Liberty Media's John Malone addresses cable industry challenges

Cable's toughest cowboy is saddling up again.

This year, John Malone's Colorado company, Liberty Media Corp., acquired nearly a third of the stock in Charter Communications, the nation's fourth-largest cable company.

The move came 14 years after Malone sold Tele-Communications Inc., then the largest cable company in the nation, to focus on international investments.

Since the Charter deal, Malone considered a key architect of the industry has been vocal about how cable should confront what he believes are its biggest challenges: embracing technology, emphasizing the business of broadband Internet service and controlling programming costs.

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"It's almost like he feels with some justification that the industry needs him to come riding back on a white horse to make things right again," media analyst Craig Moffett of research firm MoffettNathanson said.

Cable operators have been losing customers to satellite TV, telephone companies offering video packages and lower-cost Internet streaming services. Cable executives have also been grappling with a generational shift as younger consumers have chosen the Internet over the cable box to watch TV shows and movies.

Constant battles between programmers such as CBS Corp., Viacom Inc., Walt Disney Co., and 21st Century Fox and cable operators over fees to carry their channels have taken a toll as well. The industry increasingly resembles the current political landscape where "the moderates have been driven out of business," Malone said this month at a Liberty investor conference.

Malone has said consolidation would improve cable's chances for long-term survival, bring programming costs down and help it keep pace with digital upstarts such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

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Liberty Media's John Malone addresses cable industry challenges