Clifton Gardiner

Clifton Gardiner has been described as a “serial entrepreneur”, and has over 45 years experience in the manufacturing, communications, media and investment banking industries.     

 

His broadcast career began in 1956 and continued when he constructed and owned his first radio station in 1960.  Always active in broadcasting, he founded Rocky Mountain Radio Company in 1991, which became a nine station regional group that was sold in 1998.

In 1962 he was awarded franchise rights for a cable television system which grew into one of the early cable industry multiple system groups with properties in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.   At the same time, he founded an engineering and construction business that designed and constructed some 400 cable television systems nationwide. The company had over 1400 employees when it was sold in 1980.                                                     

 

When cable television programming delivered via satellite emerged in 1974, he organized Gardiner Communications Corporation, a satellite communications equipment manufacturer.  His firm was one of the first to provide equipment for satellite delivery of programming to cable television systems.   They designed and manufactured satellite receive equipment that was used by over 4,000 cable systems and for satellite transmission companies worldwide.  With his Starscan division, he was the first to package and sell satellite equipment and programming for home usage. The company also designed and manufactured ChannelCue, the industry's first computer based line of video switching and commercial insertion equipment for cable television.  

 

Gardiner founded Clifton Gardiner & Company in 1984.  The company quickly became a leading media and communications industry investment banking and consulting firm with over twenty professionals, and completed over $600 million worth of mergers and acquisitions and financings during the ‘80’s.                                                               

 

In 1994 he founded Radio One Networks, LLC, a leading programming network that provided innovative customized programming for radio broadcast stations.  The network grew to provide five satellite and Internet delivered 24/7 music formats and the nations largest commercial production service for radio stations.  It served over 140 affiliates when it was sold in November, 2001.       

 

From 1980 until 1984 he served as a Director of Communicom Corporation, a Los Angeles cable television company. In 1994, he was elected a Non-Executive Director of West 175 Media, Inc., a London based publicly traded media company. Mr. Gardiner has also served as a Director of Logix Corporation, a laser equipment manufacturing company based in Knoxville, Tennessee.