Redrawing the Map
Consolidation Continues to Change Cable's Local System Landscape
by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 3/16/2008 8:00:00 PM
Despite efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to put limits on the footprint of cable companies, the impact of consolidation and clustering continues to redraw the Multichannel News list of the 100 largest cable systems.
Several Insight Communications systems have disappeared into nearby Comcast divisions and the large cable operators continue to consolidate some of their divisions into larger groups. Time Warner Cable, for example, has 22 systems on this year's list, down from 31 in 2005.
As a result, only 88 systems from last year's list appear this year with the same name and a similar footprint.
Overall subscriber counts, though, remain relatively flat. This year, the 100 largest systems collectively served about 54.5 million subscribers, up only 0.5% from last year. The cutoff point for making the list slipped slightly from 107,000 in 2007 to 100,000 this year.
Several systems on this year's list were not included in the past because Multichannel News was unable to get subscriber counts. While RCN and WideOpenWest still have a corporate policy of not releasing subscriber counts for local systems, outside sources have provided estimates that make it possible to list their systems for the first time.
Growing competition and increasingly tight corporate control over the release of information about local systems to the press meant that some data included in past lists was not available this year. Five years ago, about one-third of the top 100 systems provided data on digital penetration and high-speed data subscribers. This year only one company, Cablevision Systems, provided that information.
In some cases, growing competition is also making it harder to get data on the pricing and number of channels in the expanded basic tier of local systems. This year, some Comcast systems on the East Coast and all of Time Warner Cable's systems refused to provide that information.
Another problem with compiling a list of the largest cable systems in the U.S. is getting a consistent definition of a system. Ideally, definition of a cable system would be simply an operation that covers either a specific designated market area or a franchise area.
In practice, though, none of the operators release data for specific DMAs or franchise areas. These smaller groups are also increasingly irrelevant to the management of local systems, which are typically run as clusters that may comprise larger metropolitan areas, dozens of communities or even systems in more than one state.
Ranking the systems by basic subscriber counts is also problematic, given the importance of triple-play offerings and digital services. Ideally, the list would have included information on voice, data and video and rank systems by total revenue or total subscribers, but no operators were willing to provide that information on a local level.
Given those considerations, the 2008 list of the Top 100 Cable Systems is best viewed as a directory of who owns and manages the largest local systems. It shows how the major operators break down their operations and the top executives who are on the front line of the increasingly competitive multichannel landscape.
Those executive ranks have seen some significant changes in recent years. Only 74 of executives who appeared on last year's list made it into the 2008 ranking, and only 40 executives remain from the 2004 list.
This year, however, the number of women on the list rose slightly, to 15 from 14 last year. That number is still well below the 23 female executives who were on the list in 2005.
Data for this year's list was collected between mid-January and the end of February and reflects the most recent information the systems were able to provide. Pricing for the expanded basic tiers may vary with a system based on local taxes and fees. Operators use a variety of terms to describe their tiers and in some cases those terms have been used rather than “expanded basic.”
Questions (and Answers) For 2008
01/04/2008Painting an Accurate Picture
02/19/2005Top 100 Cable Systems
12/03/2008
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