Edward Samuel Rogers

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Waiting for Ted outside St. James Cathedral (Funeral on 9 December 2008)

Edward Samuel "Ted" Rogers, Jr., KBE, OC, BA, LL.B, D.Sc (May 27, 1933 – December 2, 2008) was the President and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc., and the fourth richest person in Canada in terms of net worth. His father Edward S. Rogers, Sr. is regarded as the founder of the company, although the radio station that he founded, CFRB, is now owned by another Canadian company competitor Astral Media.

Biography

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Rogers was educated at Upper Canada College. Rogers graduated from Trinity College, at the University of Toronto, in 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While an undergrad, Rogers joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. In 1979 he was named a Significant Sig—the 21st Canadian to be inducted. In 1960, while still a student at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, he bought all the shares in local radio station (CHFI) that pioneered the use of FM (frequency modulation) at a time when only 5% of the Toronto households had FM receivers. By 1965, he was in the cable TV business; Rogers Communications was established in 1967 and had grown into one of Canada's largest media conglomerates.

Rogers had been the owner of the Toronto Blue Jays Major League Baseball team since September 1, 2000, when Rogers Communications Inc. purchased 80% of the baseball club with the Labatt Brewing Company Ltd. maintaining 20% interest and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce relinquishing its 10% share. Since the 2003 season, he owned 100% of the team. Moreover, the Blue Jays' home ballpark, SkyDome, was renamed Rogers Centre after Rogers' firm purchased the stadium (including naming rights).^[1]

In 2006, Rogers was inducted into Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame, along with his father Edward S. Rogers Sr.

On May 29, 2007, Ted Rogers and Loretta Rogers made a gift of $15 million to Ryerson University. The donation was directed towards the Faculty of Business, which was renamed the Ted Rogers School of Management at the donors' request. The majority of the gift will be used to establish 52 new undergraduate and graduate student awards and scholarships. The gift also aims to establish a new research chair to seed academic initiatives in management research.

Rogers suffered from congestive heart failure and died overnight on December 2, 2008, at his home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.^[2][3]He was 75 years old. An autobiography penned with communications consultant and former business journalist Robert Brehl titled Relentless: The True Story of the Man Behind Rogers Communications was released just 10 weeks before Rogers' death.

See also

• List of billionaires
• List of Upper Canada College alumni

References

External links

• Internet Archive of History of Rogers
• Ted Rogers at Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People
• Ambition: The Life and Times of Ted Rogers CBC episode of Life and Times
• Order of Canada Citation
• AP Obituary in the National Post
• Laureate award, Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame (video)