Malone: Why Can’t We All Get Along?

Cable legend and Liberty Media chairman John Malone said the future of the cable industry will depend on its participants’ willingness and ability to co-operate to help solve the pressing issues of the day, and that consolidation could be just the way to do that.

“The fewer big players, the easier it is to align them,” Malone said at Liberty’s annual Investor Day meeting. “The smaller players are already willing and able to affiliate with technology schemes and brands, but they have to be underwritten by the biggest players who have more in common than they have to fear from each other.” Malone has been by far the biggest catalyst in the consolidation frenzy of the past several months, after Liberty invested $2.6 billion for a 27 percent interest in Charter Communications. He added that most of the innovations in the cable industry -- the digital set-top box, MPEG video compression and the Hybrid-Fiber Coax (HFC) architecture -- were all made possible through industry joint ventures and consortiums. But whether Malone’s vision will become reality depends on several factors, including the industry’s ability to work together. While Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts has considered licensing its X-1 user interface to other operators, thus creating the ubiquitous platform to launch products Malone was talking about, the Liberty chief said there are other issues at play that could throw a wrench in those plans, too.