In the early 1980s he helped rural cable entrepreneurs, like Adelphia's John Rigas, finance their expansions.
He founded Pegasus in 1991 to turn around troubled rural cable operators.
The deal had already established its roots when buyout shop Oaktree Capital Management purchased the bonds of Classic Cable, which owned small rural cable systems in places like Arkansas and was heading for bankruptcy.
Can Gottsch wrangle even more carriage for his rural channel with cable and satellite operators, and raise the bushels of seed money it'll take to launch operations elsewhere?
"Cable is using broadband as a defense, but it's not defending their rural areas because even cable isn't offering much broadband there, " he says.
Certainly, in remote rural areas not served by cable at all, which constitute about 4% of the market, consumers will now be left with a single, monopoly operator: EchoStar.
Back in 2002, the FCC rejected a proposed combination of the satellite TV providers Dish Network and DirecTV, asserting that a merger of the two companies would hurt consumers by reducing competition, in particular for rural customers who lacked local cable television service.
Among other things, he promised his new entity would employ a national pricing plan in order to allay the fears of consumer advocates that rural customers who cannot get cable TV would still pay competitive rates, even though they would no longer have two satellite providers to choose from.
Amos Hostetter graduated from Harvard Business School in 1961 and convinced his employer, Boston-based Cambridge Capital, to finance a small cable television system in rural New Jersey.
Today EchoStar and 942 cable operators, mostly in rural and suburban markets, carry the network.
That concession may win the deal more support from lawmakers who represent rural areas, where satellite faces less competition from cable.
Even in rural areas, where customers often have only one cable TV option, competition from satellite service is increasing, though satellite providers are facing similar cost pressures and passing on higher bills.
His first swing at launching the channel in the late '80s struck out (rural TV was a tough sell with venture funders and cable operators).
The court looked to the legislative history and decided that cable TV began in the 1940s to serve rural and isolated communities that had trouble receiving over-the-air TV signals.
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For example, wireless broadband will likely take hold in rural areas where providers can't afford to build out new cable or fiber infrastructure.
Ergen has said he would be willing to establish a national pricing scale that would offer rural customers the same prices offered to urban and suburban customers where satellite and cable services are in direct competition.
Even though the pricing is comparable to that offered by the cable companies, the speeds are relatively lower and hence the target market is mainly confined to rural and remote areas.
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