Mediacom Communications is grappling with Google Fiber, upgrading networks to 10G and exploring its entrance into mobile. But the status and future of the rural-focused cable operator wasn’t the central attraction of Sunday night’s 60 Minutes profile of Mediacom Founder, Chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso. Billed as an “only in America” story, the profile traces Commisso’s move from southern Italy to the Bronx as a young boy and the tenacity and “hustle” that drove him to become a top exec in the U.S. cable industry with a net worth of about $8 billion. More recently, Commisso reconnected with his roots and the owner’s box of ACF Fiorentina in Florence, the Italian pro soccer team Commisso acquired three years ago for a reported bargain price of around $170 million.
Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso wants a commitment from whoever gets the nod for FCC chairman to act to curb the rising programming fees that cable and satellite pay broadcasters and cable networks.
Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso wants Republicans and Democrats, who can’t agree on whether the grass is green, to take the lead in forging an extraordinary compromise in the TV industry. Commisso promised that Mediacom would freeze prices for two years if content providers keep their carriage fees flat over the same period.
In a letter to the FCC, the station group’s general counsel, Barry Faber, answers claims made in an earlier statement by Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso.
In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Rocco Commisso, the chairman-CEO of cable operator Mediacom, criticized the regulatory agency for not being aggressive in trying to keep programming costs down. Much of Commisso’s beef is about having to pay broadcasters more in retransmission consent fees to retransmit their TV stations.
