Joseph J. Collins, the former HBO, Time Warner Cable and Comcast executive who helped reposition cable as much more than a delivery system for television, has died. He was 81.
Collins died Thursday at his home in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, a family spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
Long before broadband became ubiquitous, Collins was among the industry leaders who realized that the networks that carried premium programming could one day power high-speed data and transform how Americans lived, worked and consumed content.
As president of HBO from 1984-88, he helped establish the premium network as a dominant brand in entertainment. He then returned to Time Inc. subsidiary American Television and Communications, where he had risen through the ranks, as chairman and CEO.
Next, he served as chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable from 1989-2001, a stint that included ATC being incorporated into the company in 1992, as he oversaw a period of expansion and technological evolution that helped lay the groundwork for broadband’s explosion.
In 2001, he became head of AOL Time Warner Interactive Video, where he pushed early efforts to merge television and internet-based services, and after his retirement was elected as an independent director on the Comcast board in 2004.
“Joe was instrumental in building the first cable systems, upgrading them to deliver hundreds of channels, then video on demand, and finally the broadband streaming and internet apps that we all use every day now,” former Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a statement.
“His penetrating intelligence and matter of fact manner, coupled with his imposing physical stature, could be intimidating on first impression. But all of us who were lucky to work with Joe knew him as kind, considerate and one of the funniest dry wits around.
“Every cable chief and network chief liked and respected Joe … and none of them get along.”
Born on July 27, 1944, in Troy, New York, Joseph Jameson Collins graduated from Brown University in 1966 and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1972. Between those degrees, he served in the U.S. Navy, reaching the rank of lieutenant and earning the Vietnam Combat Action Ribbon for his service during the Vietnam War.
While still in graduate school, Collins wrote his thesis on the then-nascent cable industry. He joined ATC in 1972 as a marketing director in Orlando and rose steadily through the company, becoming president in 1982.
Collins was widely credited with advancing hybrid fiber-coaxial architecture, the technical backbone that would enable high-speed cable internet across the U.S. None other than famed “Cable Cowboy” John Malone once told his team, “If I have a heart attack, call Joe Collins.”
He played a role in shaping policy, serving twice as chairman of the National Cable Telecommunications Association and contributing to the development of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Collins also was a founder and a chairman of C-SPAN and a board member at TriStar Pictures and TBS, where he played a pivotal role in Turner’s 1996 merger with Time Warner. He received the cable industry’s Distinguished Vanguard Award for Leadership in 1997 and was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2001.
In later years, Collins acquired and operated boatyards and served as chairman of Aegis Holdings, a private investment firm. An accomplished mariner, he often spent time aboard his boat along the Rhode Island coast. He lived for many years in Darien, Connecticut, and split his days between Weekapaug and Jupiter Island, Florida.
Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Maura; his children, Maura, Elizabeth, Joseph Jr. and Kathryn; and 11 grandchildren.
A funeral is set for 11 a.m. on April 13 at St. Pius X in Westerly, Rhode Island, with burial to follow at Riverbend Cemetery. Donations in his memory may be made to the Weekapaug Foundation for Conservation.
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