels managed
to put together a system. Jerrold Electronics’
marketing chief, Zal Garfield, learned of Daniels’
interest, discussed the idea with him, and directed
him in turn to Martin Malarkey for tips on setting
up a community antenna business.
Malarkey didn’t have any qualms about sharing
his trade secrets. That is, as long as the person
seeking information was willing to pay his con-
sulting fee of $500 a day. Daniels didn’t blink at
the price and jumped on a plane to Pennsylvania
for the opportunity to pick Malarkey’s brain for
two days. 26
Daniels returned to Casper and, with just $5,000
of his own money, raised an initial $125,000 from
a group of local oilmen and a prominent lawyer.
Borrowing from their local banks, they raised
another $250,000 in working capital. The
business plan was typical of early CATV systems
and was based on a one-page permit, not a
franchise agreement, from the Town of Casper
granting Daniels permission to run cable down
streets and alleys.
“We were charging 150 bucks per connection
because we had a monopoly,” Daniels said. “With
every 150 bucks we got, we would build a couple
more blocks of plant down the alley to get more
customers. And we charged $7.50 a month for
one channel.” He christened the enterprise
Community Television System of Wyoming. 27
His system was patterned after Malarkey’s
business model, but Daniels could claim a CATV
“first” in terms of signal transmission. Even with no
intervening mountains, a television signal can be
transmitted only so far on a “line of sight” basis
due to the curvature of the earth. Having to cover
close to 200 miles to reach Casper with the signal,
Daniels, who had worked with radar systems in