Cable TV’s Toughest Build Record Setter Targets Nation’s Largest System Ahead of Schedule

Cable Communications Magazine
August, 1985

McCourt Cable Systems, Inc. of Boston has been selected by Sacramento Cable Television to manage underground construction of the largest cable television system to be built in the United States.

McCourt, acclaimed for pioneering construction and management techniques that produced the cable industry’s “toughest build” more than two years ahead of schedule in Boston, will begin underground construction of cable facilities in Sacramento and surrounding areas on July 1.

Sacramento will be the largest cable television system in the United States in terms of total area. Costing approximately $145 million, the county-wide 77 channel distribution network will serve about 325,000 households, including the cities of Folsom and Galt as well as the state capital of California, Sacramento.

The single-trunk, single-feeder system is designed for 550 MHz but will operate initially at 450 MHz, with the extra bandwidth reserved for institutional networks. It will have a single headend and eight hub sites. Construction includes 875 underground miles and 2,700 aerial miles and is scheduled for completion by the end of 1998.

The system is owned by the Scripps-Howard Company (95 percent) and River City Cablevision, locally owned by 74 investors.

David C. McCourt, president of McCourt Cable Systems, said his company’s goal is to complete its phase of the system’s construction ahead of schedule and under budget. “We’re dedication every process we’ve developed, every lesson we’ve learned to that commitment,” he said.

In Boston, his company defied industry skeptics who claimed the Boston system couldn’t be built in its original five-year schedule. It was termed the “toughest build” in the history of the cable industry because of the scope, the congestion and age of the city, and the fact that it was the first urban system in the nation requiring entirely new construction.

For the Boston build, McCourt Cable System developed new management and construction techniques, consolidated under the name McCourt Boston integral (MBI). The process reduced building time 50 per cent and cut costs at least 25 percent.

The MBI process, involving computerized planning controls and a revolutionary new construction method that combines state-of-the-art technology and experience, innovation and Yankee ingenuity, will be employed in the Sacramento project as well.

Said McCourt: “We’re determined to surpass: our Boston performance. We intend to make Sacramento the construction model for the cable industry in quality, cost and schedule.”

Back to McCourt Cable Systems