Charter Communications

Charter President and CEO Tom Rutledge made it clear, amid another quarter of lost video subscribers, that his company’s video business was no longer built to go it alone. “We’re going to use video aggressively. But what we’re saying is, it really isn’t a standalone product in its current situation,” Rutledge said during Tuesday’s earnings call.

The three towns — Yuma, Ariz.; Jackson, Wyo.; and El Centro, Calif. — allege that Charter violated FCC regulations by failing to notify their customers 30 days in advance that they could lose local channels.

Siding against Charter, a New York state judge has refused to dismiss Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit alleging that the company duped consumers by delivering broadband speeds that were slower than advertised.

The city of Yuma, Ariz., has sent a letter to Charter demanding the cable operator provide a credit to subscribers who have been without two Yuma-based stations since Feb. 1 due to a fee fight with their owner, Northwest Broadcasting. The stations affected are: CBS affioiate KSWT and NBC affil KYMA. The stations are two of 11 Northwest-owned network affiliates that have been blacked out in the dispute.

The head of the station group takes to his stations’ websites to offer his take on the blackouts and  retransmission consent negotiations with the cable carrier (locally Charter) that broke down over the weekend and caused blackouts of 11 Northwest stations in nine markets. He points the finger directly at Spectrum CEO Tom Rutledge.

Charter has lost 11 local network affiliates in six states on Friday night due to a fee fight with their owner, Northwest Broadcasting. The two sides disagree on who pulled the signals on the stations in California, Arizona, Washington, New York, Oregon and Idaho.

Charter plans to expand its 24-hour news channel operation to five new markets in 2018: Los Angeles, Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Kansas City, according to a company memo.

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge has sent a private memo to company employees detailing the cable operator’s plans for 2018, which include a two-way interactive set-top for all video subscriber homes that will offer video on demand and “multiple Internet-only services like Netflix.”

Charter Communications has recruited TV veteran Katherine Pope to spearhead its growing original programming efforts. Pope will serve as SVP and head of original content, working from Los Angeles and reporting to Charter senior EVP David Ellen. Pope is an alum of NBC and Chernin Entertainment. She joins Charter after spending the past two-and-a-half years heading television for Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 venture.

There’s a battle raging inside Charter Communications, and the outcome could decide whether the cable giant continues its acquisition spree — or gets gobbled up itself.

Executives at major cable operator Charter Communications joined with Connecticut Gov. Daniel P. Malloy and other officials today to announce plans for a new 15-story headquarters building in Stamford.

Hackers may have been able to access “a massive amount of sensitive information” involving communications companies — including “more than 4 million records” from customers of Charter’s Time Warner Communications — Kromtech Security Center reports today.

Patrick Drahi’s Altice NV is thinking about asking Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and BC Partners to help fund a potential bid to buy cable broadcaster Charter Communications, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The French telecom giant and its U.S. cable subsidiary, Altice USA, are working on an offer to buy Charter, but have not yet brought a purchase proposal to Charter or its advisers, according to people close to the situation. There’s no guarantee that Altice will engage, though the prospects seem likely. Charter, with $60 billion in debt and an expected purchase price that could reach or exceed $500 a share would represent an enterprise value of almost $200 billion.

Charter Communications shares surged to a record high on Monday after a source said Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp was considering an acquisition offer, even as Charter shot down the possibility of it being the acquirer in any merger with SoftBank’s U.S. wireless carrier, Sprint Corp.

Charter has shot down a plan for it to buy Sprint and create a media and telecom giant. The proposed merger would have resulted in a huge new company controlled by Sprint’s owner, the Japanese tech firm SoftBank, according to reports last week. But Charter dismissed the idea late Sunday.

The two cable MSOs have rolled out ad campaigns/promotions targeting DirecTV’s DBS service and its DirecTV Now online video service.

Charter Communications is testing a live-TV streaming service that starts at just under $20 with no sports content. Charter, which brands its online service Spectrum Stream, says the base package includes local broadcast channels and 25 cable networks, including AMC, CNN, A&E, History, TNT and Discovery. A $12 monthly add-on package includes ESPN channels, NBC Sports and Bloomberg news. A $15 monthly option includes movie channels.

The companies are looking to merge tech, TV and mobile forces. If a deal takes place, consumers could see more bundles, which could be a good for fans of package deals.

Charter Communications — the nationwide cable giant whose properties include Spectrum, formerly Time Warner Cable — is weighing a fresh plan to acquire Atlanta-based Cox Communications, three sources say.

Verizon boss Lowell McAdam, his company facing slowing sales of mobile phones, made a proposal to acquire cable giant Charter Communications in recent months, three sources told the New York Post. The offer — valued at between $350 and $400 a share, and well over $100 billion, according to two of the sources familiar with the move — was rejected by Liberty Media-controlled Charter because it was too low — and because Charter was not ready to sell.

Comcast and Charter Communications said today they have reached an operational agreement on working together on wireless communications plans. Under the agreement, the companies will sell wireless only to their own customers.

Charter Communications has become the latest top U.S. pay-TV operator to integrate Netflix into its user interface, and the MSO has plans to embed other leading online video services, including YouTuve, in the coming months.

Even though Charter Communications is losing video subscribers, CEO Tom Rutledge says he doesn’t worry about the growing number of lower-priced streaming services such as AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Dish Network’s Sling TV. “If you take a look at the evidence so far, the current [over the top] offerings just seem to be cannibalizing the same satellite providers’ own base. It’s just a shift.”

Oracle is helping Charter Communications deliver targeted ads to the cable TV giant’s 16.5 million subscribers. The endeavor marks Oracle Data Cloud’s first foray into the addressable television space and is designed to complement its recent agreement with smart TV ads player Simulmedia.

Every day last week, Fox extended its deadline for Charter to sign a new carriage agreement by one day. Monday’s D-Day became Tuesday. Tuesday became Wednesday, and so on.Fox and Charter aren’t commenting on the talks other than Fox’s daily deadline updates.

Fox has — once again — extended its deadline for a carriage agreement with Charter by one day. That means that every day this week, Fox has extended its threat to pull its channels from the cable operator by one day. It’s unclear if the series of extensions means the companies are close to an agreement, or Fox simply is leery of taking its channels off the nation’s second largest cable operator when spring viewership remains high.

Fox Networks on Tuesday evening again extended a deadline in a programming dispute with Charter Communications, but as of yet hasn’t pulled its signal from the cable operator’s systems.