My original motivation in trying to record this story was to inform my three children about events that happened well before their age of awareness and to offer to aspiring entrepreneurs a glimpse of the joys and inevitable disappointments of exploring unchartered terrain and “company-building.” And for all who lived “the story,” I hoped to provide a refresher on the culture that was Continental and how satisfying it was for all of us.
It was an amazing 33-year run! The duration and scale exceeded the wildest dreams of two freshly minted Harvard MBAs who in 1963 were searching for a promising venture, and who happened upon Bill Daniels, a former Golden Gloves boxer and Navy pilot, a future Colorado gubernatorial candidate and lifelong doer of good works, who throughout the 1960s and ‘70s was the “John the Baptist” of cable, calling out for all to hear the amazing promise of what was then called community antenna television, or CATV.
It was that serendipitous meeting with Bill that spawned Continental Cablevision and started the company on a path to prominence in the fast-growing communications industry. In that process, Continental created more than 10,000 jobs, trained a cadre of industry leaders, and, as my father modestly observed, “Paid a lot of college tuition” for the families of its managers and investors.
So here is the best that the collective memories of former colleagues, business associates and industry leaders could assemble in telling The Continental Cablevision Story. Three-plus decades of challenges and excitement – a fleeting almost-Camelot moment from 1963 to 1996.
Amos B. Hostetter, Jr.
Co-Founder, Continental Cablevision, Inc.