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Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) (formerly Warner Cable Communications) is an American national cable television company that operates in 27 states and has 31 operating divisions. Its corporate headquarters are located in the Time Warner Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City,[2] and the company has other corporate offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Herndon, Virginia. For its first 20 years, Time Warner Cable was controlled by Time Warner. However, it is no longer affiliated with Time Warner, having been spun out to shareholders in March 2009.[3]

Prior to the spin-out, Time Warner had held an 84 percent stake in Time Warner Cable.[4] Non-Time Warner shareholders received 0.083670 shares for each share already owned. This move made Time Warner Cable the largest cable operator in the United States owned solely by a single class of shareholders (without supervoting stock).[5]

Contents

History

Time Warner Cable was formed in 1989 through the merger of Time Inc.'s cable television company, American Television and Communications Corp., and Warner Cable, a division of Warner Communications. It also includes the remnants of the defunct QUBE interactive TV service. In 1995, the company launched the Southern Tier On-Line Community, a cable modem service now known as Road Runner High Speed Online.

Arena

In April 2008, the Charlotte Bobcats reached a naming rights deal with Time Warner Cable, the Charlotte area's only cable television provider. Under this deal, Bobcats Arena will be renamed Time Warner Cable Arena. In return, Time Warner agreed to tear up the cable television deal that had limited the Bobcats' exposure over the team's first four years. Starting with the 2008-09 season, most Bobcats games will be seen on FSN South and SportSouth in North and South Carolina[6].

TWC Field

Main article: Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium

On March 9th, 2007, Time Warner Cable, which provides service to the local area, northeastern Wisconsin, signed a 10-year naming rights deal. The field is home of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, a local minor league baseball team of the Midwest League, based in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.

Acquisition of Adelphia

On July 31, 2006, Time Warner Cable and Comcast completed a deal to purchase practically all of Adelphia's assets for $17 billion [7]. Time Warner Cable gained 3.3 million of Adelphia's subscribers, a 29 percent increase, while Comcast gained almost 1.7 million subscribers. Adelphia stockholders received 16% of Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable went public effective February 13, 2007, and the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on March 1, 2007.[8]

In addition to Adelphia's coverage being divided up, Time Warner Cable and Comcast also agreed to exchange some of their own subscribers in order to consolidate key regions. An example of this is the Los Angeles market, which was mostly covered by Comcast and Adelphia (and some areas of the region already served by TWC), is now under Time Warner Cable. Philadelphia, previously was split between Time Warner and Comcast, with the majority of cable subscribers belonging to Comcast. Time Warner subscribers in Philadelphia were swapped with Comcast in early 2007. Similarly, the Houston area, which was under Time Warner, was swapped to Comcast, while the Dallas metro area was changed to Time Warner (RR).[9]. In the Twin Cities, Minneapolis was Time Warner and Saint Paul was Comcast. That whole market is now Comcast. There have also been rumors of a Charter purchase as well, much like how Adelphia was acquired in conjunction with Comcast.

Advance/Newhouse and Time Warner (Bright House Networks spin off)

Some of the regional cable system clusters operated by Time Warner Cable are owned by the Time Warner Entertainment - Advance/Newhouse Partnership (TWEAN). In 2002, Advance/Newhouse Communications, unhappy with some of the operating policies of Time Warner Cable in the AOL Time Warner era, forced a restructuring of the TWEAN partnership such that Advance/Newhouse would actively manage and operate a portion of the jointly owned cable systems equal to their percentage of equity. Under this arrangement, Advance/Newhouse enjoys the proceeds of their actively managed systems rather than simply a percentage of the partnership's total earnings. The majority of the affected systems are in the Tampa and Orlando markets under the Bright House Networks brand.

The value of this deal is that it allows Advance/Newhouse to more directly control their cable investments without having to completely unravel the TWEAN partnership, which does bring some benefits via Time Warner's development and purchasing clout.

Sprint Nextel Venture

In late 2005, TWC and several other cable companies formed a venture with Sprint Nextel. This joint venture enables TWC customers to receive a full suite of products, linking in-home and out-of-home entertainment, information, and communications services. All of this was included in the new "Triple Play On The Go", similar to the Triple Play but an addition of new services through Sprint Nextel.

Controversies

Carriage controversies

Bandwidth metering

In 2008, Time Warner Cable began testing tier-based metered data plans in Beaumont, Texas.[10] In 2009, Time Warner Cable announced that additional cities including Rochester, New York will become additional test sites. In particular in Rochester groups have formed to stop TWC. Several groups including Stop TWC and Stop The Cap are currently working to oppose these efforts. On April 7, 2009, US Congressman Eric Massa, called on Time Warner to eliminate its broadband internet cap.[11]

Local stations

Cable/on-demand channels

Signal intrusion & accidental transmission of pornography

On March 16, 2010, Time Warner Cable's transmission of their Kids on Demand and Kids Pre-School on Demand channels on systems in eastern North Carolina was interrupted by programming from the adult pay television channel Playboy TV for approximately two hours between 6:15 a.m. and 8:15 a.m./EDT, in which a group of nude women talked and posed in a sexually suggestive manner.[31] This accidental display affected Time Warner's digital cable subscribers in four towns in the system's eastern North Carolina cluster, while other areas displayed a black screen. A Time Warner spokesperson said in a statement to Raleigh CBS affiliate WRAL,”It was a technical malfunction that caused the wrong previews to be shown on our kids’ on-demand channels. Unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels.” A Time Warner executive said normal monitoring procedures did not take effect because the glitch affected only a few areas.[32]

Cable Clusters

Divisions

Time Warner Cable's 22 Divisions, from Time Warner's 2007 Corporate Profile and from official website.

