Cencom Cable Associates was a

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

distributor in the

Greater St. Louis Greater St. Louis is the 23rd-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States, the largest in Missouri, and the second-largest in Illinois. Its core city—St. Louis, Missouri—sits in the geographic center of the metro area, ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

Metro-East The Metro East is an urban area in Southern Illinois, United States that contains the eastern and northern urban, suburban, and exurban areas on the Mississippi River in Greater St. Louis. It encompasses eight Illinois counties and constitutes th ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Metropolitan area between 1985 and 1993. It was founded by Robert A. Brooks in 1981 with seed capital of $300,000, and then grew into a multi-billion dollar company. Cencom bought out Storer Cable in late 1985, merging that Florissant cable outlet into Cencom. Cencom was the home of the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Centra ...

Cable Network between 1986 and 1989, televising 50 home games in each of those seasons. By 1991, Cencom served close to 550,000 people. Cencom was sold to

Crown Media Hallmark Media (formerly Crown Media Holdings) is an American media production company with corporate headquarters located in Studio City, California, and is a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Hallmark Media consists of Crown Media Productions and ...

, a subsidiary of

Hallmark Cards Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a Privately held company, privately held, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of greeting cards in the United ...

, in 1993 for $1 billion, then becoming Crown Cable. In 1993 the former managers of Cencom purchased the company back from Hallmark and formed

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. With over 32 million customers in 41 states as of 2022, it is the ...

, which was later sold to

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the ...

for $4.5 billion.

References

Mass media companies established in 1981 1993 disestablishments in Missouri Defunct mass media companies of the United States Companies based in St. Louis Defunct companies based in Missouri 1981 establishments in Missouri {{US-entertainment-company-stub