A unique . The soft-spoken, affable Mr. Roberts never acquired the outsize public profile of cable pioneers like Ted Turner, John C. Malone, Charles F. Dolan and John Rigas, but his impact was comparable to theirs in making cable television a culture-changing industry giving viewers hundreds of channels, where they once had little more than a dozen, and persuading them to pay for something that had always been free. Ralph J. Roberts. . Ralph Joel Roberts (March 13, 1920 June 18, 2015) was an American businessman who was the founder of Comcast, serving as its CEO for 46 years and as it's chairman emeritus until his death in 2011. "He found the buttons to push.". Moving to Germantown with his family from New Rochelle, N.Y., after his father's death, he graduated from Germantown High School and in 1941 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor's degree. I went to the University of Pennsylvania. The five children and their parents jointly own the holding company that owns Comcast's supervoting shares. They are not your blood family, but you spend so much time with them, you should treat them like family. ''Usually we have about 200.''. He is survived by : his parents, Terrance Andrew Roberts, Sr. and Geraldine Thompson (Boyce); his children, Sarah Roberts-Hanna, Katherine Allen, Sabrina McComas and Daniel Roberts; his grandchildren, Harper, Emily and Taylor; and his siblings, Danny Roberts and Charmaine Hankins. ". Ralph Joel Roberts (March 13, 1920 - June 18, 2015) was an American businessman who was the founder of Comcast, serving as its CEO for 46 years and as it's chairman emeritus until his death in 2011. ''They drag the business down because it kills the morale of everybody in the company.''. Roberts was born on March 13, 1920, in New York City. In 1963, he and his partners, Daniel Aaron and Julian A. Brodsky, paid $500,000 for a 1,200-subscriber cable TV operator in Tupelo, Mississippi, called American Cable Systems. Douglas A. Roberts, 66, of Mount Carmel, Illinois, passed away on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at his residence. The elder Roberts was also civic-minded. To support himself at college, he took on a variety of odd jobs, including selling milk. "You could tell Ralph was crazy about Brian, and Brian was crazy about him. And her husband reminisced about family trips. Intrigued by the nascent cable industrys potential and aided by Mr. Aaron and Julian Brodsky, a Philadelphia accountant, Mr. Roberts decided to invest, overcoming his own initial misgivings and the even stronger doubts of his wife, Suzanne, who, he said, thought he was absolutely crazy., The cable business, you put up a tower, you run a line down through the telephone poles, you charge everybody $5 a month, and you dont do anything, so it didnt seem very appealing to me, Mr. Roberts recalled in receiving a television industry award in 2003. Despite that, Mr. Roberts named the club the Bob Hope Centric putter and began selling it around the country. Contributions may be made to the Germantown Boys and Girls Club, 25 W. Penn St., Philadelphia 19144, or the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia 19103, or at http://unitedforimpact.org/ways-to-give. '', Ralph Roberts acknowledges that he was the heavy. "His legacy is that he left a big, vibrant company, that is led by his son, that will live on for many, many years," Comcast executive Steve Burke said. Write your message of sympathy today. ''We would have discussions about our lives. It purchased for $30 billion controlling interest in the entertainment conglomerate's NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks; pay TV channels such as USA, CNBC, Bravo, and Syfy; the Universal movie studio; and Universal Studios theme parks in Florida and California. Receive obituaries from the city or cities of your choice. NewsLibrary. "So much of what he is to the public is what he was to us. your email below for our complimentary daily grief messages. An actress, director and host of Seeking Solutions with Suzanne, Suzanne has spent a lifetime seeking to help others. In 2001, the father and son made an audacious but successful $45 billion bid to acquire AT&Ts cable business. At one point, Ralph Roberts met with Mr. Immelt without Brian Roberts. ''I used to talk to Julian all the time,'' recalled Gordon Crawford, a senior vice president at the Capital Group, whose funds hold 8.1 percent of Comcast's class A stock. The recent deal was begun when the executive committee of Cablelabs, the cable industry's research and development arm that included Brian Roberts and John Malone, chairman of Tele-Communications Inc., the country's largest cable operator, visited Microsoft in late April. Make a life-giving gesture. Even as he is promoting his son, the elder Mr. Roberts is looking after the financial interests of his other children. As an executive, Mr. Roberts had a knack for attracting talented people and giving them power, within limits. Doug was born July 24, 1969, in Kalamazoo, the son of Douglas and Vicky (Troyer). The company is clearly planning for the day that Ralph Roberts will no longer be running the show. In 1994, for example, Ralph Roberts scuttled a bid by Barry Diller, then the chairman of QVC, the home-shopping cable channel, to acquire CBS. Send a note, share a story or upload a photo. ''Deals like Microsoft and QVC would not have happened without Brian,'' said Steven Rattner, deputy chief executive of Lazard Freres & Company, who has worked with the family for about a decade. This has a pretty good chance of working. If you have a small private business, and the old man has stashed away something under the floor, then it's very different.''. Loving father of Dennis Garland, D.J. In February 2013, Comcast paid $16.7 billion to purchase the remaining stake in NBCUniversal. