Like father, like son: Edward Rogers is just as stubborn as his old man said

Some of those who worked for Ted Rogers have told me that he was not an easy man to please. When they brought an idea to the man who built Rogers Communications into the telecom and media conglomerate it is today, the timing had to be perfect. On some occasions, he’d bellow, “How do you expect me to make a decision? It’s too early.” A month later, when the documents were resubmitted for consideration, Rogers was equally likely to explode and say: “It’s too late.”
The amount of information provided was also crucial. Given a thick sheaf of papers he could rant: “How do you expect me to go through all this?” But a crisp one-page memo might drive him in a different direction, saying there wasn’t enough information on which to make a decision. “You have to hit the grid just right,” one Rogers executive told me. “Too early, too late; too much, too little.”
Some of his colleagues, however, got along well with Rogers. I interviewed Rogers in 1999 when John Tory, later to become mayor of Toronto, was president and chief executive officer of Rogers Media. Tory sat in and became part of the interview. The two men were so simpatico that each would systematically take turns finishing the other’s sentences. In a compliment to Tory, Rogers said, “He’s made a difference and he’s making a difference. You can sum up a lot of things by that. The employees are very motivated.” This time, a blushing Tory did not add any words.
Among Rogers’s astute traits was his ability to seize a bargain. In 1996, seeking space for expansion, he paid $33.5 million for the Toronto head office of the defunct Confederation Life Insurance Co. The amount was a mere one-third of the cost of the faux parliamentary-style building that opened only four years earlier. Another low-bid acquisition came in 2004 when Rogers paid $25 million for SkyDome. The stadium, home to the Blue Jays since 1989, had cost $600 million, much of which was paid for by taxpayers.
But Rogers could also come to regret acquisitions. When he bought Maclean Hunter in 1994 for $3 billion, he was widely seen to be most interested in the cable assets. Included was a 62.5 per cent stake in the Toronto Sun publishing company, which in turn owned 60 per cent of my employer, the Financial Post.
I wrote positively about the purchase and its potential to make publications like the Financial Post available electronically. Rogers phoned me out of the blue. “That’s exactly what this is all about,” he said. “No one else understood it like you.”
After I hung up, I realized if I alone had received his shower of praise, I may not have fully appreciated the deal. While I’d agreed with Rogers’s core concept, his hope for convergence didn’t fly. Worse, he’d taken on too much debt. When creditors demanded he pare down that debt, much of the Maclean Hunter empire was sold, including the Financial Post. I wrote a column bidding Rogers goodbye that ended with the line, “Ted, we hardly knew ye,” a nod to the song by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.
Sometimes, Rogers tried to walk both sides. Two biographies were published about him in 2007-08. One was “Relentless,” by Robert Brehl; the other, “High Wire Act,” by Caroline Van Hasselt. Rogers showed up at the latter’s book launch, even though “Relentless” was supposed to be the authorized version.
In discussing succession, he played two sides with me, too. He told me that his son, Edward, had “excellent judgment” but that his only male offspring could sometimes be stubborn. He also saw daughter Melinda as a possible successor because she was “more the idea-a-minute” type,” Rogers said. ”She’s filled with the entrepreneurial traditions of the internet. She’s a go-getter.”
But Rogers’s wife, Loretta, preferred Edward for the role. “Loretta has always believed that when daughters have children they should be at home,” Rogers told me. “It’s an old-fashioned view, I know.” Despite his wife’s edict, Rogers still held out hope for Melinda. “If Melinda shows up better than Edward, and I’m well enough, I would make the change, or the trustees would.” 
After Rogers’s death in 2008, various individuals were chair or chief executive of Rogers until 2017, when Edward, who was deputy chair, took on the powerful role of chair. Edward also controlled the family trust. After quarrelling with his mother and other family members about who should be chief executive, he went to court in 2021 and was able to install his own choice, Tony Staffieri. As I followed the proceedings, which turned out to be the coronation of Edward, he absolutely demonstrated that he’s just as stubborn as his old man said. And with this week’s proposed acquisition of Bell Canada’s 37.5 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for $4.7 billion, just as growth-minded.