By William Hamilton
PBN Staff Writer
Linda Jane Maaia had already retired from a public-school teaching career and was in the midst of a second calling as a college professor when her father’s sudden death in 2004 launched her in an unexpected direction.
John Donofrio had owned the Full Channel Inc. cable TV company in Warren since it first flickered to life in 1983, providing service to Barrington, Warren and Bristol. It was his dream. Even when other cable systems across the state sold out to Cox Communications, Donofrio held on.
So when he died of a heart attack, the family made the decision to keep the business in the family and chose Maaia, who had taught accounting at the college level and was a CPA, to step in.
Three years later, Maaia is still calling the shots as president and CEO of Full Channel, and she has big plans for the little cable company and its 7,000 customers.
In a September interview, she talked about reviving her father’s plans to expand Full Channel’s service area into East Providence, a longtime Cox territory, and provide improved digital phone service.
“These are things I had to put on the back burner until I was certain of the solid platform of the company,” she told PBN.
At a family meeting following his death in August 2004, Maaia said her mother, Hilda – who now chairs the board of Full Channel – insisted that it would have been her husband’s wish to see Maaia at the helm. Other family members agreed, because of her accounting background. “It did make sense,” Maaia said last week. “There was no one else in the family that could do that work.”
But there wasn’t much time for on-the-job training.
By 2004, the family-owned company and its 25 employees were fending off competition from Cox, the nation’s third-largest cable company, in the three towns where Full Channel always had a monopoly.
Maaia had a lot of quick decisions to make, but she had help. Her husband, William, had served as Full Channel’s attorney since its inception, so he knew the company history. The Maaias’ son, Levi, came on board with a strong understanding of cable TV technologies. He was named director of new media.
Maaia hired a new finance director, engineering director and a new general manager. Initially, she wasn’t totally confident of the changes she was making to her father’s creation.
“I don’t think you ever know for certain whether you’re doing the right thing or not,” she said. “It’s been a real challenge to put in people who are the real experts. I feel really good about it now. We have people in place that are working together as a smart team.”
To better compete, the company also improved its network operations center and increased its redundancies for Internet service, moves designed to reduce the number of service interruptions.
It’s one of few areas in the country where two cable TV companies are competing head-to-head, but Full Channel is doing just fine, Maaia said. Although the company didn’t disclose revenue figures, she said the customer count is steady at about 7,000.
And in the David-and-Goliath matchup, Maaia isn’t averse to slinging a few stones. She noted that even after Full Channel’s rate increase earlier this month – the first in more than four years – its basic cable rates are still lower than the competition’s. “And we offer more channels,” she added. •
