Briefs

Voom Shutdown Price To Rise Above $115M

Bethpage, N.Y. — Cablevision Systems Corp. said in a securities filing May 11 that the ongoing shut-down of the Voom-branded HD direct-broadcast satellite service will likely cost between $115 million and $155 million.

Cablevision shut down Voom on April 30, but agreed to explore making its 21 original HD channels available to other distributors.

In a 10-Q quarterly financial statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cablevision said the shutdown costs are mainly for early termination of various contracts, other contractual obligations, employee-termination benefits and other costs, but does not include $45.8 million in settlement liabilities from Voom that have already been recorded on the MSO’s books.

Cablevision said that it expects the recent agreement to sell its Rainbow 1 satellite (which transmitted the Voom service) to EchoStar Communications Corp. for $200 million will more than cover the cost of shutting down Voom.

Irish Cable Sale Could Presage U.K. Merger

New York — NTL Inc. completed the sale of its Irish cable unit May 9, a move that could be a precursor to a merger of the British MSO with the No. 2 cable operator in the United Kingdom, Telewest Global Inc.

NTL sold the Irish cable holdings to a unit of U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley — MS Irish Cable Holdings B.V. — for about 325 million euros ($417 million). Morgan Stanley will then sell the Irish unit to a division of UnitedGlobalCom Inc. (UPC Ireland B.V.).

NTL said it will use the proceeds of the sale to pay down debt.

The sale of the Irish cable unit, with about 384,000 analog and digital cable subscribers and 7,500 broadband Internet customers in Dublin, Galway and Waterford, had been anticipated for months.

According to some published reports, the deal paves the way for a merger between NTL and Telewest. According to a report May 8 in The Times of London, Telewest’s board of directors approved a merger with NTL earlier in the month and NTL has hired U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. as an advisor in a possible Telewest merger. Telewest was reportedly talking with bankers in New York last week.

NTL has about 3.1 million cable and telephone subscribers in the U.K., compared to 1.8 million customers for Telewest Global. Estimates are that an NTL-Telewest deal would be worth about 5.5 billion pounds ($10.4 billion).

Basic Subs are Up At Cox in the First

Atlanta — Cox Communications Inc. reported strong results in the first quarter on May 10 — its first full quarter since going private in December — continuing to grow basic subscribers while growing revenue and cash flow at a double-digit clip.

Cox finished the quarter with 6.33 million subscribers, up by 42,100 customers. It was the third consecutive quarter of basic-subscriber growth for Cox.

Revenue was up 11% to $1.7 billion and operating cash flow rose 15% to $653.6 million, fueled mainly by new-services growth. Cox added 95,000 digital video customers, 177,000 high-speed data customers and 111,000 digital telephone customers in the period.

Bundled customers — those taking at least two Cox services — increased to 2.97 million in the quarter, a penetration rate of 46.9%. That was more than two full percentage points above bundled penetration of 44.2% in the fourth quarter.