Charter Communications

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Charter Communications, Inc.
The 2010-present logo.
Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: CHTR
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Stamford, Connecticut, USA
Key people	Eric L. Zinterhofer (Chairman) Thomas M. Rutledge (President & CEO)
Products	Cable television HDTV Digital telephone Broadband
Revenue	US$7.20 billion (2011)^[1]
Operating income	US$895 million (2011)^[1]
Net income	US$-369 million (2011)^[1]
Total assets	US$15.605 billion (2011)^[1]
Total equity	US$409 million (2011)^[1]
Employees	21,000
Website	charter.com

Charter Telephone service van

Charter Communications is an American company providing cable television, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to more than 6.8 million customers in 29 states. By revenues, it is the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States, behind Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications,^[2] and by residential subscriber lines it is the tenth largest telephone provider.^[3] In late 2012, the company announced plans to relocate its headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, to Stamford, Connecticut.^[4]

It is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Its largest shareholder is Liberty Media with a 27.2% stake.

On January 14, 2014, Charter Communications said it was interested in buying its larger rival Time Warner Cable.

History

The beginning

Charter Communications was founded in 1993 by Barry Babcock, Jerald Kent, and Howard Wood, who had been former executives at Cencom Cable Television in St. Louis, Missouri. It was also incorporated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1993.

In 1995 it paid about $300 million for a controlling interest in Crown Media and acquired Cable South.

In 1997 Charter and EarthLink joined forces to deliver high-speed Internet access through cable modems to Charter's customers in California.

In 1998 Paul Allen bought a controlling interest. The company paid $2.8 billion to acquire Dallas-based cable company Marcus Cable. Charter Communications has 1 million customers in 1998.

Listing on the NASDAQ for the first time

In 1999, the company went public, trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange. At the time, it had 3.9 million customers.

In 2000, Charter Communications Bought select AT&T cable markets, including Reno, Nevada, and the City of St. Louis.

In 2001, MSN and Charter signed an agreement to offer MSN content and services to Charter's broadband customers. In the same year, Charter received awards, including the Outstanding Corporate Growth Award from the Association for Corporate Growth, the R.E. "Ted" Turner Innovator of the Year Award from the Southern Cable Telecommunications Association, and the Fast 50 Award for Growth from the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.

Lawsuits

In 2002, the United States Department of Justice investigated the company, leading to the indictment of four former executives for improper financial reporting. By this time it had 6.8 million customers.

In 2004, Charter settled a class action lawsuit concerning the questionable financial reporting.

Four former executives received criminal indictments in 2005 for accounting fraud, related primarily to the inflation of cable subscriber numbers. The company has been under financial pressure; its stock peaked at $27.75 per share in November 1999, before falling to under $1 in 2002.^[5]

Further expansion

In 2006, Charter accelerated sales of cable telephone services using Broadband Telephony technology.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008, it acquired the cable television franchise and service for the Cerritos and Ventura, California area from Wave Broadband.

Also in 2008, Charter stock failed to meet NASDAQ standards and was given warning to comply by October 13 or request an extension.^[6]

Filing for bankruptcy protection

On February 12, 2009, Charter Communications announced that it planned to file for Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Codebankruptcy on or before April 1, 2009. The action would allow Charter to pay its debt obligations, and cancel its obligations to shareholders.^[7] Private equity firm Apollo Management expected to own most of Charter's shares after the bankruptcy.^[8] Charter filed for a prearranged bankruptcy on March 28, 2009. The company expected the financial restructuring to reduce its debt by $8 billion, as well as adding $3 billion of new investment, and refinancing other debt.

Emerging from bankruptcy protection

On November 30, 2009, its bankruptcy plan was approved, which extinguished its stock and cut approximately $8 billion in debt.^[9] That day, Charter emerged from bankruptcy despite many of its creditors' objections over its bankruptcy plan.^[10]

In 2010, Paul Allen stepped down as chairman and from board of directors' seat, but remains the largest single shareholder. Also in that year, Charter signed multi-year deal with Tivo to deliver content via its platform^[11]

Listing on the NASDAQ for the second time

On September 14, 2010, Charter Class A common stock was re-listed on NASDAQ under the symbol "CHTR",^[12] and as of December 1, 2010, the 52 Wk High/ Low is $39.99/$29.10.^[13]

Thomas M. Rutledge was appointed as a director and President and CEO effective February 13, 2012.

