Tom Kerver Passes Away

Tom Kerver, an institution in the cable trade press for the past two decades, passed away earlier this month at the vacation home he shared with his wife, Nancy, on Padre Island, Texas. He was 69. Kerver had the ability to examine issues from a variety of angles with equal scrutiny. Known as a cuddly curmudgeon, he did not suffer fools gladly, whether they be CEOs, other reporters or publicists. Kerver bristled at being called a journalist. He’d retort, "I hate that word. I am a reporter. I report what I see." If Kerver was occasionally critical of how companies were run, he always had empathy for the general state of cable and, especially, for the industry’s pioneers. "He loved challenging me on my industry opinions," says CableWORLD editor at large Simon Applebaum, who worked with Kerver at Cablevision magazine. "He was extremely giving in time as well as opinions." "Tom followed me to Cablevision magazine and did one hell of a good job, growing to become a wonderful, if curmudgeonly, columnist," says Paul Maxwell, founder of CableFAX and a columnist for both CableFAX and CableWORLD. "His voice has been missed, and now he will be, too." An Air Force veteran, Kerver was also a scholar. I never got to take magazine writing in college because the professor of the course—Kerver—quit teaching at Colorado State University to take a job at Cable Television Business magazine in 1980 just before classes were to begin. Regardless, he continued to teach me the nuances of reporting and writing for the next 20 years, even though we never worked for the same magazine. In recent years he taught media ethics— one of his passions—at the University of Denver.