Ralph Roberts, 95, Comcast founder, died Thursday in Philadelphia of natural causes. The chairman emeritus of the No. 1 U.S. multichannel video programming distributor, now run by his son Brian, Comcast's chairman and CEO, Ralph Roberts founded Comcast in 1963 with the purchase of a 1,200-subscriber cable system in Tupelo, Mississippi. He helped oversee Comcast's expansion over the years, partly through acquisitions, including the 2002 AT&T Broadband buy that vaulted Comcast to No. 1 MVPD. Survivors include his wife, three other children besides Brian and eight grandchildren. A private funeral service is planned for the family and a ceremony celebrating Ralph's life will be held at a future time, the company said Friday. Statements of condolence poured in Friday, including from the American Cable Association, Cablevision, Charter Communications, C-SPAN, NCTA and TWC (see here, here, here and here). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler learned from Roberts, Wheeler said. "He has left a lasting legacy on the communications landscape of America.”
Visitation will be Monday for Stephen A. Booth, 62, former senior editor at Consumer Electronics Daily, who died Wednesday after a long battle with lung cancer (see 1505270025). Visitation hours are 2-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. at McMahon, Lyon & Hartnett Funeral Home, 491 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, NY. A short service also will be held there Tuesday, June 2, at 11 a.m. Donations to Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, New York, are requested in lieu of flowers.
Stephen A. Booth, 62, veteran technology journalist, former senior editor of Consumer Electronics Daily and passionate New York Mets fan, died Wednesday in Hawthorne, New York, after a long battle with lung cancer. Booth joined Consumer Electronics Daily's predecessor publication Television Digest in 1996, capping a long career in technology journalism, first chronicling the U.S. launch of the compact disc at Audio Times, later as electronics editor at Popular Mechanics and subsequently as editor-in-chief at Video Review. Two sons survive. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Susan Eid, who ran DirecTV's office in Washington, died Thursday after a long battle with cancer. Her age wasn't disclosed by DirecTV, where she had worked as an executive vice president and oversaw the company's federal, state and local legislative and regulatory efforts. Before joining DirecTV in 2004, Eid was an aide to then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell on media issues, and before that she worked for Continental Cablevision. Eid is survived by her parents and sister. Donations can be made in her name to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston.
Harry Hall Pearson Jr., 77, founder in the early 1970s of The Absolute Sound magazine and credited by many with coining the term "high-end audio," died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack at his Sea Cliff, New York, home. In one of many online tributes, The High Fidelity Report praised Pearson Wednesday as the "gold standard" of audio journalism whose "legend will live on and echo throughout the audio industry." Pearson’s "lexicon of audio vocabulary became the very patois with which audiophiles communicated amongst each other, especially audiophile journalists," the website said.
George Feldstein, 73, founder and chairman of Crestron Electronics, died Tuesday after a year-long battle with brain cancer. "His passion and love for our industry was evident in everything that he did,” said the company in a written statement. Feldstein started Crestron in 1969, working out of a small room above a delicatessen in New Jersey. His first products, controllers for slide projectors, were followed by a wireless remote for commercial AV systems. The company is known as one of the main players in automation. Feldstein received a lifetime achievement award from U.K.-based AV Magazine in October, as editor Clive Couldwell cited Feldstein’s “passion about high-quality engineering.” Couldwell recounted the tribute of a former staffer who called Feldstein “the smartest engineer I have ever met -- absolutely brilliant -- and he never sleeps.” Feldstein was a “force of nature, and he expects everyone around him to be as driven as he is," Couldwell recounted the ex-staffer said.