Altice USA shares fell more than 20% on Thursday, hitting a new 52-week low of $11.26 per share in early trading on February 17, as investors were spooked by disappointing Q4 broadband subscriber results and expected hikes in capital expenditures to finance an accelerated fiber network build. 

Altice USA said after market close on Wednesday that it lost about 2,000 broadband subscribers in Q4 and shed 3,000 for the year, results that shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to investors -- management has been hinting at possible losses for months. But coupled with plans to accelerate its fiber network buildout to cover 6.5 million homes by 2025, and the expected hike in capex that would go hand in hand with that plan, investors decided they had had enough. 

Altice stock was down nearly 22% ($3.14 per share) to $11.26 each on Thursday morning, shattering its previous 52-week nadir of $12.87 per share. The shares closed February 17 at $11.83 each, down $2.57 each or 18%. 

Also: Analyst Makes Case for Altice USA to Go Private 

In a research note, MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote that Altice’s Q4 results offered few surprises, but that the bigger picture looks bleak. According to Moffett, Altice isn’t growing broadband subscribers, ARPU for the segment was down sequentially for the first time, wireless growth is well below peers, margins are under pressure, the company went against its past history by declining to provide guidance for the future, and they stopped buying back their own shares. 

“Altice investors will have to decide whether these trends can be turned around with higher footprint growth and faster fiber investment,” Moffett wrote. “And Cable investors more broadly will need to decide whether these trends are unique to Altice or a broader harbinger of things to come.”

He added that he believes that Altice’s problems can be fixed and appear to be unique to the company, but it won’t be easy. 

Altice said Wednesday that it would accelerate the fiber buildout to 6.5 million homes by 2025, a goal that Wells Fargo Securities media analyst Steven Cahall said represents about 65% of Altice’s footprint, adding that currently fiber reaches only about 13% of its homes passed.  

Also: Did Altice USA Cut Costs Too Much? 

The company said in Q3 that it will spend about $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion in capex in 2022, up from $1.2 billion in 2021. That represents about 18% of revenue at a time when peers like Comcast and Charter are extending their networks but keeping capital intensity low at 11% and 14.1%, respectively. 

“Now, Altice’s elevated capex may reflect too many years of under-investment in favor of cash deployment to shareholders, but it's nonetheless looking at competitive intensity today and choosing to skip DOCSIS 4.0 entirely and jump right into fiber,” Cahall wrote, adding that investors should wonder if the rest of the cable industry will need to do the same. 

In a research note Thursday, Barclays Group media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar wrote that while the rest of the cable industry is experiencing a slowdown in broadband subscriber growth, Altice is the only major operator showing negative growth metrics. Adding to the concern is that past efforts to return value to shareholders via leveraged share buybacks has driven up its debt-to-cash flow ratio to 5.4 times, giving it little wiggle room “to deal with competitive or idiosyncratic factors.”

“Just a couple of storms or a bit more competition in the company’s footprint could make the balance sheet a much bigger focus than it already is,” Venkateshwar continued. “Therefore, it is likely to be tough to change the narrative on the stock anytime soon unless the company turns around subscriber performance.”

It appears that Altice is convinced that building more fiber, offering higher speeds and better quality will be enough to get the broadband growth engine back on track. In a conference call with analysts to discuss Q4 results, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said that most of the broadband losses were in areas where it competed against Verizon Fios, and that the company was beginning to see improvement in those markets in Q4. 

On the call, Goei said Verizon Fios wasn’t being as “hypercompetitive” as it was during most of 2021 and has raised its pricing on data.  

Prior to February 17, Altice shares were down about 11% for the year, and Goei said management is focused on beefing up the stock price, adding it is a big reason for doubling down on the fiber build. 

“Because it is clear in our minds that investing in the infrastructure and upgrading it significantly is going to drive a tremendous amount of value and growth for this business,” Goei said, adding that success will be determined by how well the company is able to execute that plan.  

“We just have to continue to execute here and this is a big year of execution,” he continued. “We feel good about our initiatives that we started in the second half of last year. And we feel good about 2022 in terms of executing our operational goals."

Moffett added that while longer term guidance for lower capital intensity and higher margins could be more reassuring to some investors, more important is what will happen over the next year.

“Unfortunately, the near term outlook is cloudy at best,” Moffett wrote.

But the analyst continued that Altice has been down this road before, in its previous life as Cablevision Systems. Back in 2013, Cablevision was considered to be on its last legs, with most of its value already depleted and its industry-leading service penetration rates making the growth prospects grim. But when Altice bought Cablevision in 2016, it showed that by fixing its cost structure, there was more gold to be mined, extending its growth runway by pairing it with an asset Altice had purchased just months before -- Suddenlink Communications.

And though Suddenlink seems to be showing signs of difficulty, Moffett believes they are mostly self-inflicted. And though the fiber buildout and implementing a more rational cost structure isn’t exactly new -- Comcast and Charter are making similar moves --  it probably is the best path to follow. 

“They are on their way to becoming a more conventional cable company, albeit one with an FTTH strategy rather than a DOCSIS based strategy,” Moffett wrote. “We’ll never love the legacy Cablevision footprint, but the blended asset mix at Altice is still capable of growing, even if at a slower pace than peers.” ■

The Dolan family, owners of the former Cablevision Systems, settled its lawsuit against the Altice USA hours before the case was scheduled to go to trial, according to the Delaware Court of Chancery. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

“The Dolan Family and Altice USA announce that the litigation related to News 12 has been resolved and settled to both parties’ satisfaction,” the family said in a brief statement issued Sept. 3.

The Dolans sued Altice on Sept. 4, 2018, claiming the cable company violated its deal to purchase Cablevision Systems from the company in 2016, when it fired a number of employees at the cable operator’s News 12 division. As part of the deal to purchase Cablevision for $17.7 billion in 2016, Altice apparently promised to maintain News 12’s 462 full-time equivalent employees and operate the news operations for a five-year period in substantially the same way as the Dolans had. Altice laid off about 70 employees in the spring of 2017 and last year was making plans to terminate more, according to the suit.

News 12 Networks consists of seven cable-delivered local news television channels serving Long Island, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, southwest Connecticut, the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey.

MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett initiated coverage of Altice USA with a “neutral” rating and a $28 per share price target on its stock, adding that despite its early success, the cable operator’s cost-cutting initiatives will get harder to achieve as time progresses.

Altice USA burst on the scene in 2015, first as a dark horse buyer for Time Warner Cable – it lost out to Charter Communications – and later as the purchaser of Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision Systems. Altice USA, led by European telecom guru and John Malone disciple Patrick Drahi, was going to bring European management techniques to the U.S. cable business, drastically cut costs and make the business more efficient. At the time of its Cablevision purchase – for a hefty $17.7 billion –  Altice said it would cut $900 million in costs out of that New York area business, which raised eyebrows.

Since then Altice said it has come closer to that goal and embarked on an ambitious five-year fiber-to-the-home buildout that it claims will bring even more efficiencies to the network. In the second quarter, cash flow increased 22%, more than double its peers, largely resulting from those cost cutting and efficiency efforts.

In his note, Moffett said that so far Altice USA has reduced its non-programming operating expenses per subscriber by almost 20%.

“But getting the rest will be much harder,” Moffett wrote, adding that the combination of continued cord-cutting pressure and an aggressive $80 per month 1-Gigabit per second broadband offering from rival Verizon may be too tough for the company to overcome.

“Verizon’s broadband offering steals the thunder from what would otherwise be Altice’s pressure release valve,” Moffett wrote, adding that he believes Altice will be able to raise profit margins but only at the expense of growth.

“There is no free lunch,” he continued.

Altice USA went public in June at $30 each and the stock rose quickly, mainly on deal speculation. But as that chatter has waned, so have the shares. Altice USA was priced at $25.97 each, down 3% (78 cents) in early trading Oct. 11. 

Moffett also was skeptical of the cost savings Altice could extract from it fully fibered network, and doubted that the operator would be able to significantly add to its scale via acquisition.

Altice USA was said to have been lining up bankers for a bid for Charter Communications earlier this year, although that speculation has died down considerably. Charter has made it clear it is not interested in a deal.

But Moffett thinks that Altice USA’s other perennial target – Cox Communications, which also has said repeatedly it is not for sale – isn’t any more feasible.

“There appears no realistic path by which Altice can achieve meaningful scale in the U.S.,” Moffett wrote. “A Charter acquisition is out of reach. Cox appears uninterested in selling especially to Altice. Comcast? Ha. That leaves only table scraps. Small acquisitions (of under 1 million subscribers each) are possible, but there aren’t many of those out there. Very small acquisitions (of under 200,000 subscribers) are plentiful, but too costly to integrate. The window on being big enough to ‘matter’ has already closed.”

Roku said a Federal court in Mexico has lifted an earlier Mexico City court order that had been blocking the sale of Roku streaming devices in the country temporarily.

“Roku is pleased with today’s court decision, which paves the way for sales of Roku devices to resume in Mexico,” Steve Kay, Roku’s general counsel, said in a statement

RELATED: Court Blocks Roku Device Sales in Mexico Over Privacy Worries: Reports

The Federal court’s decision provisionally suspends the earlier ban. According to Bloomberg, retailers Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro were originally ordered to stop selling Roku products because of “legal issues,” noting that Cablevision, a Mexican cable operator run by Grupo Televisa, has obtained the initial order over concerns that Roku devices could be hacked to access subscription OTT services without payment.

Roku said it is now working with its local distributor and retailers in Mexico to restore the availability of Roku streaming devices in retail. In the meantime, the Roku platform continues to serve current customers across Mexico, the company added.

Cablevision, a Mexican cable operator run by Grupo Televisa, has obtained a court order that temporarily blocks the sale of Roku devices over concerns that they can be hacked to view unauthorized content, Bloomberg reported, citing a story that first appeared in Reforma.

Bloomberg said salespeople at retailers Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro told the publication that they were ordered to stop selling Roku products because of “legal issues.” The report said hackers in Mexico are selling compromised Roku devices that allow users to access subscription OTT services without payment.

“Our platform rules prohibit the distribution of content that violates copyrights,” a Roku official told Bloomberg. “We are working diligently with our distributor in Mexico to restore availability of Roku players in retail. Roku itself was not sued by Cablevision.”

Roku has been asked for further comment.

Update: Roku said a federal court in Mexico has lifted the ban.

Bethpage, N.Y. – Shortly after rallying the troops as part of a worldwide rebranding effort, Altice chairman Patrick Drahi told reporters that he was pleased with his company’s purchase of the former Cablevision Systems, and hinted at future moves to come.

