{"id":1317,"date":"2025-10-29T18:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:23:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:23:56","slug":"john-malone-stepping-down-as-chairman-of-colorado-based-liberty-media-and-liberty-global","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/29\/john-malone-stepping-down-as-chairman-of-colorado-based-liberty-media-and-liberty-global\/","title":{"rendered":"John Malone stepping down as chairman of Colorado-based Liberty Media and Liberty Global"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Malone, who built a cable and media empire over more than five decades, will step down as chairman of Liberty Media Corp. and Liberty Global at the start of next year, according to announcements from the two companies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Malone, 84, will become chairman emeritus at Liberty Media, based in Douglas County, and advise management and the board after he steps down on Jan. 1. Liberty Media Board Vice Chairman Robert Bennett, who goes by Dob, will become chairman of that company, while Mike Fries, CEO and vice chairman of Liberty Global, will take on the chairman duties at that company, which is based in London but has executive offices and a large presence in Douglas County.<\/p>\n

\u201cFounding Liberty Media and serving as its Chairman has been among the most rewarding experiences of my professional life,\u201d Malone said in a statement. \u201cWith the successful simplification of our portfolio in recent years and our operating businesses in positions of strength, I believe it is an appropriate time to step back from certain of my obligations, and I am very pleased to have Dob Bennett, my partner and colleague of 35 years, stepping into the Chairman role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone added that Bennett has been involved in all the key decisions throughout Liberty Media\u2019s history and said that he plans to remain actively engaged in an advisory role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank John for more than three decades of partnership and mentorship. His legacy as a visionary business leader is without parallel and I am deeply grateful for his confidence,\u201d Bennett said in the release.<\/p>\n

Bennett has served as a director on the company\u2019s board since 1994 and served as Liberty Media\u2019s president and CEO between 1997 to 2005. After Malone\u2019s resignation, the Liberty board will have eight directors, five of whom will be independent.<\/p>\n

Fries, who has been CEO of Liberty Global since it formed in 2005, said Malone was willing to invest in what was a \u201csmall but ambitious\u201d international cable operation in the mid-1990s. It now employs 30,000 people and operates cable systems in six countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI often remind my team that we stand on the shoulders of giants in this industry, and none broader than John\u2019s. His extraordinary wisdom and strategic guidance have been invaluable, and personally, I could not have asked for a better mentor and friend,\u201d Fries said in a statement.<\/p>\n

An electrical engineer by training, Malone moved to Colorado in the early 1970s to run TCI, a fledgling cable company founded by Bob Magness in 1968. Malone instilled financial discipline and honed dealmaking skills that brought TCI back from the brink and built it into the country\u2019s largest cable television provider. He earned the nickname \u201cCable Cowboy\u201d for his pioneering moves and aggressive dealmaking.<\/p>\n

Malone\u2019s success helped establish metro Denver as a hub for the cable industry and drew other cable companies and content providers to the region, generating thousands of jobs. He also shaped a cooperative and collaborative model that still guides the cable industry to this day, said Phil McKinney, CEO of CableLabs in Louisville, which Malone founded in 1988 to promote industry innovation.<\/p>\n

Malone brought together the leaders of all the major cable companies to work together on new technology and improve the customer experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, he recognized that the industry would strongly benefit from a sustained, long-range integrated approach to research and development \u2014 a central organization to monitor, evaluate, report and collaboratively develop technology for the industry.\u00a0\u00a0Today, half a billion people use at least one CableLabs technology every day,\u201d McKinney said.<\/p>\n

CableLabs, which was originally based in Boulder, played an important part in establishing that city as a tech hub. The collaborative continues to draw cable industry CEOs serving on its board to Colorado three times a year.<\/p>\n

Malone had the same level of vision as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk did in their fields, said McKinney, who was the chief technology officer at Hewlett-Packard before joining CableLabs. But he also was \u201camazingly humble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a game of trying to be the smartest person in the room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 1991, TCI spun off Liberty Media, which focused more on the content of what moved through the cables rather than the hardware. The bulk of TCI was sold to AT&T Broadband in 1999, with other systems ending up with Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, and Cablevision.<\/p>\n

Liberty Media became a holding company that acquired stakes in numerous companies over the years and spun many of them off. Current and past investments include the Atlanta Braves, Formula One Group, Quint, Starz, Sirius XM Holding, LiveNation Entertainment, QVC and HSN or the Home Shopping Network.<\/p>\n

Liberty Global, which focuses on acquiring, building and operating cable systems outside the U.S., was another spinoff in 2005. That company in turn spun off Denver-based Liberty Latin America, which provides cable services in 20 countries, and Sunrise Communications AG, which is Switzerland\u2019s second-largest telecom provider.<\/p>\n

Malone emphasized cash flow over profits and generated a tremendous amount of wealth for his investors, including himself, across decades. TCI shares had an annual compounded return of 30% between 1973 to 1998, while Liberty Media returned 24% a year on average between 2006 to 2018. Returns have slowed since then.<\/p>\n

Malone\u2019s long-term record has triggered comparisons to Warren Buffett, although Malone, who describes himself as having high-functioning autism, has preferred to keep a much lower profile. While he has long helped shape what is in the media spotlight, he has avoided stepping into it.<\/p>\n

Liberty Media now primarily consists of two branches: Formula One Group, ticker FWONA, which has a market value of $23.6 billion and Liberty Live Group, ticker LLYVA, which has a value of $8.3 billion.<\/p>\n

As of Aug. 31, the company said Malone had 49.5% voting control of the Formula One common stock and 48.9% of the Liberty Live common stock. Forbes estimates Malone has a net worth of $11.1 billion. He owns about 2.2 million acres of land, making him the country\u2019s second largest private land owner, with holdings concentrated in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Florida and Maine.<\/p>\n

Unlike his business holdings, his land holdings are more focused on conservation and preservation rather than extracting a financial return.<\/p>\n

Last month, Malone released an autobiography, \u201cBorn to be Wired\u201d that details his years spent transforming television, helping wire the country for the internet, and growing multiple companies under the Liberty Media umbrella.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Malone, who built a cable and media empire over more than five decades, will step down as chairman of Liberty Media Corp. and Liberty Global at the start of next year, according to announcements from the two companies. Malone, 84, will become chairman emeritus at Liberty Media, based in Douglas County, and advise management…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}