Service Electric President John Walson Dies

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John Walson Jr., president of Service Electric Cable TV and
Communications, has died of cancer at the age of 63, according to various
reports.

Service Electric was founded in 1948 by John Walson Sr., who
is credited with creating the nation's first cable system when he strung a wire
from an antenna to his appliance store in Mahanoy City, Pa., to deliver
Philadelphia TV station signals to that mountainous region in an effort to sell
more TV sets.

John Walson Jr. had moved through the ranks, including as
chief engineer, technician and head technician before taking over as president
of the company, which owns cable systems serving 217,000 basic video subs
(Kagan) in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The company dedicated its
web site Monday to Walson's memory.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.