Drahi was at Altice USA headquarters here with top executives at the firm as they announced a new logo and tagline “Together Has No Limits.” In addition to speeches by Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei and Altice CEO Michel Combes, the company beamed presentations by executives in Israel, France, Portugal and the Dominican Republic to its locations worldwide via satellite.

After the presentations, Drahi held court with several reporters representing all the company’s markets.

The U.S. is Altice’s newest market – it purchased Cablevision in June and Suddenlink Communications in December 2015 – and Drahi remembered the criticism he endured especially for the Cablevision purchase, which at $17.7 billion, many analysts believed was too costly.

“I like to prove to the outside world that I am right,” Drahi said of the Cablevision purchase. “When we announced the Cablevision purchase, Altice [stock] crashed. The results we have had and the potential we have are bigger than I thought. Everything we expected when we bought the company has been delivered. And I see more.”

Altice had originally said it would take about $900 million in costs out of the business over several years, a goal many analysts saw as overly ambitious. Recently the company said it had achieved about half of that goal in December.

Over the course of two days executives walked reporters through several of the company’s U.S. businesses, pointing to opportunities in advanced advertising through its cable systems and data analytics firms like Teads and Audience Partners, potential expansion of its hyper-local news channels News 12 Networks and its international news network i24, and its plan to build a state of the art fiber-to-the-home network via its project “Generation Gigaspeed.”

While Optimum has lost about 60,000 video customers between March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, it has added about 56,000 broadband subscribers.  At the same time revenue has increased about 6.8% from $1.44 billion to $1.55 billion and cash flow has increased 35% from $441.3 million to $596.8 million. And the company intends to commit “billions of dollars” to building out its fiber network over a period of years, Goei said.

While the initial public offering for its Altice USA business awaits approval, Drahi said he continues to look for intriguing assets. While he would not identify any specific targets, he said he looks everywhere.

“I have discussions with everybody because I am an open guy,” Drahi said. “I like different cultures, so I like to discuss with Israelis, Americans, The Dominican Republic, the French, everybody,” Drahi said. “But you cannot buy everything at the same time. So it depends on what is available, what is the price, what is the future, what do you think about interest rates, what do you think about economics, do you thin Europe is going to recover, do think the US  will grow like that, do you think Israel is better? This is a big part of my decision making”

Drahi mentioned that Altice USA is the fourth largest cable operator in the country and the eight largest telecom provider, ranks that fall short of his past comments that anything lower than third place in a market wasn’t worth being in.

Drahi acknowledged that is US ranking falls short, but added that could change.

“I said, ‘If we are not No. 1, or No. 2, or No. 3, it’s not very exciting,’” Drahi said. “How do you get there? I really don’t know. Or if I do I can’t say.”

But he later offered a hint at is blueprint for success in other markets.

“I have always been very clear, that first is fixed [networks], then mobile, then content,” Drahi said. “We started in the U.S. with cable. We are too small in cable to go mobile at the moment. But everything is open. We will see.” 

While some analysts saw Cable One’s pending $735 million all-cash acquisition of NewWave Communications as a slight snub to its hefty stock price, investors apparently felt differently, driving shares up more than 3% on Wednesday, the day the deal was announced.

Cable One was the top performing distribution stock in 2016, topping $600 per share and rising more than 40% on what many analysts believed was sentiment that it would soon become an acquisition target of either Charter Communications, Altice USA or any number of private equity groups. But some saw the stock as overvalued – it is trading at an 11 times multiple of cash flow, or about 40% higher than the largest cable operator in the country, Comcast with about 22 million subscribers.

While the stock has slipped a bit in the New Year – Cable One shares were down 7% ($43.26 each) between Dec. 30 and Jan. 17 – news of the NewWave deal drove shares as high as $598.67 each in earlier trading Wednesday, up about 3.5%. The shares closed at $597.09 each, up 3.2%, or $18.62 per share.

News of the NewWave purchase surprised some analysts, who expected Cable One to be a seller, not a buyer. And though the operator could still sell out in the future, the NewWave deal does provide some opportunity.

RELATED: Rising Cable One Stock About to Hit a Wall [subscription required]

Cable One has embarked on a “broadband-centric” strategy over the past few years, focusing on broadband customer growth instead of video subscriber gains. That was evident in its proxy statement prior to going public in 2015, when it said it saw no future in the video business, and in past moves to drop major programming networks like Viacom in 2014.

In a blog published shortly after the deal was announced, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, who has been critical of Cable One’s valuation in the past,  said perhaps the most surprising aspect of the NewWave deal isn’t the price – high at about 11.7 times cash flow – but that it is all in cash. That would seem to hint that NewWave owner, Chicago-based private equity group GTCR, isn’t so confident that Cable One will be able to maintain its lofty public valuation.

But Moffett added that NewWave’s strategy doesn’t seem that far from Cable One’s. The smaller operator has similar video penetration – 24% vs. 20% for Cable One -- and broadband penetration at NewWave is lower – 26.1% vs. 30.8% – suggesting there may be room for growth.

“Much of the value here can therefore be assumed in raising penetration (and, no doubt, prices),” Moffett wrote.  

Seller’s skittishness over high stock valuations isn’t new. When Cablevision Systems agreed to sell to Altice N.V. in 2015, it insisted on taking cash instead of the European telecom company’s shares, which were priced at about $24 each at the time. That proved to be a very smart move – Altice’s stock plunged on the Amsterdam Exchange market over that year, losing about 40% of its value between the September 2015 announcement and the June 2016 closing of the Cablevision deal.

Cable One stock, the top performer in the distribution sector in 2016, took a slight dip out of the stratosphere after influential media analyst Craig Moffett lowered his rating on shares to “sell” — with a $408 target price. The cable operator, riding a wave of hefty price increases and plummeting programming costs, is about to hit a wall, in Moffett’s view.

Cable One shares declined about 5% ($33.22), going from $619.66 on Jan.3 to $586.44 on Jan. 5, the day after Moffett’s report came out.

It all underscores the stock’s remarkable rise. Cable One stock rose 43.4% in 2016 — or nearly $200 per share — ascending from $433.66 to $621.73 at year’s end, pumped up by speculation that it would be the next takeover target in the consolidation wave after Charter Communication’s $80 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

European telecom company Altice N.V., which spent more than $25 billion on purchasing Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision Systems in the past year, has been singled out as the most likely Cable One buyer, although private equity and other smaller players could enter the fray too.

IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE?

Moffett said that while it might seem strange to downgrade CableOne’s stock right around the time that Altice is expected to spin off a minority interest in its U.S. operations — Altice USA — to the public, he believes the takeover premium has been long baked into Cable One’s stock price.

What concerns Moffett and other analysts is how Cable One has been able to maintain its growth trajectory as customer growth has eroded rapidly.

Cable One embarked on a broadband-only strategy in 2012. The midsized operator has taken a hardline stance against rising programming costs, dropping Viacom’s networks in 2014, and instead has focused on high-speed data service, offering speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second in some markets.

But with lower costs — programming expenses dropped 10% in 2014, its first year without Viacom — have come heavy subscriber losses. Cable One shed 20% of its video customer base in 2015 (about 87,000 subscribers) and while those numbers have improved — it lost 13.5% of its video base in Q3 2016 — they are still well above those of the operator’s peers.

Overall, the pay TV market is losing video customers each year. But cable has been improving on its losses and could post its first positive growth year in a decade in 2016.

Cable One has said publicly that its strategy is unorthodox, but it believes it is on the right path.

“While this strategy runs contrary to conventional wisdom in the cable industry, which puts heavy emphasis on video customer counts and maximizing the number of PSUs [primary service units] per customer by bundling services, we believe it best positions us for long-term success,” Cable One said in its 2015 annual report. “For us, success in winning and retaining residential data and business services customers are far more important metrics than the number of triple-play customers we have.”

So far the approach appears to have paid off. Cable One has maintained steady revenue and double-digit percentage increases in cash flow in 2014 and 2015, and is expected to have another strong year in 2016. And though Moffett commended the company for its performance so far, he also said he believes that time may be running out.

Moffett said “more than all” of Cable One’s growth has been due to price increases; it imposed a hefty 10% hike to broadband charges in 2015 and it’s on the verge of having to increase fees again to a customer base that is, overall, the least affluent compared to the customer groups served by other top MSOs.

“We don’t project that Cable One’s EBITDA will actually decline in 2017, but we do project that EBITDA is about to hit a wall,” Moffett wrote, adding that the expected deceleration comes at a time when the stock is trading a premium multiple (11.7 times cash flow) to its competitors.

A PRICE TOO HIGH?

Moffett conceded the high multiple is largely due to takeout speculation, but he also noted that it is not only higher than the multiples of much bigger companies (Comcast trades at 7.6 times and Charter at 9.9 times) but outpaces the premiums paid for Cablevision (10.1 times) and Suddenlink (10 times) by more than a full turn of cash flow.

Cable One’s strategy also may throw a wrench into the one thing that most investors have bought the stock for: a potential acquisition. Moffett notes that falling subscriber rolls mean less opportunity for a potential buyer.

“Even if de-emphasizing video was the right decision for Cable One on a standalone basis, any potential acquirer would naturally view Cable One’s video subscribers through the lens of their own programming costs, not Cable One’s,” Moffett wrote. “By shedding so many video subscribers, Cable One has foregone a tremendous amount of potential synergy for an acquirer.”

European telecom company Altice N.V. said it is exploring the possibility of launching an initial public offering of a minority interest in Altice USA.

Altice USA is the domestic arm of the Dutch-based telecom company. Altice USA has about 4 million cable customers, through its purchases of Suddenlink Communications ($9.1 billion) in 2015 and Cablevision Systems ($17.8 billion) in June.

Speculation has been high that Altice USA would eventually go public ever since it was formed. An IPO would give the cable operator a deal currency to do more deals. But it is unclear as to what the IPO would entail and details were sketchy.

“No decisions have been taken at this point on the structure or timing of any IPO, and no assurance can be given that an IPO will be pursued,” Altic N.V. said in a statement.

Altice USA shed about 40,000 pay TV customers in the third quarter, an improvement over the 42,000 it lost in the prior year. The biggest improvement was at its Optimum unit – the former Cablevision Systems – which lost 28,000 pay TV customers compared to 33,000 in 2015. At its Suddenlink unit, pay TV losses reached 10,000, slightly ahead of the 9,000 it shed in the prior year.

Broadband additions for the period were flat at Optimum and 17,000 for Suddenlink.   

Overall revenue at the U.S operation was up 2.7% at Optimum, its best Q3 since 2014, and rose 6.7% at Suddenlink. Cash flow increased 33% at the Optimum unit and 20% at Suddenlink in the period.