The same year, Charter prices $1.25 billion senior debt, offering to pay down short- and long-term debt^[14]

Potential acquisition of Time Warner Cable

On January 13, 2014, Charter Communications said it was interested in buying its larger rival Time Warner Cable. After two previous attempts to buy and merge with the company, Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge wrote in an open letter to Time Warner Cable's CEO Robert Marcus stating, "I believe we have a significant opportunity to put our companies together in a way that will create maximum, long-term value for shareholders and employees of both companies". ^[15] The $132.50 per share offer, just above TWC's closing price at $132.40 on January 13, was rejected. ^[16]

Acquisitions and divestitures

November 1999: Charter went public after more than ten major acquisitions in one year:.^[17]

Added 68,000 subscribers in Southern California with the purchase of four cable systems from American Cable Entertainment of Stamford, Connecticut.
Acquired 400,000 InterMedia Partners subscribers, primarily in the Southeast. As part of the deal Charter would turn over about 140,000 of its subscribers to TCI in cable system swap.
Merged with Marcus Cable
Acquired cable systems serving 460,000 subscribers from Rifkin Acquisition Partners and InterLink Communications.
Acquired 173,000 subscribers, mostly in central Massachusetts, from New Jersey–based Greater Media Inc.
Acquired Renaissance Media Group, a New York partnership serving 130,000 customers near New Orleans, western Mississippi, and Jackson, Tennessee.
Acquired New Jersey-based Helicon Cable Communications. The systems served about 171,000 customers in eight states in the Southeast and Northeast.
Acquired Avalon Cable TV, adding 260,000 subscribers primarily in Michigan and Massachusetts.
Acquired Vista Broadband Communications in Smyrna, Georgia, adding 30,000 more customers.
Acquired Falcon Cable TV of Los Angeles. Falcon was the eighth largest cable operator in the United States with about one million subscribers in 27 states in primarily non-urban areas.
Acquired Fanch Communications Inc. of Denver. Fanch had 547,000 subscribers in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Wisconsin.
Acquired Bresnan Communications systems in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Montana, adding 690,000 subscribers

Charter also began swapping customers with other systems to improve the geographic clustering of its systems. In December 1999 it signed a letter of intent with AT&T Corporation to swap 1.3 million cable subscribers in St. Louis as well as in Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri.^[17]

On March 22, 2006, Charter announced that it would sell cable systems serving approximately 43,000 customers in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah to Orange Broadband Holding Company (since renamed Baja Broadband).^[18]

Charter also sold cable systems in West Virginia and Virginia to Cebridge Connections (now known as Suddenlink Communications) and cable systems in Kentucky and Illinois to New Wave Communications.^[19]

On October 14, 2008, an article appeared in the Fairmont Sentinel, of Fairmont, Minnesota, reporting that Charter is selling parts of their system to Midcontinent Communications, including Charter's offices in Bemidji and International Falls, Minnesota. Starting February 1, 2009, Midcontinent Communications took over some Charter's cable system in Minnesota including Balaton, Bemidji, Canby, Ely, Fairmont, International Falls, Littlefork, Sherburn, and surrounding communities. Other areas in Minnesota would have sold to Comcast, but the deal fell through.^[20]

On October 22, 2010, announced completion of the sale of cable systems serving approximately 65,000 customers in seven states to Cobridge Communications, LLC. The 36 head ends acquired by Cobridge are located in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas. As a result of this sale, Charter no longer operates in Arkansas and Ohio.^[21]

On February 8, 2013, announced an agreement to acquire former Bresnan Communications systems in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, from Cablevision in a transaction worth US$1.63 billion.^[22]

Call centers

On May 2, 2006, Charter announced it would restructure seven of its call centers in the United States in the following locations:

St. Louis, Missouri — Telephone Care Center, July 31, 2006; converted into a Charter Phone service call center
Bay City, Michigan — September 2006; converted into a Charter Dispatch center
Birmingham, Alabama — December 2006; converted into a Charter Dispatch center
Fort Worth, Texas — December 1, 2006; shuttered
Irwindale, California — December 2009; restructured
Newtown, Connecticut — March 2007; restructured
Kingsport, Tennessee — March 2007; converted to Dispatch Center w/ location change
Amherst, Nova Scotia — December 2010; third-party contract, Teletech, not renewed

Orders completed online or through retail partners with Charter Communication are directed to a call center located in Tempe, Arizona, operated by Teletech (Direct Alliance). This call center has inbound/outbound sales agents, as well as online chat agents. Outsourced call centers were implemented in 2006 and are located in Canada and the Philippines.

