THE START OF A CLEARER PICTURE
Before HBO, MTV, and the new generation of on-demand platforms such as Netflix, there were small cable companies such as Centel Corporation. It was early in the history of cable television, and the nascent industry was doing its best to improve television reception for customers living outside the major metropolitan areas.
Rob Kennedy, ’80, had an important role to play in C-SPAN’s earliest days, when John P. “Jack” Frazee Jr., then CEO of Centel Cable, tasked Kennedy with writing the first business plan for the startup cable network. At the time, Frazee was serving as board chairman for C-SPAN, which is a public service created by the nation’s cable television operating companies.
Though the cable television industry started in the late 1940s, it wasn’t until satellite television and the start of HBO that cable had a true value proposition for suburban subscribers through better access to entertainment. Prior to that, companies that wanted to sell more televisions in rural America largely drove the market.
“With HBO, you could watch movies at home uncut and you’d have to pay extra, but that was very attractive,” Kennedy says. “So, you’d get good reception, you’d get movies, and before long, cable companies started to add other satellite-delivered programming.”
That was the cable landscape in the late 1970s, and the creation of C-SPAN was just around the corner.
THE CALL OF THE CAPITOL
C-SPAN launched in 1979. By the early 1980s, Brian Lamb, founder and executive chair of C-SPAN, put a priority on developing a better business plan. On loan from Centel, Kennedy helped Lamb and his team create their business plan. Five years later, Lamb called Kennedy back to Washington, DC, this time with a job offer.
“Rob came in and did a great job. We all liked him here, and I remember saying, ‘We’ve got to see if we can talk him into coming to C-SPAN, because he’s a money manager and I don’t know the first thing about money,’” Lamb says. “I offered him a job, and he said ‘yes.’ He came out of a for-profit business to a nonprofit and has been here ever since.”
Though not in his original vision for his future, C-SPAN offered Kennedy a unique opportunity to marry his analytical and financial talents with his passion for history, as well as the technical acumen he gained as an electrical engineering major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From the start, Kennedy understood that the founding mission of the organization was something that struck a chord with him. Since 2012, he has served as C-SPAN’s president and co-CEO, and he has been C-SPAN’s top financial officer since 1987.
According to Kennedy, one of the many ways C-SPAN provides value to its viewers is that it offers them an unscripted, unbiased take on the government’s affairs. “You learn a lot about the give-and-take that occurs in Washington, which sometimes is disguised under the partisan news reports,” Kennedy says. “It’s not to say there’s not a lot of partisanship, but you can see the back-and-forth in a nomination hearing, or the back-and-forth between the press and members of an administration.”
He continued: “C-SPAN provides a fuller picture, and that’s important to have out there even in a time when, with our phones and feeds, our attention spans are getting shorter. It’s important for that primary source material to be there and easily accessible so you can go back and look at what was really said.”
A COMMITMENT TO SHARING INSIGHT
Kennedy continues to be active in the cable industry beyond his role at C-SPAN. He’s a board member and finance committee chair for the Emma Bowen Foundation, which creates mentoring opportunities for minority college students in cable, broadcast, and technology companies. He also serves on the board of the CTAM Education Foundation, a sponsor of the Cable Executive Management Program at Harvard University.
Rob Kennedy:
I came to Washington in 1981, 1982. The board of C-SPAN, C-SPAN's a nonprofit, the board of directors, has always been CEOs of the cable companies. My boss named Jack Frazee was on the C-SPAN board, and he thought C-SPAN would benefit from a five-year plan. So he had this young MBA on staff who'd been doing all this cashflow modeling with the cable systems. And he lent me to the early staff of C-SPAN. And I met Brian and worked with the staff here on this five-year plan that showed how C-SPAN could receive revenue from the industry, how much would be needed, and how we could spend that to build out our production operation, our marketing activities, and become kind of an ongoing concern with solid funding.
Brian Lamb:
Rob came in, did a great job. He was very young and very pleasant, very proficient. We all liked him here. And I remember saying, "We've got to see if we can talk him into coming to C-SPAN because he's a money manager, and I don't know the first thing about money." And offered him a job. And he said yes, which I was really surprised about, and came out of a for-profit business to nonprofit and has been here ever since.
Rob Kennedy:
And then in 1987, Brian called and said, "Come down and talk to Susan and me." And he said, "Well, we have this other position to be our business person." And so we picked up the family, moved from Rochester, New York to Washington. That was actually 30 years ago this year, and we've been here ever since.
Brian Lamb:
I was interested in changing television so that we had choice. That was the big reason for C-SPAN in the first place, and cable provided that opportunity. And then secondly, interested in the opportunity to see what was going on in the government, how they're spending our money. Rob kind of backed into all that and brought to us something we desperately needed. And again, that is a business approach instead of just this dreamer approach. And Rob has kept me out of serious trouble for about 30 years. I've always been very happy to have a Chicago MBA star in our midst because that couldn't be farther away from my talents.
Rob Kennedy:
Our mission is simply to bring Washington to the American people in as unfiltered, unmediated a way as possible. If you have the time to watch a lot of these events from beginning to end or spend time watching the Senate or the House, you learn a lot about the give and take that occurs in Washington. It provides a fuller picture, and I think that's important to have out there even in a time when, with our phones and our feeds and everything like that, our attention spans are getting shorter.
Marty Dominguez:
Certainly, the culture here at C-SPAN started with our founder, Brian Lamb. But Rob Kennedy has slipped right into that role as well. He is a visionary for the company. He ensures that we're going to be around for the future.
Rob Kennedy:
The challenge for us, as our industry changes and people's consumption of news and media changes, is to be there for them so that C-SPAN continues to be this recognized brand of unfiltered information from Washington.
Theresa Easley:
He stays very, very calm in every situation, even if something is going crazy that day. He is the person of the voice of reason, an analytical thinker. He kind of sits back and then he takes it all in. He processes it and then he comes up with a solution.
Rob Kennedy:
I was so surprised and really humbled to receive the award. Seeing the folks who received the award this year and also in prior years, just to be a part of this group. And I'm extremely appreciative, and I also think it reflects on what we've done at C-SPAN and what the team has done at C-SPAN, to make C-SPAN successful and valued as an information source. So I think most of all, I appreciate it as acknowledgement of C-SPAN and the service that we've provided.