Altice N.V. purchased Suddenlink in December 2015 and Cablevision in June 2016.  The company said its integration plans are going as expected, with the focus at Suddenlink on customer retention and reducing churn. At the Optimum systems, the percentage of customers taking high-speed data service over 100 Megabits per second increased to 40% in the period from 13% in the second quarter, following its network upgrade to offer speeds up to 300 Mbps across the footprint. 

“We are extremely pleased to see our focus on execution is paying off, delivering substantially better revenue and financial performance across all our major markets including US, France and Portugal,” Altice N.V. CEO Michel Combes said in a statement. “The efficiency savings we are achieving are fueling higher investment in infrastructure and content, and improving customer experience, which is now driving the growth of our business. Altice has fully transformed into a leading transatlantic, converged telecoms and media company and quarter after quarter we find ourselves in a stronger position.”

Altice USA, the domestic cable arm of Dutch telecom company Altice N.V., is getting its ducks in order for a possible initial public offering next year, according to a Reuters report.

Altice USA was created after the telecom giant purchased Suddenlink Communications in December 2015 for about $9.1 billion.  The company made its biggest purchase about six months later, buying Cablevision Systems in an all-cash deal valued at $17.7 billion.

Altice has made no secret of its desire to add scale to its U.S. operations – it has openly lusted for Cox Communications, even as the Atlanta-based operator has insisted it is not for sale. Most analysts have expected Altice USA to be eventually spun off from the parent, primarily so it could use its newly issued stock as a deal currency.

Altice USA already has a separate corporate structure – its CEO is Dexter Goei, who also serves as Altice N.V. president. Other corporate executive include co-president and chief financial officer Charles Stewart and co-president and chief operating officer Hakim Boubazine.

According to the Reuters report, Altice USA is preparing to invite investment banks to make pitches to the company in the coming weeks about an IPO. While Altice USA could opt to remain private, it could make a decision on bankers by January, with an IPO launch later that year, according to Reuters.

While sources familiar with the company said the IPO talk is a little premature – the company has said it plans to spend the next two years focusing on execution and integrating its existing acquisitions – it is expected to eventually go public.

Altice USA declined to comment on the Reuters report.

Altice USA has tripled Internet speeds for residential and business customers in its Optimum New York metro area footprint to 300 Megabits per second and 350 Mbps, respectively, more than a year earlier than expected.

The highest data speeds for Optimum residential and business customers had previously been 101 Mbps.

Altice USA purchased Optimum (the former Cablevision Systems) in June for $17.7 billion. As part of the New York State Public Service Commission’s approval of the deal, Altice agreed to tick up data speeds to 300 Mbps by the end of 2017.

Altice USA’s Suddenlink operation, which offers service in about a dozen states, offers 1 Gigabit-per-second high-speed Internet service.

Pricing for the highest tier is $99.95 per month for new customers and $64.95 per month for a new 200-Mbps residential tier. Optimum will continue to offer a 60 Mpbs base service for $44.95 monthly and a 100 Mbps tier for $54.95 per month. Existing customers can call Optimum for pricing for the new tiers.

Business Optimum 60-Mbps high-speed Internet service starts at $59.95 for new customers, with 100 Mbps available for $30 more. A 250 Mbps tier is priced at $149.95 and 350 Mbps is available for $189.95 for new customers.

“Altice USA is excited to launch significantly faster speeds across the Optimum footprint, made possible by investment in our superior network and infrastructure,” said Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei in a statement. “We are particularly pleased to be able to meet our public interest commitments more than one year ahead of schedule. Across the globe, Altice’s business model is centered on delivering the most advanced technology and capabilities. Today’s accelerated introduction of faster Optimum broadband speeds marks only the beginning of the new products and service enhancements that we plan to bring to our customers in the U.S.”  

New York – Altice NV CEO Michel Combes told an industry audience Wednesday that the acquisitive Dutch telecom company won’t be flexing its M&A muscles in the U.S. for the near term, instead focusing its energies on executing the business plans of its existing assets.

Altice made a splash last year with the $9.1 billion purchase of mid-sized cable operator Suddenlink Communications, and further extended its U.S. aspirations with the June purchase of Cablevision Systems for $17.7 billion.

At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference here, Combes said that significant U.S. M&A activity is “a bit over” for the time being as Altice focuses on execution and integrating its U.S operations.

Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said that the transition is already happening. At the former Cablevision, investments made in customer service, the Optimum brand and quality products are already paying off in improved subscriber metrics. The New York area systems lost about 2,000 video customers in the second quarter – its best performance in four years – and Goei said that in 2017 the unit should continue to recapture market share. At the former Suddenlink, its Operation GigaSpeed high-speed data initiative has helped drive broadband growth, although tough competition from satellite TV service providers has eaten into video growth. Providing a better video experience could help reverse that trend, as other larger operators have shown, Goei added.

“We’d like to do that as well,” he said.

Altice USA is focusing on increasing broadband speeds in all of its markets – Goei mentioned that prior to the purchase, half of Optimum customers wanted 25 Megabits per second and the other half wanted 50 Mbps. Now, he said, Optimum is phasing out 25Mbps – it has a 5 Mbps low tier service and a 60 Mbps service – and about 40% of new customers want 100 Mbps speeds.

At Suddenlink, which has a 50 Mbps flagship service and 100 Mbps and greater tiers, Goei said that 40% to 45% of gross additions are in the higher tiers.

The idea of the test is to show how the two technologies -- the WiFi cable broadband providers use to provide mobile connectivity and the LTE-U (U for "unlicensed") that cellular companies want to use to offer a similar service -- can share unlicensed spectrum.

"Delivering a cross-industry coexistence testing solution was an unprecedented and difficult task, and the outcome will help ensure the billions of people who rely on WiFi every day will continue to benefit from the same great user experience they have enjoyed for more than 15 years," said Ed Figueroa, president of the Alliance. "WiFi connectivity underpins our daily lives, and WiFi Alliance has an obligation to represent the needs of WiFi users worldwide."

LTE backers have been somewhat at odds with the forces of cable WiFi over opening up spectrum currently used by cable providers for their primary WiFi play to telcos looking to create their own broadband hot spots via LTE-U.

Cable CTOs, including those from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cablevision, as well as computer company execs have told the FCC that they don't oppose LTE-U, but that it has so far "avoided the long-proven standards-setting process and would substantially degrade consumer WiFi service across the country."

Those cable ops were sounding hopeful that testing would yield those needed protections.

“We applaud the WiFi Alliance for developing a consensus-driven test plan that will ensure new LTE-U devices coexist fairly with the existing WiFi networks and devices hundreds of millions of consumers already use and enjoy," said WiFi Forward, a group that includes the NCTA-The Internet & Television Association. "Measuring LTE-U devices for fair coexistence under the test plan is also crucial to protecting the major financial investments made by organizational WiFi users from schools, hospitals and libraries to cities, governments and small businesses. Only by requiring LTE-U equipment vendors to test all proposed devices according to the clear, consistent and comprehensive standards of the test plan can consumers have confidence that their Wi-will continue to work as designed."

In a recent memo to employees, Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei calls it “Fearless Reinvention,” a program geared to create a culture that inspires and motivates workers to do their best work and deliver the best customer service.

Fearless Reinvention is part of the new Altice USA anthem – which can be viewed via video on the corporate intranet site – and the company has already started some aspects of the program. Through that intranet portal employees can access features like DirectLine, where company leaders ask for ideas and comments on specific topics. Workers also can get sneak peeks at new ads, check out progress on a workspace reinvention project and tune in to quarterly updates from management.

Other initiatives in the pipeline include a new more casual workplace dress code, the elimination of reserved executive parking, the creation of employee focus groups, wellness programs and opportunities to support charities through Altice USA Volunteer Day. 

“For many of us, we’re used to a culture that’s predictable – we were familiar with what was around the corner,” Goei wrote. “But when you’re building a new company and a new culture, we may not always know what the next step is or how it will evolve. That’s why it’s so important to participate and engage, and give feedback. Together we have a unique opportunity to build an amazing culture that we’re all proud to be a part of.”

Charter Communications said Tuesday it has named former Cablevision Systems executive Tom Montemagno (pictured) as executive vice president, programming acquisition, reporting to Charter senior executive vice president David Ellen.

Montemagno will oversee the negotiations with Charter’s content providers from the major multichannel media companies and regional sports networks to local broadcasters and niche international programmers – including include video on demand and out of home streaming rights on multiple platforms. In July, Charter said former content acquisition executive Allan Singer would be leaving the company rather than relocate to Charter's based in Stamford, Conn., from Denver.

“I have known and worked with Tom for many years,” Ellen said in a statement. “His negotiating ability will serve Charter extremely well as it continues to deliver its traditional video products with cost discipline. And his deep understanding of today’s complex rights structures will better position Charter to roll out innovative video product offerings that meet new needs. Tom will be a great asset. I am also really pleased that Andrew Rosenberg will remain with the company and become a top deputy to Tom. We’re fortunate to have such a strong team.” Rosenberg had been with Time Warner Cable before it merged with Charter. Charter, in addition to adding former Cablevision executive Ellen to the content team, has also brought on former MSG Networks executive Michael Bair to oversee regional news and sports networks.

Montemagno spent 27 years at Cablevision, most recently as executive vice president of programming. During his tenure there he served in various leadership positions in the programming department, including senior vice president of programming acquisition, and was Cablevision’s lead negotiator with content companies. 

Altice USA said Monday that it has named its EVP and general counsel Lisa Rosenblum vice chairman of the company, adding that David Connolly, a former partner at Shearman and Sterling LLP will assume her former roles.

Rosenblum will report to Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei while Connolly will report to co-president and chief financial officer Charles Stewart.

Rosenblum will work closely with the CEO and the executive leadership team on key corporate initiatives, focusing on establishing Altice’s presence with government, in the marketplace, and the communities the company serves. Additionally, she will help to shape the corporate strategy on all legislative, regulatory and public policy activities and related business developments.

“Lisa is a tremendous asset to Altice USA, providing strategic counsel and leadership for complex legal and regulatory matters,” Goei said in a statement. “With her vast knowledge and industry experience, she will continue to serve as senior counselor to me and the entire Altice USA leadership team as we position Altice for success and further growth in the U.S.”

AS EVP and general counsel, Connolly will direct all U.S. legal affairs at Altice USA. Previously, he was a partner in Shearman & Sterling LLP, the law firm that represented Altice in its purchase of Cablevision Systems earlier this year. He served as an adviser to Altice in the transaction.

Rosenblum also has ties to Cablevision, joining the cable operator in 1996 and most recently serving as its EVP, government and public affairs. 

“David is a well-respected and talented lawyer with an impressive track record in representing multinational corporations,” Goei said in a statement. “Altice benefited greatly from his keen insight and thoughtful counsel during our acquisition of Cablevision. He will be a terrific addition to our strong management team and we look forward to his leadership on all legal matters for Altice USA.”

Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said the fourth largest cable operator in the country will take a hard look at programming costs, including replacing more expensive networks with cheaper channels if customers value them less.

Goei pointed to Suddenlink Communications, which Altice purchased in December for $9.1 billion. Suddenlink dropped the Viacom suite of channels almost two years ago, with “relatively minimal” subscriber impact on the company.

Suddenlink replaced many of the Viacom channels with less expensive fare like Comedy.TV and others.

Goei said what Altice USA is trying to do is “make sure we’re allocating capital appropriately relative to the customer experience and viewership of the channel.”

That includes evaluating and considering lower priced alternatives to some channels and paying high prices for those that are popular with viewers.

“Given that it’s such a large part of our cost structure and it continues to grow at a very rapid pace, where we think that there are alternatives for our customers, we will look at them or where we think there is great programming to be had and a price to be paid, we will do that for our customers.”

RELATED:Goei, after Altice closes on Cablevision, says cost-saving changes 'will take time.'

According to Altice, the U.S. cable businesses contributed about 31% of Altice’s total Q2 revenue and 41% of its total free cash flow. On an individual basis, the former Cablevision operations, now called Optimum, reported a revenue increase of 2% while improving basic video customer losses to 2,000 in the period. It was Optimum’s best video subscriber performance in four years.

On a conference call with analysts, Goei said that the seven-week long Verizon strike (Cablevision has the highest exposure to Verizon than any other operator) played a role, even without the work stoppage “it would have been a terrific quarter.”

At Suddenlink, revenue was up 5.7% and video losses improved to 23,000 in the period.

While it keeps its eye on programming costs, Altice said it is also saving money on salaries.

Goei said that about 120 former Cablevision workers submitted their resignations after its deal to purchase the company closed in June, including between 40 and 50 people in senior positions and the 10 most highly compensated executives. Losing those executives – which include members of the once-ruling Dolan family – will save the company about $50 million to $100 million on an annualized basis, Goei said.

That could help Altice’s plans to shed $900 million in costs from the company in the next four to five years. Altice founder Patrick Drahi has said in the past that he believed U.S. media executive were paid too much, while Goei noted that about 300 Cablevision executives were paid in excess of $300,000 per year. 

The one-month anniversary of the retransmission-consent dispute between Tribune Media and Dish Network passed with little fanfare last week. And though both sides claim they are still negotiating toward a settlement, some analysts believe that the end to the spat will be more a question of endurance than of compromise.

About 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets went dark to about 5 million of the satellite-TV provider’s customers on June 12, after the parties couldn’t reach a retransmission-consent agreement.

Dish has claimed that Tribune is asking for more than double the old rate for its stations and cable network WGN America, while Tribune has countered that its requested rates are in line with what comparable distributors have already paid and reflect the value of its content.

AT LOGGERHEADS

In an interview last week, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel Jeff Blum said the satellite company has been distributing free over-the-air antennas to Dish customers in the affected areas. Dish has also proposed several extension scenarios that would put the stations back on the air during talks and, once a deal was reached, the terms would be retroactive, Blum said.

Tribune has rejected those offers as self-serving for Dish, counterin with a longer extension proposal, which the satellite company rebuffed.

Adding to the acrimony is that broadcasters are beginning to buy pay TV networks — Sinclair Broadcast Group held up its retrans negotiations with Dish last year by trying to secure carriage for a cable channel it didn’t yet own, which turned out to be Tennis Channel — but managed to eventually work out a deal.

Tribune only owns one pay TV channel, WGN America, which was originally a superstation feed of WGN-TV in Chicago before it converted to a cable network in 2014. The network’s fees are low, though. Last year, SNL Kagan estimated WGN America attracted 8 cents per subscriber per month. Retrans fees are much higher, usually in the range of $1 to $2 per subscriber, per month.

PAST BATTLES

Tribune has had some retrans scuffles in the past. It went dark to DirecTV customers in 2012 for about four days and was blacked out to Cablevision Systems customers in the New York area in 2012 for nearly two months.

That willingness to wait it out until the other guy blinks may be a key component of the negotiations, Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said.

Tribune said it is still in contact with Dish and hopes a deal can be reached, but it isn’t ready to blink just yet. The broadcaster has balked at Dish’s offer of baseball- style arbitration — it says that carriage deals are too complicated and nuanced for that type of settlement.

Eagan sees Dish with a slight edge in talks for two reasons: It isn’t as concerned with subscriber losses as other pay TV operators, and its lack of a broadband service could prevent Tribune from blocking out online access to programming for Dish subscribers.

“Management, and to a degree the Street, doesn’t care so much about subscriber growth,” Eagan said in an interview. “It isn’t that big a driver of the stock.”

Eagan said he sees Dish’s willingness to sacrifice subscriber growth for a more favorable rate as endemic to its overall strategy. It isn’t just negotiating for this deal, it is negotiating for future deals, too.

“I don’t know what broadcast-station group renewals come up after this, but they [Dish] are trying to draw a line in the sand,” Eagan said.

RISKY STRATEGY

But pay TV subscribers are fickle. In 2013, Time Warner Cable dug in its heels during a summer dispute with CBS, a period thought to be ripe for a blackout — there are no major sporting events, reruns rule the broadcast airwaves and most people spend more time off the couch. A month later — after Time Warner Cable had lost 300,000 basic-video customers, the worst quarterly subscriber loss in its history — CBS had its deal at terms close to what it had originally asked for.

No one is expecting a similar fate for Dish in this go-round. Eagan said times are different, the markets are smaller and there were fewer over-the-top alternatives in 2013. Tribune stations offer news, sports and weather information via individual station apps and websites, and viewers can access broadcast-network programming streamed online through their respective websites and apps.

“While that poses a risk for the operator in general because they have substitutes, but it also makes it easier for them [subscribers] to not leave the operator if they suddenly lose a programmer or a channel,” Eagan said.

Altice USA said it has agreed to license the full multiplatform offering of NBC Universal’s coverage of the Summer Olympics next month, representing about 6,755 hours of programming, live and on-demand.

Altice USA is a unit of Dutch telecom company Altice N.V., and purchased Cablevision Systems in June. Coupled with its December purchase of Suddenlink Communications, Altice USA has about 4.6 million customers in 20 states.

NBC Universal has committed to offering an unprecedented package of programming for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero (Aug. 5-21), including coverage on its NBC broadcast channel, and cable networks NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, NBC Universo, and two linear sport-specific specialty channels. Subscribers also can access Olympic programming online at NBCOlympics.com and through the NBC Sports app.

Comcast has consistently touted the Rio Summer Olympics -- the first in the Eastern Time Zone since the 1996 Games in Atlanta -- as a showcase for its X1 platform and was a big part of the company's presentation at this year's INTX Show in Boston.  

“Altice USA is committed to providing our customers with high-quality and innovative products, service, and compelling content. The 2016 Rio Summer Olympics will be the biggest Games ever in one of the most spectacular cities, and we are excited to deliver to our Optimum and Suddenlink TV customers NBCUniversal’s unparalleled multiplatform coverage of this historic event,” said Altice USA EVP and chief content officer Michael Schreiber in a statement.

Charter Communications officially said it has named former Madison Square Garden executive Michael Bair as executive vice president of Spectrum Networks, overseeing the enlarged companies local news and sports networks. Separately, Charter named Clifford Harris as senior vice president of law – programming, product and regulatory. Both executives will be based at Charter’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters and will report to newly named senior EVP David Ellen.

Multichannel News first reported in May that Bair was on board at Charter and was being tapped for the EVP role. According to Charter, Bair will oversee all aspects of its local news and sports networks, including its regional sports networks in Los Angeles. Harris will oversee all legal support for the programming and product groups as well as for all regulatory compliance and policy matters at Charter.

“We are thrilled that Mike and Cliff will be joining our leadership team at Charter” Ellen said in a statement. “Their proven leadership and valuable industry experience will be critical as we work to align Charter as one company, on a path to continued growth and success.”

Bair joins Charter from Bleachers Corp., a start-up streaming media company, where he served as CEO. Prior to Bleachers, Bair served as president of Madison Square Garden’s Media Group, where he led MSG Networks, Fuse Music TV, MSG Interactive, MSG Radio and all sponsorship and ad sales for the parent company. Before MSG Media, Bair served as president of product management and marketing for Cablevision's cable division, where he was responsible for product strategy, programming, marketing, and advertising, as well as brand management, for the company's video, voice and internet services. Bair also held executive positions at Rainbow Media, HBO, Showtime Networks and Ogilvy and Mather Advertising.

Harris is another former Cablevision executive, tallying 11 years at the former cable operator – it was purchased by Altice USA in June. At Cablevision he served as Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel – Cable. In this role Harris oversaw all legal matters relating to programming, product, sales and marketing. Throughout his tenure with Cablevision, Harris advised the Company on copyright issues, privacy and data security, trademark, terms of service matters, and retransmission consent. He also managed cable and marketing-related litigation, including copyright and anti-trust cases. Prior to joining Cablevision, Harris served as general counsel to the financial start-up WOTN, LLC, providing guidance on all aspects of business strategy and planning, including corporate structure and raising capital. Before WOTN, Harris served as an associate at both Arnold & Porter and Sullivan & Cromwell.

Charter Communications said it has hired David Ellen as senior executive vice president. The former Cablevision Systems executive will be in charge of corporate functions, including programming, news and sports networks, strategic policy development, regulatory compliance, human resources, communications and security.  He will also oversee the legal support for those units.

Ellen will be based at Charter's Stamford, Conn., headquarters and report to chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge. 

"David brings a wealth of industry experience and expertise to Charter and a history of innovative thinking and successful execution," Rutledge said in a statement.  "His grasp of the component pieces of our business – including how our business strategy around programming and content must be developed in the context of a complex and changing environment – and his proven senior leadership skills will make him an invaluable asset to Charter as we continue to grow," he added.  "We couldn't be more excited about David's arrival."

At Cablevision, Ellen had served as general counsel at Cablevision until its sale to Altice N.V. in June. At Cablevision he was responsible for helping the CEO guide all aspects of Cablevision's business and worked closely with engineers and product developers on several initiatives, including leading the company's successful legal defense of its cloud-based DVR product as well as the legal strategy supporting the rollout of in-home streaming of the company's entire cable service to IP-enabled devices.

Prior to Cablevision, Ellen served in executive roles as deputy general counsel at IAC and general counsel of Eureka Broadband, a private New York-based telecommunications company.

Ellen also was a special counsel at the Federal Communications Commission working on the implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as well as a law clerk for Judges Stephen Breyer and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg when they were on the U.S. Court of Appeals and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor during her time on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Altice “has given Cablevision the blessing to close Freewheel,” The Wall Street Journal reported in a story about cost-cutting efforts that are underway at the operator, which has also swallowed up Suddenlink.

