Mike Pandzik, 77, former head of the National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), has died, according to that group’s current CEO.
“I wanted to reach out to the NCTC member community and let you know we lost an incredible force this week. Mike Pandzik, former CEO of NCTC, passed away,” NCTC CEO Lou Borelli said. “Mike started in the early days of the cable industry and was the founding CEO of NCTC and served for the next 20 years.”
“Mike Pandzik was a great leader in our industry, and his vision led to the creation of NCTC, which stands strong today for ACA Connects members,” said former ACA Connects president and CEO Matt Polka. “But more than that, Mike was a warm and welcoming friend to me and ACA Connects in our earliest days and every day thereafter, and I will always be grateful to him.”
Pandzik retired in 2005 from the group he launched from his living room office.
Recruited by the Mid-America Cable TV Association, Pandzik helped launch NCTC, then called the National Cable Television Cooperative, in 1984. NCTC represented about a dozen cable companies with fewer than 110,000 subs at the time.
NCTC represents smaller operators in joint negotiations with programmers to help give them more bargaining power.
After service in the Navy, Pandzik started his career in TV in 1966 as a cameraman for the Nebraska Public Television. After graduate school, he transitioned to the cable side at Sunflower Cablevision in Lawrence, Kan.
He joined HBO in 1978 to head up sales and marketing in Kansas City, then moved to New York to head up new business development before being lured back to Kansas City and NCTC. ■
