MONTREAL – Henri Audet, the elder statesman of the Canadian cable and broadcast pioneers who built Cogeco from a single broadcast TV station, died November 3. He was 94.
With an electrical engineering degree from MIT, Audet joined the CBC in 1949 when it was just a radio broadcaster beginning to explore television. He and a few others led the public broadcaster’s push into the new medium, which saw the first station go live in Toronto in 1952 – and two years later the first French-language CBC TV station in Montreal.
However, the CBC’s television coverage was very limited then and its budget, tiny. It needed private broadcast affiliate companies to take the risks in building local television stations. So, Audet left the company in 1957 to launch his own station, a CBC affiliate in Trois Rivières which took to the airwaves the following year (after Audet mortgaged his home and borrowed thousands of dollars from family and friends to make it possible).
Cogeco was a broadcaster until 1972 when new federal laws enacted – which also created the CRTC – called for cable companies to be owned by Canadians. Audet quickly purchased La Belle Vision, the cable operator then serving Trois Rivières and Shawinigan. “He was a visionary because he realized very early cable distribution had large potential,” said Vidéotron founder André Chagnon in an interview Monday afternoon. Cogeco now has just under 900,000 cable subscribers in Canada (from the Gaspé to Windsor) and recently purchased Atlantic Broadband and its 250,000 subs in the U.S.
In 1974, the Cogeco added the Sherbrooke TV station to its asset mix and later began looking for, and acquiring, cable companies through the late 1970s and into the 1980s. When Cogeco went public in 1985, the small broadcast and cable outfit had just $17 million in annual revenues. In its most recent fiscal year, ended August 31st, the company booked $1.4 billion in revenues and has a strong foothold in the business data market as well.
The 1980s was also when Cogeco moved away from the CBC and was one of the early investors in TQS, becoming an affiliate of the third French language private provincial broadcasting network. In 1987, the company expanded into radio, too, with the purchase of 107.5 FM in Laval (now Rhythme FM) and CJMF-FM (FM93) in Quebec City. Cogeco now has a 13-station radio network in Quebec.
The ’80s also saw the company push beyond Quebec, too, with the purchase of cable outfits in Kingston, Cornwall and Peterborough (when it took over Cablenet, which also brought Oakville to Cogeco). The company really jumped in size, however, in 1996 when shortly after Henri’s son Louis took over as CEO Cogeco bought cable systems in Hamilton, St Catharines, Niagara Falls and other areas from Rogers, cementing Cogeco as the fourth-largest cable company in Canada.
Henri sat on the Cogeco board until 2006 when he retired fully.
Audet was fondly remembered Monday by his cable brethren as a class act. Chagnon recalled a time where he and Audet met before the CRTC in a cable territory dispute in Cap de Madeleine, an issue where Chagnon prevailed, but who noted that despite the differences in opinion, “we were friends just the same.”
“He was the senior family member of the Canadian cable industry and one of the kindest gentlemen in this business,” Shaw Communications founder JR Shaw told Cartt.ca. “You just couldn’t help but respect him.”
Audet was known for his soft-spoken nature, willingness to listen to many points of view and for his gentlemanly comportment in business dealings and in his attire. “When we met all together at the (CCTA) he was always listened to because he always had wise arguments as to why we should do this or that,” Chagnon added.
“He was a total gentleman. He was always proper and he was a charming guy, very gracious – just a guy you really wanted to be with,” said Rogers Communications vice-chairman Phil Lind on Monday. “If you ever had dinner with cable people, you wanted Henri at your table for sure.”
A member of the Order of Canada, Audet was also awarded the Prix des Communications en Entrepreneuriat of the Quebec Government (1989); the Golden Ribbon of the CAB (1989); was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame (1993) and placed on the Canadian Cable Television Association Honour's List (1994).
The family will receive condolences at the Mount Royal Funeral Complex, 1297 Chemin de la Forêt, Outremont (Quebec), H2V 2P9, (514) 279-6540, (www.mountroyalcem.com), on Thursday, November 8th, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and on Friday, November 9th, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
The service will be held at the St-Viateur d'Outremont Church, 183 Bloomfield Avenue, Outremont (Quebec), H2V 3R5 (514) 495-2773, on Saturday, November 10th, at 10:30 a.m.
Thanks must go to Cogeco's Yves Mayrand as well as the Canadian Communications Foundation for help with some of the details in this article.