Altice USA has been asked for further comment and if and when Freewheel might be shut down. However, the Freewheel site shows that it’s still open for business, with service limited to the Android-powered Motorola (now part of Lenovo) Moto G smartphone. The number to order service (866-580-1619) was also active as of Tuesday evening. 

But the Twitter handle that’s been used for Freewheel (@freewheelwifi) is no longer active. The same is true of  what used to be Freewheel's Google+ page, YouTube channel and Instagram account.

If Freewheel goes away, it’s hard to say how many consumers will be torn up about it, since Cablevision has never said how many people bought in. Cablevision has been selling the Moto G alongside a service that runs $9.95 per month for consumers who take its MSO’s high-speed Internet service, and $29.95 per month for all others. 

But Cablevision was bullish on its prospects when it launched. Though Freewheel’s Instagram account appears to be shut down, photos taken at the service’s launch party still live on.

Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei isn’t looking to make any immediate major changes as its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems comes to a conclusion.

Instead, the head of the fourth largest cable operator in the country with about 4.6 million subscribers in 20 states is going to take his time in whittling two medium-sized operators – Altice purchased 1.5-million subscriber Suddenlink Communications in December – into the lean, efficient machine that Altice N.V. founder Patrick Drahi envisioned when he first agreed to buy the cable company back in September.

Goei, who gave up the CEO spot at Altice N.V., the European cable, telecom and wireless magnate, to take the top spot at the U.S. cable operations, said Job 1 will be to continue to intertwine the various Suddenlink and Cablevision management teams adapt to Altice’s way of thinking and the things the company wants to achieve. After that, the focus will be on operations, combining the various back office units and making sure both companies are using the same suppliers and equipment. That, he said, should take the next six months.

Altice USA has named some of its top officers already. Joining Goei at Altice USA are co-president and chief financial officer Charles Stewart and co-president and chief operating officer Hakim Boubazine. Former Cablevision employees making the transition included Lisa Rosenblum, general counsel; Lee Schroeder as head of government affairs; Media Sales president Ed Renicker, chief accounting officer Victoria Mink; and News 12 Networks president Patrick Dolan. Altice USA named former Comcast/NBCUniversal exec Michael Schreiber chief content officer last week.

On the operations side, former Cablevision SVP of infrastructure engineering Pragash Pillai will head up the Optimum operations, while David Gilles, former Suddenlink SVP of operations, Southwest region, will head up the Suddenlink unit. Former Suddenlink president of commercial and advertising operations  Kevin Stephens is president of business services, and former Suddenlink chief technology officer Terry Cordova becomes CTO for the entire company.

Rounding out the top executives, Suddenlink SVP of sales Gregg Graff will become head of residential sales; former Cablevision SVP of branding Matthew Lake will be chief marketing officer; Cablevision CIO Keith Sherwell becomes CIO of Altice USA; and former Cablevision SVP of human resources Colleen Schmidt will be head of human resources and talent development.

For the time being, the Optimum and Suddenlink brands will remain the same.

“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us for the next six months, really getting ready for 2017, where hopefully we’ll show our colors even more than we do today,” Goei said.

One of the biggest questions ever since the deal was first announced was how Altice was going to extract $900 million in costs from Cablevision’s business. Goei said those cost savings will come over a span of four to five years and will involve some easy wins like reducing corporate overhead and more efficiently managing the business. Others will have a longer time line, like upgrading the networks and the customer experience with new home equipment and determining which vendors to use.

“Those things take time,” Goei said, adding that the financial goal is to double Cablevision’s cash flow margins from its current 20% to more than 40% over the next five years.

Some critics have said that the only way to achieve its cost cutting goal is to decimate customer service. Goei said that couldn’t be further from the truth: “Why would we ever do that? Why would we ever make our customers unhappy that they would want to churn and go somewhere else? That’s not what we’re talking about. This is not about doing large cuts in the workforce.”

As part of the approval process, Altice promised the New York State Public Service Commission that it would not cut any customer-facing jobs for four years after the deal closes. That should keep the customer service force intact for at least that time.

While the NYS PSC took its time in finally approving the deal, Altice moved relatively smoothly through the regulatory process, winning Federal Communications Commission approval in May with few conditions and getting the nod from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities later that month.

But at the same time, the federal government appears to be cracking down on cable service, particularly on the broadband side, reaffirming net-neutrality rules last week and going forward with an “unlock the box” set-top proposal that has had heavy pushback from the industry. Despite the potentially onerous regulatory environment, Goei said he wasn’t concerned. As a European telecom service provider, Altice is all too familiar with sometime overzealous regulatory agencies.

“Nothing really surprises us from a regulatory standpoint, given how aggressive the European regulators are,” he said.

And though a  newcomer to the U.S. cable business, Goei added that Altice has its roots in entrepreneurship – Drahi grew up on the streets of Morocco and built a global telecom empire before he was 52 years old, modeling his business in part after John Malone’s Liberty Media.

“I would line him [Drahi] up with any other entrepreneur out there,” Goei said.

Goei himself has a an interesting background – the son of a Beverly Hills obstetrician, he received a degree in Foreign Service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1993. He joined Altice in 2009 after 15 years as an investment banker with J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley.

Drahi also is replacing another legendary entrepreneur, Cablevision founder and chairman Charles Dolan. As one of the founding members of the modern cable industry, Dolan had his hand in practically every major development in the cable business in the past 50 years, from the formation of Home Box Office to the advent of broadband. But as acquisitions and consolidation has taken hold, that club has dwindled in size.

Altice USA could help whittle down that list even further – it has said it would be interested in acquiring other cable operations, especially Cox Communications – but not in the short term, Goei said.

“Absolutely not today,” Goei said of other acquisitions. “We’re very focused on integrating our business. 2016 was a year of integration and operation. Thereafter we’ll see. It would be an outright misdirection to tell you we won’t acquire something again. But we are not focused on that today.”

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved, with conditions, Altice, N.V.’s $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems, the final hurdle in a deal that was announced in September.

The PSC unanimously approved the deal with conditions, including providing low cost broadband to lower income families, and customer service and job protections.

Altice, which purchased Suddenlink Communications for $9.1 billion in December, had announced the Cablevision purchase in September. With the addition of Cablevision’s 3.1 million customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Altice has about 4.6 million customers in the United States.

The New York PSC was the final hurdle for the deal to clear – the Federal Communications Commission quietly approved the deal in May, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved it later that month.

According to the PSC, the conditions on the deal represent about $243 million in benefits to New Yorkers, including promises to upgrade the broadband infrastructure, creating a new low-income broadband program, building out its network in unserved areas and providing about $40 million in additional benefits by participating in a new federal broadband affordability program.

Altice has pledged to triple the speed of its network to 300 Mbps by the end of 2017, increase high-speed broadband access in rural and urban communities in its service territory, provide new low-income broadband offerings and deliver free broadband Internet access to 40 anchor institutions in unserved or underserved areas. The company also will provide a robust storm-resiliency initiative for Long Island and the rest of its service territory. The company also has pledged not to lay off any custoimer-facing employees for four years.

“As a result of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s strengthening of our oversight of the sale of cable companies, we were able to put in place rigorous conditions on the transaction to ensure it was in the best interest of customers and the State as a whole,” said Commission Chair Audrey Zibelman in a statement. “With our decision today, we will see a significant investment in New York’s communication landscape that improves quality, reliability, speed and affordability for Cablevision’s customers.”   

With New York regulators’ approval in hand, Altice said it is on track to close the deal by the end of June.

“Altice is pleased to have obtained approval from the New York State Public Service Commission for the acquisition of Cablevision,” Altice said in a statement. “This follows approvals received from the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and 67 local municipalities. We remain on track to closing the transaction as expected.”

Altice USA named former Comcast executive Michael Schreiber as its chief content officer, effective immediately.

Altice USA is the U.S. arm of European telco Altice N.V. The company completed its $9.1 billion purchase of Suddenlink Communications in December and is on track to close its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems by the end of the second quarter.

In his new role, Schreiber will be responsible for Altice USA’s programming-related developments, negotiations, and agreements covering all content platforms and will report to co-president and chief financial officer Charles Stewart. After the Cablevision deal closes, Altice USA will be the fourth largest cable operator in the country.

“Michael is an industry leader with a proven record of success who shares Altice’s commitment to providing customers with the best content and superior service,” said Altice CEO and Altice USA executive chairman Dexter Goei in a statement. "We are thrilled to have Michael head our U.S. programming and content team, and we are confident that his forward-thinking approach will ensure that we deliver compelling content to our customers across the devices of their choice.”

Schreiber served as senior vice president, content acquisition for Comcast, where he led the execution of new media and digital content deals. Prior to his role at Comcast, Schreiber worked at NBCUniversal, most recently as vice president, business development, digital distribution, where he assisted in the founding, development and launch of Hulu.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has approved Altice N.V.’s $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems.

The matter was approved at the regulatory agency’s Wednesday board meeting.

“Altice is pleased with the approval order by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for the acquisition of Cablevision, which recognizes the benefits that the proposed merger will bring to consumers in New Jersey,” Altice said in a statement. “The transaction is expected to close on track in the second quarter of this year.”

The deal still needs to receive approval from the New York State Public Service Commission, which is scheduled to vote on the transaction on June 16. If the deal passes muster from that agency, it is expected to close shortly after. The Federal Communications Commission approved the deal on May 4.

Cablevision has about 783,058 customers in New Jersey, but its largest operations are in New York.

“The Board is confident that the settlement will provide current customers many network improvements and upgrades, as well as ensure adequate levels of customer service are maintained” said New Jersey Board of Public Utilities president Richard S. Mroz in a statement. “The agreement also protects most current Cablevision employees and creates a low-income broadband service that will benefit certain seniors and homes with school-aged children.”

According to the BPU, as part of the approval, Altice/Cablevision agreed that it will not reduce customer-facing jobs, including those at customer service centers and the Newark call center for 2 years; will upgrade service to all existing customer locations to 300 Mbps by the end of 2017; will offer low-income broadband service with speeds up to 30 Mbps with no data cap, modem fee or charge for self-installation at $14.99/ month, within 15 months of the merger closing; will increase the speed on its existing $24.95 low-cost broadband service offering from 5 mbps download /1 mbps upload to 10 mbps download /1 mbps upload within 120 days of closing and will continue to offer for 2 years; and will offer a broadband product without a data cap for 3 years.

The Keshet Eilon Music Center will honor long-time supporter Patrick Drahi, Altice Group founder and president, at a concert and dinner tonight (May 18) in New York.

