Who invented rogers

Rogers credited his driving ambition to the ghost of his father, who died when he was just six years old. Edward Samuel Rogers invented the plug-in radio at a time when most radios were powered by cumbersome, messy batteries.

He also started the CFRB radio station in Toronto to help increase demand for the radio sets he manufactured. But his life was cut short when he died at age 38 of an aneurysm.

The business would later be dismantled, with young Ted determined to regain what had been taken from the family. But he excelled at spotting a good business idea and making it happen, regardless of the financial risks.

When Rogers scooped up its first cable licences in Ontario in , only about 15 per cent of Canadians had signed up for cable TV services. The rest watched over the air for free. But Rogers figured people would pay for a better quality signal and set about building a cable system from scratch. But Rogers pushed ahead even after his board of directors, including his wife, Loretta, voted against the idea.

He had spent a great deal of time reading whatever he could get his hands on about newfangled cellular technologies, and his gut told him that wireless would be embraced by customers because it made sense. At various times he would mortgage his house, offer up his cottage as security, and, in , he pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy, only to pull it back with an 11th-hour deal.

But it also led to some dramatic blockbuster deals. While boosting the cable business, it also gave the company valuable media properties, including magazines, newspapers and a TV station.

In , Rogers catapulted his company from a successful cableco into a telecommunications powerhouse with the purchase of Microcell Communications, an upstart carrier that owned the popular and innovative Fido brand. At one point, Rogers was the largest cable company in the world, but its debt load had ballooned, especially as interest rates were at an all-time high.

To help ease pressure from the banks , Rogers began issuing high-yield bonds also known as junk bonds as an alternative way of raising money to fund the business. In , he bought a 25 per cent share in a new partnership, Cantel, which was awarded the first national licence by the federal government to set up a Canada-wide cellular telephone network, a project that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

In , the newly named Rogers Communications Inc. Rogers bought a share of CNCP Telecommunications, later renamed Unitel, which was launched to compete with Bell Canada in the long-distance phone business, previously a Bell monopoly. Another major deal was consummated in when Rogers made a hostile bid for Maclean Hunter , a major cable operator and media conglomerate with radio and TV stations, consumer and trade magazines and the Sun newspapers.

The deals continued in the new millennium. As well, Rogers and Shaw Communications Inc. See also Rogers Enters Phone Wars. Ted Rogers called this deal the biggest success of his career; without it, Rogers Communications would be half its current size.

By the end of , the little broadcasting company that grew into a cable giant was now primarily a cellular services provider, with wireless operations accounting for 54 per cent of revenue and 70 per cent of profit. The media side of the business grew as well in , with the acquisition of five City TV stations. See Edward Rogers: Obituary. Although two of his four children were active in the company as senior executives, the board of directors went outside the family to replace Rogers as president and chief executive officer.

Mohamed oversaw the explosive growth of the wireless business and played a key role in the Fido acquisition. By the mids, Rogers was ready to steer the Canadian communications industry in a new direction.

While his father had shown himself to be an ingenious engineer, the younger Rogers was carving his niche in the communications industry as a marketer, transforming existing but little-used technology into widely sought-after services.

His entry into FM radio broadcasting had proved to be an insightful move, the first of his successful efforts to broaden the appeal of existing communications technology, but when he was awarded Canada's first cable franchise in his abilities produced success of a much higher magnitude. After slightly more than a decade in the cable business, Rogers had established a formidable presence, constructing a cable network that had few rivals.

In he made an aggressive move to bolster his company's position further when he acquired Canada's second largest cable company, Canadian Cablesystems Limited, in an unfriendly takeover. At the same time, Rogers began collecting cable franchises in the United States. The following year he took his company public as the largest cable operator in Canada.

Another leading cable company, Premier Communications Limited, was added to Rogers's stable of cable properties in two transactions during and , extending the company's coverage to British Columbia, where Premier served three urban centers.

When the deal was concluded in November, Rogers Communications' cable properties served 1. Rogers Communications' frenetic growth slowed during the early s after the acquisition of UA-Columbia, as an economic recession inflated interest rates to 20 percent between and More important was securing commanding control over emerging communications technologies, even if that goal was achieved through lackluster financial performance.

Prompted by recent developments in cellular telephone technology, Rogers began exploring the possibility of entering the business in In February of the following year he approached the company's board of directors, who, considering the financial condition of the struggling company at the time, rejected his proposal to obtain a cellular telephone license.

Rogers persevered, looking elsewhere for financial support. The future of the communications industry, as Rogers and others perceived it, entailed all communications services being transmitted via a single wire into businesses and individual residences, preferably by one company with broad communications capabilities.

As a result, Rogers Communications sought to become a communications conglomerate capable of bundling telephone, television, and paging and wireless services in one monthly bill to consumers throughout Canada.

One important branch of the communications field was missing from this growing empire, however: Rogers Communications did not maintain a stake in providing telephone service. The Halifax transmitter would operate on All three stations would share live broadcasts.

On October 11 at a. Rogers thereby became the sole owner of the Biography Channel. On November 29, Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. On June 5 at p. On January 19th, Rogers announced that there would be substantial CITY-TV staff cuts in Toronto and several other markets, with the noon and 5pm newscasts being dropped.

In announcing the cuts. Rogers Media Television CEO Leslie Sole said:"Today's changes, although difficult, are necessary to align our operations with the economic and regulatory realities of our industry". On March 22nd, the CRTC published its Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC , being its decisions regarding a group-based approach to the licensing of private television services, following the receipt of input from all interested parties.

In making the announcement, the Commission said that this would enable them to consider the renewal of the major large English-language private conventional television ownership groups by taking into account the determinations in the aforesaid Broadcasting Regulatory Policy It would also permit the Commission to consider the further renewal of community-based television programming undertakings by taking into account the determinations resulting from the review of the community television policy framework announced in Broadcasting Notice of Consultation Rogers Media ownership group from 1 September to 31 August In announcing this decision, the Commission said that it was implementing its new group-based licensing policy for large private English-language ownership groups.

This policy was developed to prepare both the broadcasting industry and the Commission for the new reality of large, integrated broadcasting ownership groups.

Under this policy, the Commission would reduce its focus on Canadian exhibition and concentrate to a greater extent on ensuring stable funding to Canadian production through programming expenditure requirements, particularly in regard to programming that continued to be under-represented in the Canadian broadcasting system. In addition, the Commission said it had also introduced a much greater level of flexibility in the manner in which television services would make and account for Canadian programming expenditures.

Rogers had met the requirements to be considered a designated group for the purposes of the group-based approach set out in "A group-based approach to the licensing of private television services", Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC , 22 March In addition, the Commission renewed the broadcasting licences for the national, English-language specialty Category B service Sportsnet World and the national, English-language specialty Category C service Sportsnet, from 1 September to 31 August The Commission said it would issue new broadcasting licences for these undertakings, which would take effect 1 September and expire 31 August This would have the effect of aligning the OMNI stations with a two-year renewal cycle along with other Rogers properties.

World CKY Winnipeg rebranded in February from The format remained an Adult contemporary mix. The on-air line-up and music stayed the same, but The World Class Rock slogan was now gone. The format remained Hot AC. There was no change in the music format. CJRX Lethbridge rebranded to On March 1, the Radioplayer streaming app launched in Canada and featured more than Canadian radio stations, including Rogers Media stations. By Decision dated May 15th , the CRTC renewed the broadcasting licences for the currently licensed television stations and discretionary services that would form part of the Rogers Media Inc.

Group in the new licence term, from 1 September to 31 August