Cablefax The Magazine August 2022 - 16

FOUNDERS CIRCLE AWARD
Matt Polka's Legacy
of Kindness, Persistence
By Amy Maclean
If there is someone with a bad word to say
about Matt Polka, this reporter couldn't find
them.
" You can't dislike Matt. He worked around
the clock. I suspect he got up in the morning
and the first thing he thought about was his
itinerary with the association. He was connected
24 hours a day. I don't think you'd
ever find a member who would say they
couldn't get hold of Matt, " says Buford Media
Chairman Ben Hooks, who was a member of
the board that hired Polka in 1997 as the first
head of the Small Cable Business Associaway
to understand the kind of person Polka
is would be to ask the National Association of
Broadcasters about him.
" He's been so successful because he's impossible
not to like, even when he's terribly
wrong-see retransmission consent. How
can you not respect and admire the job he's
done at ACA Connects? " says longtime NAB
EVP of Communications Dennis Wharton,
who retired in 2020 and was responsible for
dozens (hundreds?) of press statements batting
down ACAC's retrans demands. " It helps
that Matt has represented 'the little guy,'
such a meeting was being planned. A day or
two before it was scheduled, he came to me
and said, 'I can't go to this. Why don't you
go?' I went, and ultimately, that was a lifechanging
decision, " recalls Polka.
For the first four years, the association operated
more on an ad hoc basis helmed by its
voluntary board of operator members. In May
of 1997, the operators decided the organization
needed to be a full-time endeavor with a
dedicated CEO. At the time, Polka was Star's
General Counsel and member of the SCBA
board. " We realized there just wasn't a candidate
for CEO because the association really
was at ground zero. We had basically nothing
to offer, " he explains. " So like Mikey in the
Life cereal commercial, they said, 'Hey, let's
get Matt. He'll do it. He's a lawyer. He's been
working for one of our members. He knows
the issues.' "
The timing was fortuitous, with Star Cable
preparing to be sold. " I jumped into it, not
knowing what the future would hold, or how
long it would be, " Polka says. " However, not
too long into it, it really became a calling
in many ways. I started to tell myself that I
thought it could last, if we did it the right
way. "
tion, known today as ACA Connects.
After devoting 25 years to the association
as its CEO, Polka will retire in late July.
Along the way, he's fought for independent
operators, sharing their particular challenges
with the FCC and members of Congress. He's
battled against Title II broadband classification,
government-funded overbuilding and, of
course, a retransmission consent regime that
his members view as unfairly weighted toward
broadcast TV owners. Perhaps the best
which plays well on Capitol Hill. But Matt's
success comes from his genuine decency
and strength of character. ACAC members
are lucky to have had him at the helm for so
long. "
It was almost a near miss. In 1993, 150
cable operators gathered in Kansas City to
create the association as a unified voice to
push back against federal regulations. The
initial notice for the meeting went to Polka's
colleague at Star Cable. " I wasn't even aware
Sun Country Cable's David Kinley, who
was a founder and the chairman of the
Small Cable Business Association in those
initial years, has an apt aerospace analogy
for Polka's contributions. " The SCBA Board
had developed a concept of unanimity-no
one left behind, each company directly telling
its own story. Like the Wright Brothers,
we worked to fashion a different concept and
prove it could work for enough companies to
sustain an organization. Matt was like Boeing, "
Kinley says. " He took it to a much higher
level of performance and efficiency. The
Wright Brothers developed their Flyer, which
could sustain heavier-than-air flight for about
a minute over 120 feet. Boeing transformed
that concept into a fleet of aircraft capable of
flying over 17 hours and 17,000 miles. "
16
August 2022
CablefaxTopOps.com
http://www.CablefaxTopOps.com
Cablefax The Magazine August 2022

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