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. "Ralph was a remarkable man who touched the lives of so many people. Messages run for up to one year and you When I think of Ralph, it is always with the utmost affection.". He loved my mother and my entire family so much. [6], Roberts served on the boards of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Brandywine River Museum, the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, and the PENN Medicine Board of Trustees. [11] Her name appears on the Suzanne Roberts Theatre in Philadelphia and she hosted a TV program aimed at seniors called "Seeking Solutions with Suzanne" on Comcast's CN8 network. In its infancy, Comcast bought systems in Mississippi, the Detroit suburbs, and Pennsylvania. Echovita offers a solidarity program that gives back the funds generated to families. It is always business. "That culture says that you have to care about the people you work with. He sold it in 1961 to form his own venture capital firm, the International Equity Corporation, from which he began his foray into cable television. It is a skill that Brian Roberts knows he has yet to prove and that is rare among the sons of powerful men, who are often overwhelmed by their fathers. It struck me as a place where culture really mattered. Like many media entrepreneurs, Ralph Roberts created several classes of stock, enabling him to issue equity without losing control. He owned various companies, including Pioneer Suspenders, which marketed wallets and belts for men. In the first days of Comcast, when colleagues Dan Aaron and Julian Brodsky clashed over how to expand the business, Mr. Roberts acted as the cheerful referee. So he made his own bid for QVC, with TCI as a partner, effectively killing the CBS deal. [2], Roberts has been credited with expanding Comcast into the largest cable television company in the United States. He was 95. For Brodsky that was giving up the four or five packs of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes he used to smoke. Mr. Roberts allowed himself an indulgence - the purchase of a farm in Chester County. That was evident earlier this month when Brian Roberts and the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, struck a deal in which Microsoft agreed to pay $1 billion for an 11.5 percent stake in Comcast. He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and served four years in the U.S. Navy. ''They are all billionaires, and they're fighting like crazy over another billion.''. Maybe it was losing both his parents before he was 21, living through the Depression, but somehow he became an optimist. In later years, he did so with his son Brian L. Roberts, to whom he turned over the companys presidency in 1990 when Brian was 30 years old. "Our city has lost a wonderful champion with his passing.". In 2011, fulfilling the Robertses long-held interest in NBC, Comcast acquired a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric for $6.5 billion; in doing so, it became one of the industrys leading content producers. He had been born into an affluent home, the son of the owner of a small drugstore chain in Westchester County, N.Y. For a time, the family even had a chauffeur. Find the obituary of Douglas A. Roberts (1955 - 2021) from Mount Carmel, IL. DOUGLAS ROBERTS OBITUARY Douglas J. Roberts Of Candor Douglas James Roberts, 51, of Candor, passed away suddenly at home on Monday, May 9, 2011. The importance of saying "I love you" during COVID-19, Effective ways of dealing with the grieving process, Solutions to show your sympathy safely during the Covid-19 pandemic. The deal put the cable company on a far larger corporate map. His main goal at the time was to make a lot of money. His son Douglas died in 2011. He has five children, aged 36 to 47. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. He was committed to the fight against cancer, and along with his wife and family, helped establish the Roberts Proton Therapy Center. In addition to his wife, he is survived by four of his children and their spouses: Catherine R. Clifton and Anthony A. Clifton, Lisa S. Roberts and David Seltzer, Ralph Roberts Jr. and Kim Roberts, Brian L. Roberts and Aileen K. Roberts and Diane Roberts, widow of Ralph and Suzannes son Douglas Roberts, who passed away in September 2011. ALL along, however, Mr. Roberts has drawn his son closer to the center of action inside Comcast and pushed him into the spotlight outside the company. He managed to get a photograph of Bob Hope holding the club and asked him to endorse it, to help out a veteran, Mr. Roberts recalled, but there was never any formal agreement. To send flowers After Brian received an undergraduate business degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1981, Ralph Roberts tried to steer him to another company, where he would have to fight his own battles. ''Barry is very charismatic and hypnotic, but we were not going to lose our business and become a nonvoting stockholder of CBS to provide Barry with an entree to CBS.'' ''I think we have known that Brian would take over the company since he was about 8 years old,'' said Julian Brodsky, Comcast's vice chairman and Mr. Roberts's alter ego for the last 34 years. That was hardly a coincidence. RALPH ROBERTS, the dapper 77-year-old founder of the Comcast Corporation, loves to follow the ups and downs of other family businesses and try to figure out what makes some thrive and others implode. Comfort the family with flowers or a sympathy gift. ''He gives more speeches than anyone who is asked,'' said one media executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. His residence remarkable man who touched the lives of so many people cancer, and along with his passing ``. Roberts will no longer be running the show the day that Ralph Roberts will longer... 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