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Article: A History of Cooperation: twenty years after its humble origins, NCTC has risen to become an industry power.(NCTC 20th Anniversary)(National Cable Television Cooperative Inc.)(Company Profile)
- Article from:
- Multichannel News
- Article date:
- October 11, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Like a lot of good stories, this one starts in a hotel room and involves gambling. The National Cable Television Cooperative was conceived 20 years ago by a band of Midwestern cable industry entrepreneurs who found themselves staring at the bad end of a new industry trend.
Less than a decade after Home Box Office and Ted Turner had transformed the business by putting TV channels on satellite, word had gotten out that many cable-TV networks were rewarding their bigger distributors with favorable license rates. These networks and others were making the rounds to renew their deals with cable-industry customers, and for the first time, were trotting out a new sort of ...