Keshet Eilon, located in Western Galilee in northern Israel, is devoted to training and promoting young violinists from Israel and throughout the world who are intent on attaining the highest musical level. Its faculty consists of internationally renowned violin masters from Israel and the rest of the world.

Drahi, the guest of honor at the event, has been a long-time supporter of the program. The concert will be held at the Harmonie Club in New York at 7:30, followed by dinner.

Altice, based in The Netherlands, purchased Suddenlink Communications in December and received Federal Communications Commission approval for its planned purchase of Cablevision Systems earlier this month. That deal is expected to close in June.

With its $17.7 billion purchase by Dutch telecom company Altice nearing a close, Cablevision said it added 9,000 customer relationships in the first quarter, it's best first quarter turnout in that metric since 2012, fueled mainly by growth in broadband customers.

Cablevision lost about 15,000 video customers in the period -- nearly half the 28,000 it lost in the same period last year -- and added 19,000 high-speed Internet customers. Phone subscribers declined by 8,000 on the period.

The subscriber losses beat analyst consensus estimates of a deficit of 19,000 video customers. Cablevision also outpaced analysts' predictions for earnings per share and AOCF. 

Overall revenue was up 1.6% and adjusted operating cash flow rose 5.6% in the period. At its cable operations, revenue rose 2% and AOCF was up 5.7%.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger with Altice earlier this week. The New York State Public Service Commission is expected to give its bid up the deal later this month.

"Cablevision had an excellent first quarter," CEO James Dolan said in a statement. "The company continued to build momentum with solid improvements in service quality and subscriber growth, and achieved the best first quarter performance in customer relationships since 2012. The transformation of the Optimum experience over the past three years reflects the success of our management team and employees in providing the best products, services and experience to our customers. In addition, we are moving full speed ahead towards the completion of our transaction with Altice, and are proceeding through the regulatory process as expected."

Cablevision filed an amended 10-K annual report on Friday instead of a proxy statement because it said it does not plan to hold an annual shareholders meeting because of the pending Altice deal. Cablevision stopped holding quarterly conference calls to discuss results after it agreed to be purchased by Altice in September in a transaction valued at $17.7 billion. That deal is expected to close in June.

According to the 10-K, Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan received $18.3 million in total compensation in 2015, up 20% from the $15.3 million he received in the prior year. The main difference was a $7.5 milllion stock award, nearly twice the $3.9 million he received in 2014. CEO James Dolan received total compensation of $24.6 million, up 4%.

President and chief financial officer Brian Sweeney received a 37% raise to $9.6 million from $7 million and chief operating officer Kristin Dolan received $9.7 million in total comp for the year, up 31% from the $7.4 million she received in the prior year. Stock awards also appeared to be the catalyst of increases for those exectives -- Sweeney received  $3 million in awards in 2015, nearly twice the $1.6 million in the prior year, while Kristin Dolan received the same amount. 

Vice chairman Gregg Seibert, who stepped down as CFO last year and was named vice chairman of former Cablevision properties AMC Networks and MSG as well, received $9.5 million in total comp, down 47% from the $14 million he netted in 2014.  

The New York State Public Service Commission has extended the deadline for its final decision on Altice’s $17.7 billion acquisition of Cablevision Systems to May, a move that the companies say will not delay the final closing of the deal.

Altice agreed to buy Cablevision in September in an all-cash deal valued at $17.7 billion in September. The deal was expected to close in the first half of this year.

According to documents filed with the PSC, the agency said the new deadline is May 20. The agency had previously planned to submit its final order on the merger on April 29.

The PSC staff has been critical of the merger, adding that it would not be in the public interest unless stiff conditions are applied.

In a statement, Altice said it agreed with the extension and believes it still has plenty of time toclose the deal by the end of the second quarter The Federal Communications Commission also has to sign off on the deal.

“Altice remains actively engaged in the regulatory process, which is well underway and proceeding as anticipated,” Altice said in a statement. “Altice, Cablevision Systems Corporation and New York Public Service Commission counsel have agreed to extend the deadline to issue a final order on the Joint Petition in New York by three weeks, but this extension is not expected to affect the projected timetable for closing, which remains before the end of the second quarter of this year.”

Charter Communications’s $78.7 billion merger with Time Warner Cable was expected from the onset to sail through the Federal Communications Commission approval process — unlike an earlier deal between Comcast and TWC that was abandoned because of regulatory concerns.

Lately, though, the combination of the second-largest cable operator (TWC) and the third (Charter) has drawn concern from state and federal officials who see the pairing as a means to concentrate power in the broadband industry. If the deal is approved, the new Charter would have 18.2 million high-speed Internet subscribers. Coupled with Comcast’s 23.3 million customers, the two would control nearly two-thirds of all U.S. broadband homes with available speeds of 25 Mbps or higher.

After a flurry of correspondence between the FCC and Democratic congressional leaders citing concerns about the deal’s impact, a Feb. 29 letter from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) to chairman Tom Wheeler was its biggest threat yet. In a sternly worded letter expressing concern that new Charter would create a broadband duopoly the agency should look at closely, he ended the missive with this: “A competitive broadband marketplace is the only circumstance that will drive this outcome and until such a marketplace exists, further consolidation may pose a significant risk to consumers.”

None of the legislators are calling for an outright rejection of the deal, and most of the concerns are from veteran critics of consolidation who wouldn’t be expected to immediately bless any combination of broadband players. But Reid’s letter casts a shadow on the approval process.

“This will be a difficult letter for the FCC and DOJ to ignore and at the very least is likely to lead to a meaningful slowdown in the approval process, which appeared to be moving along rapidly toward closing,” BTIG media analyst Rich Greenfield said in a blog post.

The FCC is working toward a late March decision on the deal. Other analysts are puzzled that legislators are risking maintaining the status quo by rejecting it. No deal means no deal conditions, Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said. And no conditions means no incentive to change.

Charter has already shown a willingness to compromise, and possible conditions being discussed center around various contractual relationships — like most favored nation clauses — and even a broadband overbuild condition that would require the new company to deploy high-speed Internet in markets where it does not now offer the service but a competitor does.

“The government has a chance to get something material from the TWC-Charter deal approval and I don’t believe they are dumb enough to blow it,” Wlodarczak said.

Still, in the increasingly unstable political environment of 2016, a deal implosion would irrevocably alter the industry in five distinct ways:

1. Comcast gets stronger, or is broken up: With its status as the No. 1 cable and broadband provider, and Nos. 2-3 not really allowed to get any bigger, Comcast would be the de facto — and permanent — king of the cable hill. The cable giant already had its best growth year in about a decade after abandoning TWC by focusing on organic growth. Comcast could use its programming clout to go over the top outside its footprint or use its broadband dominance to eliminate the competition inside its service territories.

By rejecting the combination of two companies that would be smaller than Comcast, is the government saying the No. 1 cable operator is too large? While most analysts believe it’s a long shot, political sentiment seems to be shifting away from a few dominant providers to several smaller ones that would nurture OTT development.

2. Charter gets weaker: With the government basically preventing them from gaining meaningful scale, Charter will have to focus on what it had originally planned before it set its sights on TWC — growing organically, although at a slower pace. And it will have to do that after paying TWC its $2 billion deal-breakup fee.

3. Time Warner Cable could emerge stronger: With its second major deal blocked by regulators, TWC could be in a prime position, flush with $2 billion in cash which could be used for operations or to fund share buybacks, and riding strong momentum from positive performance in the past four quarters.

4. John Malone must rethink his strategy: With Charter no longer hunting big M&A game, Malone will have to decide if U.S. M&A is worth pursuing with Charter or another operator, whether to focus his efforts on the international markets with Liberty Global (a possible Charter partner) or if he should just play wait and see.

5. The cable deal market disappears: The consolidation movement fueled by Charter grinds to a halt as the three largest cable operators won’t be allowed to get any bigger. Altice Group, which bought Suddenlink Communications and is in the process of acquiring Cablevision Systems, could make a play for TWC, but would face similar regulatory problems — it will be about the same size as Charter.

SIDEBAR: Broadband Domination

Legislators are getting increasingly concerned with the balance of power in the 70 million-customer U.S. broadband market, fearing that a combined Charter and Time Warner Cable would concentrate nearly two-thirds of broadband subscribers in two companies — new Charter and Comcast. (All numbers are as of the end of Q4.)

CompanyBroadbandCustomers

Charter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5.5 million

Time Warner Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12.7 million

Comcast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.3 million

Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . 41.5 million

SOURCE: Individual companies

Charter Communications said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday that it has extended the employment contract of CEO Tom Rutledge for one year to Feb. 13, 2017. Rutledge’s original deal was set to expire on Feb. 13, 2016.

Rutledge joined Charter in 2012 after nearly a decade as chief operating officer of Cablevision Systems. In 2015, the company reported its first full year of video subscriber growth in more than a decade.

According to the filing, as part of its agreement with the Advance/Newhouse Partnership to purchase Bright House Networks, the company intends to offer Rutledge the positions of chairman and CEO with a new five-year employment agreement after that deal is closed.

In a separate development, a California Administrative Law Judge moved up the timeline for that state’s Public Utilities Commission to decide whether to approve Charter’s pending $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable.

The California PUC had earlier issued a timetable that suggested it would decide whether to approve the deal in June. On Feb. 11, ALJ Karl J. Bemesderfer  shortened the timetable for the proceeding by a month. A proposed decision now is scheduled for April 12, with the final decision due May 12.

The California PUC was believed to be the main roadblock in getting the deal approved by the end of the first quarter. While that still won’t happen with the amended timetable, it does suggest that the deal could be closed sooner than was previously expected.

The New York Public Service Commission approved the deal in January. The Federal Communications Commission, which still must sign-off on the deal, restarted the informal 180-day shot clock on the approval process on Jan. 25.

Cablevision Systems said it has settled a nearly five-year old suit with founder Charles Dolan’s son Thomas, agreeing to pay him $21 million to cancel wrongful termination litigation he brought against the company after the demise of its former Voom HD service.

According to documents filed with the SEC, Cablevision paid Thomas Dolan on Feb. 8. As part of that settlement, Cablevision founder and chairman Charles Dolan and CEO James Dolan have agreed to pay an aggregate of $6 million to the company as partial reimbursement in the event Cablevision’s planned merger with Altice is not consummated.

In the SEC filing, Cablevision said the payment to Thomas Dolan is permitted by its merger agreement with Altice N.V. and “does not reduce or otherwise affect the consideration payable to the company’s stockholders under the merger agreement.”

Thomas Dolan brought the suit in New York State Supreme Court in 2011 and in April 2015 the court granted a summary judgment to the plaintiff on liability, with damages to be determined. In June 2015, Cablevision filed a notice of appeal. Thomas Dolan is currently executive vice president, strategy and development at Cablevision. In 2004 he was named president and CEO of Voom, the former HD unit of  programming arm of Rainbow Media.

