Cable Pioneer Bob Magness Dead at 72

Bob Magness, who ran a tiny cable television company out of his kitchen before building Tele-Communications Inc. into the nation’s largest cable provider, has died of cancer. He was 72. Magness, a billionaire listed by Forbes Magazine as Colorado’s second-richest businessman, died at a Charlottesville, Va., hospital Friday. He had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma. Magness was “a truly remarkable person who built a company and an industry from the ground floor up,” said TCI President John Malone. Magness had been TCI’s chairman since giving the chief executive duties to Malone in 1973.