+ In August 2006, Time Warner Cable merged Dayton & Cincinnati into "Southwest Ohio" and moved much of the former Dayton customers in Northwest Ohio north of a line running from Mercer & Auglaize counties to the Mid-Ohio (Columbus) division.

Former divisions sold to Comcast

Awards

The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of interactive video-on-demand infrastructure and signaling, leading to large scale VOD implementations.

The company was honored by Institutional Investor as America's Best Investor Relations for sell side in the Media sector for Cable & Satellite in 2009.

Statistics

As of second quarter 2009, there were 14.6 million basic cable subscribers, 8.8 million Digital cable subscribers, 8.7 million Road Runner residential subscribers, 2.5 million DVR subscribers, and 4 million residential Digital Phone subscribers.[33]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "TWC - Time Warner Cable Inc.". http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ATWC. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
  2. ^ "Investor Relations Contact Us." Time Warner Cable. Retrieved on March 6, 2010.
  3. ^ "Time Warner Cable Spinoff to Finish Next Month". New York Times. February 27, 2009. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/time-warner-cable-spin-off-to-finish-next-month/. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  4. ^ AP. "Time Warner's $9 Billion Cable Spinoff". http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/21/business/main4114950.shtml. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
  5. ^ "Time Warner Sets Final Distribution Ratio For Cable Spinoff". Dow Jones (via CNN Money). 2009-03-20. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200903201342DOWJONESDJONLINE000758_FORTUNE5.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
  6. ^ "Deals widen Bobcats' TV reach". Charlotte.com. 2008-04-09. http://www.charlotte.com/business/story/572628.html. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
  7. ^ CNNMoney.com: Time Warner to save on programming costs after Adelphia Deal - Jul, 31. 2006
  8. ^ Time Warner Press Release: Time Warner Cable Becomes a Public Company
  9. ^ ABC KTRK/Houston: Time-Warner Cable leaving Houston
  10. ^ Lawson, Stephen (2008-01-18). "Time Warner to Try Tiered Cable Pricing". IDG News Service (PC World). http://www.pcworld.com/article/141500/time_warner_to_try_tiered_cable_pricing.html. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  11. ^ Massa, Eric. "Congressman Eric Massa calls on Time Warner to eliminate Broadband Internet Cap". http://massa.house.gov/?sectionid=24&sectiontree=23,24&itemid=205. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  12. ^ keepfoxon.com, Fox's official carriage protest site
  13. ^ Reuters: "Fox says Time Warner Cable may drop Fox TV shows", December 18, 2009.
  14. ^ AP (via Chicago Tribune): "Fox grants 'brief extension,' keeps signal going as dispute with Time Warner Cable continues", January 1, 2010.
  15. ^ ABC News: "NFL, 'Idol' After All: Time Warner Cable, Fox Announce Deal on Broadcasts; Football Fans Breathe Easier as Cable Giants Reach an Unspecified Agreement", January 1, 2010.
  16. ^ Deadline hits; no KXAN for Time Warner customers
  17. ^ North Texas Channel Listings - Time Warner Cable (accessed January 5, 2009)
  18. ^ LIN TV Corp.: Time Warner Contract Expires October 2
  19. ^
  20. ^ BroadcastingCable.com: Northwest Station Pulls Signal in Retransmission Battle
  21. ^ [1]
  22. ^ On-air promotional announcement, retrieved Sep. 24, 2009.
  23. ^ Cable providers offering GolTV
  24. ^ Viacom May Pull Channels Off Time Warner Cable in Contract Spat
  25. ^ "Time Warner may cut ‘Colbert,’ ‘Spongebob’". msnbc.com. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28440958/.
  26. ^ Los Angeles Times: "Viacom, Time Warner Cable settle contract dispute", 1/1/2009.
  27. ^ Time Warner Cable Drops FearNet - Multichannel News (released April 7, 2009)
  28. ^ Time Warner Cable loses HDNet, says 'Being in HD is not enough'.
  29. ^ An exercise in how NOT to make friends: Time Warner Cable Austin - Snowed In (released December 28, 2009)
  30. ^ Channel Format Changes - City of Arlington (released November 13, 2009)
  31. ^ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/17/2010-03-17_bunny_business_as_kiddie_channels_air_playboy_porn.html
  32. ^ http://myjohnstownpa.com/technology/time-warner-apologizes-for-mixup-involving-kiddie-channels-porn-2/
  33. ^ Company Highlights: Time Warner Cable - Corporate

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Annual Revenue: $17.2 billion USD (FY 2008) • Employees: Unknown at this time. • Stock Symbol: NYSE: TWCWebsite: www.timewarnercable.com

Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Time Warner Cable | Former Time Warner subsidiaries | Companies established in 1989 | Cable television companies of the United States | Media companies of the United States | Companies based in Fairfield County, Connecticut res

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