Charter-owned call centers are located in St. Louis, Missouri (telephone service support center); Greenville, South Carolina; Vancouver, Washington; Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; Walker, Michigan; Rochester, Minnesota; Worcester, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky, (the largest call center across the company), with Heathrow, Florida, handling the bulk of video, high-speed data, and telephone billing and customer service contacts. Each of the remaining centers is becoming increasingly specialized for particular lines of service or customer issues.

Awards and recognition

PCWorld in 2011 awarded Charter with several "fastest ISP"-type awards. Charter has recently upgraded its internet speed tiers and gave most of its customers a free upgrade in speed, not once but twice during the 2011 business year.^[23]

In 2009 Charter won a CableFax TopOps award for its Day of Service, a.k.a. DOS, team that answers calls from customers on the day that a technician is scheduled to arrive at their home. DOS team members are highly trained agents that answer questions about services and ensure that the customer has the best possible experience with their service technician.^[24]

In December 2007, Charter was recognized by CableWorld Magazine as "2007 Multi-System Operator of the Year". According to the magazine, the company was selected for this award based on "rapidly expanding its telephone footprint to take advantage of the triple-play offering; developing a consistent, data-driven marketing plan; and addressing its nearest-term debt maturities".^[25] During the spring of 2008, Charter was honored with third place among companies with over 2,000 employees in the annual "Best Places to Work in St. Louis" competition, sponsored by the St. Louis Business Journal., based on the response of Charter employees in the area to an online survey created and managed by the Journal.^[26]

Criticism

In 2007, PCWorld ranked Charter's cable Internet service as worst among 14 major Internet service providers.^[27] In addition, Charter High-Speed is rated 19th out of 22 cable ISPs on dslreports.com,^[28] and Consumer Reports indicated in their February 2008 issue that Charter's television/Internet/telephone bundle collectively is the worst of all major national carriers.^[29]^[30] Charter Communications has shown an improvement in its services over the years. Charter was ranked one of the top performers in PC Magazine's "Fastest ISPs in the Nation".^[31]

It was reported by Tony Bradle on about.com that Charter Communications redirected error pages and Windows Live Search results to a Charter search page without notifying customers. Users may opt out of redirection by clicking a link from the Charter search page; however, the opt-out link installs a cookie on the customer's computer, so deleting cookies will require the user to opt out again.^[32]

It was reported that on Monday, January 21, 2008, during a routine sweep of inactive accounts, Charter accidentally deleted the email accounts of approximately 14,000 customers; even worse, the removed data are now irretrievable. The company since decided to give a $150 account credit to each user affected.^[33]^[34] In May 2008, Charter announced that it planned to monitor websites visited by its high-speed Internet customers via a partnership with targeted advertising firm NebuAd.^[35]^[36] After customers voiced their concerns, Charter changed its mind in June.^[37]

On June 26, 2012, Charter Communications started forcing customers to rent their cable modems for free and not allowing customer owned cable modems. All new customers and existing customers that do any changes to their account is forced to use their cable modems. Remaining customers that haven't changed their services or moved have been grandfathered in.^[38]

Coverage

August 2008, Charter Communications announced an agreement to carry the Big Ten Network, applicable to all customers.^[39]

In December 2008, WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Dallas–Fort Worth, reported that beginning January 1, 2009, Charter would no longer carry its signal due to a breakdown in negotiations. Charter quickly replied that a resolution to the issue was not out of the question.^[40]

In December 2008, WCNC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported that as of December 31, 2008, Charter would no longer carry its signal due to a breakdown in negotiations.^[41] In December 2008, KMOV-TV Channel 4, the CBS affiliate in Saint Louis, Missouri, reported that it would no longer be available to Charter subscribers starting December 31.^[42] Prior to that, only the standard definition signal for KMOV was available on Charter cable.

The cable operator would have lost access to all of the stations owned by Belo Corporation. However, an agreement was reached days before the shutdown date.^[43]

In May 2009, Comcast was able to meet an agreement with NFL Network, in which the NFL Network agreed to lower their asking price per subscriber. The higher asking price has been a problem with being carried with other cable networks. Roger Goodell is looking at resolving differences with other cable providers, to include Charter Communications, to allow carriage of this channel.^[44]

On August 2011, Charter Communications and NFL Network announced that they had reached a new long-term agreement to carry the NFL Network in time for the 2011 season.^[45]^[46]