Cablevision had high hopes for Voom and its original HD content, but soon discovered the unit was moot after practically every other content provider offered its own programming in HD. The unit -- which was shuttered in 2008 -- was the source of another high-profile litigation – against Dish Network, which had signed on as its first big distribution customer. Dish settled that suit in 2012  for about $700 million, of which Cablevision received about $525 million.

“This matter from a decade ago has been settled," Cablevision said in a statement. "It has been handled by an Independent Committee of the Board of Directors and the company will have no comment.”

WASHINGTON — The Communications Workers of America has told the New York State Public Service Commission that the proposed merger of Altice and Cablevision Systems is not in the public interest and should be rejected.

The 700,000-member union, which represents 300 Cablevision employees, made its argument in initial comments to the New York PSC. The union has already urged the Federal Communications Commission to block the deal, and plans to take the same tack with the New York City Franchise Concession Review Committee and the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.  

Cablevision in February of last year reached agreement on a new contract with the CWA, but only after years of contentious negotiations.

The union is concerned about job losses, and about the amount of assumed debt involved in European telco Altice’s $17.7 billion all-cash purchase of Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision. The CWA has argued that the deal’s heavy debt burden could put jobs at risk, so it has been pushing back on a number of regulatory fronts.

The CWA has weighed in at hearings in Peekskill, N.Y. (Jan. 26); in New York State Supreme Court in the Bronx (Jan. 27); and in Long Island, N.Y.’s Nassau and Suffolk counties (both Jan. 2).  

Altice and Cablevision have dismissed the CWA opposition, saying it "relies on selective press accounts, mischaracterization and surmise to impugn the transaction and advance its own narrow interests."

The deal partners called the structuring of their transaction sound, with demonstrable consumer benefits including network investment. They also noted that some of the deal’s debt load is the restructuring of existing Cablevision debt.

Neither the state nor the city have made any official decisions on the deal, which aren’t expected to come until at least the spring. And the city has expressed reservations about the deal before. But in separate filings with the state Public Service Commission on Feb. 5, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James and state PSC staff found some common ground in their opposition to the deal, claiming that dramatic cuts proposed by Altice could egregiously affect Cablevision’s customer service, its ability to provide low-cost and reliable broadband to all consumers and could result in massive job cuts at the cable company.

In a statement, Altice said it is moving along in the regulatory approval process.

"Altice remains actively engaged in the regulatory process, which is well underway in all regions and proceeding as we anticipated," The company said in a statement. "We look forward to that process continuing in a fair and open manner."

Altice announced its agreement to purchase Cablevision in a deal valued at $17.7 billion in September.  The telecom company had said that it had planned to slash about $900 million in costs at Cablevision over the course of several years, by eliminating redundancies, improving the network and making the operation more efficient.

Both the PSC staff and James expressed doubt about how Altice would be able to pare that much from the cable company. In the PSC staff filing, Moody’s investors Service estimated that Altice could achieve about $450 million in cost savings in a two-to-three year period.

Public Advocate James saw the cost-cutting initiative and Altice’s past track record as a blueprint for poor service and customer losses. She cited the loss of about 1 million customers at Altice’s European wireless unit SFR after a series of dramatic cuts.

“Thus, customer losses are inevitable as Altice’s ‘extreme’ acquisition expenditures require ‘huge’ cuts to customer service, installation costs, maintenance, and marketing,” James wrote in the filing.

The city has made no bones about its objection to the Altice/Cablevision marriage in the past. And while its approval is needed to transfer Cablevision’s franchise, there is still some question as to what power the city, or the state for that matter, has to block the deal.

It should also be noted that city and state officials also talked tough about Charter Communications’ planned merger with Time Warner Cable, but managed to sign off on that deal after the parties agreed to several conditions.

Both the state and the city are asking for similar concessions in the Altice deal. The conditions state PSC staff recommended in its filing including offering $10 per month low-cost 30-Megabits-per-second broadband ($14.95 monthly after modem fees and charges are included) to low-income families in its service territory; upgrading its network to fiber within 36 months after the deal closes, improve broadband speeds to 300Mbps by the third year after close; agree to not eliminate any “customer-facing jobs” for 5 years after the close and provide standalone and Lifeline phone service.

The state has said it expects to make a decision on the transaction by April 29, well within Altice’s first half of 2016 target to complete the deal. The transaction also will require Federal Communications Commission approval.

Cablevision agreed to be acquired by Altice on Sept. 17, in a deal that values the operator at $34.90 per share, a 22% premium to the cable company’s per share price the day before. The suits, brought by shareholders Arnold Wandel and James Gould in separate filings on Sept. 24, claimed in different language that Altice is undervaluing Cablevision.

Wandel’s suit alleged that Cablevision’s board breached its fiduciary duties by agreeing to sell the company for “inadequate consideration and by agreeing to preclude other potential acquirers from tending superior proposals.”

Gould’s suit claimed that fiduciary duties were violated because the board failed to properly value the company and failed to “take steps to maximize the value of Cablevision to its public stockholders in connection with the sale of the company to Altice.”

While no reason was given for either withdrawal, the plaintiffs would have faced a rough road in proving the deal did not value Cablevision properly. Analysts have said in the past that Altice is paying a hefty price for Cablevision’s assets.

"Both of these cases were thoroughly without merit," Cablevision said in a statement.

The Communications Workers of America has objected to Altice’s pending $17.7 billion acquisition of Cablevision Systems, saying the deal isn’t in the public interest.

In a formal objection filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the CWA, which represents about 300 Cablevision workers in Brooklyn, said the deal’s heavy debt component (about $8.6 billion) will lead to downsizing. The union also pointed to Altice’s reputation for refusing to pay contractors and outsourcing key functions of the business.   

 “Altice’s track record in France and Portugal clearly shows the danger this deal poses to Cablevision’s customers and employees,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor in a statement.  “Altice takes on too much debt, outsources as much work as possible and then downsizes its workforce.  Customers get worse service and employees lose their job.  Unless Altice makes commitments to protect customer service and Cablevision employees, the FCC should reject this deal.”

Altice agreed to purchase Cablevision in a deal announced in September and has said it expects to close the transaction in the first half of 2016. As part of the purchase, The European telecom company has said it will take on $8.6 billion in debt to finance the all-cash transaction. The union and Cablevision have had a contentious relationship over the past few years. The union was able to organize about 300 tech workers in Brooklyn earlier this year but failed in attempts to unionize Cablevision operations in the Bronx. Cablevision has about 13,656 total employees.

“Altice has a track record of investment, innovation and customer service in all the communities we serve. We look forward to a fair and open regulatory process in connection with our proposed Cablevision transaction, and as in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities in the Tri-state area,” Altice said in a statement

The CWA said coupled with Cablevision’s existing $5.9 billion in debt, it will force the combined company to initiate such deep cost cuts that “both staffing and network investments are likely to suffer, to the detriment of both consumers and workers.”

Altice has said that it plans to shave about $900 million in operating expenses from Cablevision after the deal, mainly by applying European-style business practices.  Several analysts and even one top cable executive have said in the past that squeezing that much from operations could be difficult. In its filing, the CWA said that will likely mean “significantly worse” customer service and pointed to a Deutsche Bank report that said in France Altice-owned Numericable-SFR lost 1.256 million mobile subscribers (5.4% of subscribers), 246,000 retail broadband subscribers (3.7% of subscribers), and 719,000 home connections (7.2% of subscribers) over the past year (3Q2014 to 3Q2015).

In addition, CWA said in France and Portugal two Altice companies were fined $410,000 each for not paying its contractors.

The CWA said it plans to weigh in with the New York State Public Service Commission, the New York City Franchise Concession Review Committee and the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, all of whom will play a role in reviewing the deal. 

Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media analyst Jeff Wlodarczak initiated coverage of European telecom giant Altice at “hold,” adding that the company faces big challenges in its push into the U.S. cable market.

Altice made its name in the European telecom market, acquiring several wireless companies on the continent – including France’s SFR – before turning its sights on the U.S. cable business earlier this year. Using its then-robust stock, Altice agreed to acquire Suddenlink Communications in May in a deal valued at about $9.1 billion. In September, it agreed to acquire Cablevision Systems in a cash and assumed debt deal valued at about $17.7 billion.

Altice’s shares have plunged in the last several months – Wlodarczak wrote they are down about 60% off its mid-summer highs, as investors who once were willing to bake future acquisitions into the stock price became increasingly nervous that aggressive cost cuts would be difficult to execute. The high-yield debt markets also appear to be getting skittish – the analyst wrote that Altice’s Oct. 1 debt/equity raise for the Cablevision deal was “poorly received.”

“This leaves investors to focus on the core business, which appears to have an increasingly choppy outlook at least through ’16,” Wlodarczak wrote. Adding to the difficulty was a Cablevision proxy filing earlier this month that showed it expects capital expenditures to rise in the next few years, which could impact Altice’s cost-cutting hopes.

Wlodarczak wrote that despite the challenges, he believes Altice stock is fairly valued and that both the Suddenlink and Cablevision deals will be completed.

“We believe Altice’s move into the U.S. makes sense strategically as we view the U.S. as a less competitive market than Europe and Altice has the potential to roll-up the balance of the U.S. cable industry long term,” Wlodarczak wrote.

Liberty Media chairman John Malone said he doubted that Altice chairman Patrick Drahi will be able to achieve the cost synergies he has claimed in his $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems, adding that the European telecom company risks damaging the cable company’s competitive position.

In announcing its deal with Cablevision in September, Altice said it expected to extract $900 million in cost synergies from Cablevision over time, a figure many analysts said was overly optimistic. At an industry conference shortly after the announcement, Drahi offered more detail, saying the telco could remove amplifiers and other electronics from the network to make it more efficient. 

At Liberty Media’s investor day in New York, Malone said that Altice will be able to extract some synergies from Cablevision; the level they have been talking about would be hard to achieve.

Malone said Altice had tremendous success in its purchase of French wireless company SFR, and applying cable operating tenets to the much more loosely run wireless business resulted in big savings. But teh cable business is a lot different than the wireless business.

“I suspect he [Drahi] is being pretty aggressive in his projection of savings in his Cablevision transaction,” Malone said. “I think he will find some efficiencies, but I would be very surprised if he could generate operating savings at the level that had been talked about without damaging his competitive position in the market place. New York in particular is a tough market.”

He noted that Cablevision has a deep-pocketed, high-quality competitor in New York – Verizon’s FiOS TV.

“I think Patrick will end up being fine, but I doubt that he’ll generate as strong a wealth-building enterprise as he’s predicted,” Malone said.

Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge, who presented at the Liberty conference and ran Cablevision as chief operating officer for almost a decade, added that Drahi may be applying European operating metrics to the U.S. industry, which have  much higher content costs. He added that if you put cable operating margins in the European model, they would work out to be more than 50%. Drahi has complained that Cablevision’s margins are in the 32% range.

“When you take out all of that stuff, I think you have comparable margins,” Rutledge said. “Some of the things Patrick said involved taking out electronics from the network. These are multi-year projects. To assume you could do that in one fell swoop I think is really difficult. Could it be done through time? Possibly, with investment.”

Liberty CEO Greg Maffei added that he has told Altice CEO Dexter Goei, a long-time friend, that there are three ways Altice’s entrance in the U.S. cable market could play out.

“Either you’re going to do something really well and we’re going to learn and be better for it and we’re going to go to school, or you’re going to do something really well and get so wealthy that you can buy us for a really big price, or you’re going to fail in which case we’re going to buy you cheap,” Maffei said. “All three of those scenarios are actually pretty additive for Charter.”

Cablevision Systems, more than a month after it agreed to a $17.7 billion purchase by European telecom giant Altice, reported its best subscriber performance in three years. But a declining customer base and rising costs helped drive down revenue and cash flow in the third quarter.

Cablevision lost 33,000 basic video subscribers in the period, an improvement over the 56,000 video customers it shed in the same period last year. High-speed data additions of 3,000 were also better than the 26,000 it lost in the prior year. On the telephony front, Cablevision lost 20,000 customers in the most recent period, better than the 33,000 lost in Q3 2014.

But the losses, an increase in programming and legal costs and “unfavorable items” totaling $33.6 million helped drive down adjusted operating cash flow 10% to $423.8 million and revenue down 0.8% to $1.4 billion. Excluding the unfavorable items – for the probable settlement of a pending class action legal matter and for an inventory readjustment – and the deficits would have been reduced to 0.5% on the revenue line and 4.8% for AOCF.

Cablevision agreed to the all-cash Altice deal in September. In announcing the deal Altice said it planned to slash about $900 million in costs from Cablevision, a figure that several analysts called extremely aggressive. At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference shortly after the deal was announced, Altice chairman Patrick Drahi said his strategy was to apply European costs structures to Cablevision, including eliminating lofty executive salaries – about 300 Cablevision employees make $300,000 per year or more – and by reducing operating costs.

Cablevision did not hold a conference call to discuss its quarterly results and said it does not intend to hold further calls while the Altice deal is pending.  

“The third quarter was highlighted by the announcement of Cablevision’s sale to Altice for $34.90 per share - an acquisition that will deliver significant value for our shareholders,” CEO James Dolan said in a statement. “In the meantime, together with Altice we are moving full speed ahead to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals, while we remain focused on delivering superior products and outstanding service to our customers.”    

European telecom giant Altice said it has completed the funding for its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems, selling a 30% equity stake in the cable operator to BC Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $1 billion.

CPPIB and BC Partners are investors in another Altice target – Suddenlink Communications. Altice agreed to pay $9.1 billion for a 70% interest in Suddenlink in May.  That deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Cablevision agreed in September to the Altice deal, which comprises $10 billion in cash and the assumption of $7.7 billion in company debt.  Earlier this month, Altice secured bond and loan financing amounting to about $8.6 billion for the transaction and was readying a private placement of stock to raise another $1.8 billion. There had been some concerns that raising debt for the deal could be costly as interest rates for high-yield bonds have risen. 

In a statement, Altice said with that debt financing and the equity issuance, the Cablevision acquisition is fully funded. The Cablevision deal is expected to close in the first half of 2016.

 “We are extremely pleased that BC Partners and CPPIB – our future partners in Suddenlink – have also agreed to invest alongside us in Cablevision and to continue to accompany Altice in its long-term oriented growth and investment strategy in the US,” Altice CEO Dexter Goei said in a statement.

The partners were equally pleased.

“This is an attractive opportunity to invest in a sector that we know well,” CPPIB managing director and headof private equity  Shane Feeney said in a statement. “We are pleased to further expand our relationship with Altice, a best-in-class cable operator, and BC Partners, a longstanding fund partner.”

BC Partners co-chairman and managing partner Raymond Svider added this in a statement:“We are delighted to continue to invest in partnership with Altice and CPPIB, and are highly confident in Altice’s ability to further enhance network quality, increase customer satisfaction, and meaningfully improve financial performance at Cablevision."

Cablevision Systems, which in September agreed to be purchased by European Telecom giant Altice in a deal worth $17.7 billion, said it has settled its litigation with programmer Viacom. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Cablevision sued Viacom in 2013 in federal court in Manhattan, over the programmer’s requirement that distributors buy packages of its channels as part of its carriage deals. The suit said claimed that Cablevision was forced to purchase 14 lesser watched Viacom channels as part of its most recent carriage deal. Viacom had countered that Cablevision  and other operators had the right to purchase channels individually – at an albeit higher price – and was simply trying to renegotiate a months old deal in the courts.i

In a terse statement issued late Friday, Cablevision and Viacom said a settlement had been reached.

“We are pleased to have put these matters behind us in ways that benefit both of our companies and look forward to working together to benefit Cablevision’s customers,” the companies said in a joint statement.   

Altice continues to line up financing for its pending $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems, raising about $8.6 billion in new debt and readying the placement of about $1.8 billion of its own stock.

Altice announced Sept. 17 that it planned to acquire Cablevision in a deal including about $10 billion in cash and $7.7 billion in assumed debt. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2016. 

Altice agreed in May to acquire privately held mid-sized cable operator Suddenlink Communications for about $9.1 billion. With Cablevision’s 2.6 million video customers, Altice would have nearly 4 million video customers in the U.S., making it the fourth largest cable operator in the country.

There had been some concern that raising the debt for the Cablevision deal would be costly, as interest rates on high-yield debt deals have risen in the past several weeks. 

According to Altice, it raised $8.6 billion in new debt, including a $3.7 billion 7-year senior secured term loan; $1 billion of 10-year senior guaranteed notes and $3.8 billion of 7-year  and 10-year senior  unsecured notes.

Altice said the average cost of the Cablevision financing is 7.6% and the average tenor is 7.9 years. When combined with the retained debt at Cablevision ($5.9 billion), the total Cablevision debt financing is about $14.5 billion, with an average tenor of 6.7 years and average cost of 7.5%. In addition, Cablevision has secured a 5 year $2 billion revolving facility, ensuring ample room to meet Cablevision’s liquidity needs.

Regarding the stock sale, Altice said Thursday that it has successfully placed $1.8 billion in newly issued shares, including 69.99 million  Altice A shares  at $19.05 per share and 24.8 million Altice B shares  at a price of $19.05 per share.

Application will be made to list the placing shares on the Euronext Amsterdam exchage. Settlement is expected to take place on Oct. 5 and is subject to customary closing conditions, at which date the placing shares are expected to be admitted to trading on Euronext Amsterdam. Altice has agreed, subject to customary carve-outs, to a 90 day lock-up on its class A and class B shares. J.P. Morgan acted as Sole Global Coordinator and Bookrunner. Barclays, BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs International acted as Joint Bookrunners for the placing.

RELATED: Dolans to Drahi: Cash and Carry

With the stroke of his pen, the maverick European telecom mogul Patrick Drahi cemented Altice’s U.S. foothold as the fourth-largest cable operator with a $17.7 billion, all-cash deal to purchase Cablevision Systems, one of cable’s oldest family-owned companies.

The Cablevision deal comes on the heels of Altice’s pending $9.1 billion purchase of Suddenlink Communications, a midsized operator with 1.2 million customers in the Southwest and Midwest. With Cablevision, Drahi’s Altice gets 2.7 million cable customers in the country’s largest market — metropolitan New York City, specifically the Bronx, parts of Brooklyn, Long Island, and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut — and overnight becomes the largest foreign owner of a U.S. cable MSO, with 4 million subscribers.

But Altice’s speedy ascension up the cable ranks — it had no U.S. presence six months ago — brings with it vast uncertainties. And while chairman Patrick Drahi believes he can better run a U.S. cable business by applying European cost disciplines, some analysts believe he will face big challenges.

“Six months ago, we were nonexistent,” Drahi said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, adding that the new company still has more room to grow.

“This is moving fast, but we’re not in a hurry,” Drahi said. “There are more opportunities to consolidate at these same prices.”

Most analysts agree that Cablevision could be the tip of the iceberg for Altice.

“In our view, clearly Altice is not done with its acquisition strategy, and this could include any telco assets not nailed down,” wrote Pivotal Research CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak.

Critics immediately centered on the deal’s high price — it works out to about 9.5 times cash flow, not including synergies, and 6.1 times with synergies — and what many have said are unrealistic cost-cutting goals. Typical deals are in the range of 7 to 8 times cash flow.

In a blog post, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said squeezing $900 million in cost synergies from Cablevision could be a chore, especially since Charter Communications has said it will derive about $800 million in cost synergies in its merger with Time Warner Cable, a company about five times larger than Cablevision.

“Cost reductions like those won’t just mean cutting SG&A,” Moffett wrote. “It will mean slashing customer service; repair and maintenance; and sales and marketing (specifically, channel-mix optimization and back-office upgrades). It’s hard not to imagine that that might have at least some impact on market share.”

Altice is one of the most rapidly growing telecom companies in Europe. Based in the Netherlands, it spent about $28 billion on deals in 2014 alone. Altice has about 3.1 million cable customers in France and Israel and more than 20 million wireless customers across Europe.

Altice has managed to squeeze profits out of its businesses with a “slash-and-burn approach,” drastically reducing head count, eliminating what it says are unnecessary costs and aggressively negotiating contracts with suppliers.

Drahi said he also sees savings in electricity costs, by eliminating amplifiers in the network, and in shifting more of the sales function online.

“My model is to bring U.S. ARPU to Europe and the European expense to the U.S.,” Drahi said.

The recipe is simple, Drahi added — control excess costs and the cash flow will take care of itself.

Altice also sees cost-cutting opportunities in employee salaries. CEO Dexter Goei said more than 300 Cablevision employees make $300,000 per year or more.

“I understand that,” Goei said at the conference. “There’s a new sheriff in town. We will probably run things a little differently.”

Still, cost containment wasn’t Cablevision’s only problem. The company has been bleeding subscribers in the past few years after a strong period of growth in the early 2000s. According to Moffett, video subscriber losses in two key areas — the New York boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn — have accelerated to 6% and 8% in the past quarter, indicating that Cablevision’s competitive position against Verizon Communications’s FiOS TV is worse than it has been letting on.

Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam told CNBC’s David Faber last week that he welcomes Altice as a competitor, adding that while Drahi talks tough, he’s heard it before.

“Success in Europe or Asia doesn’t necessarily mean success in the U.S.,” McAdam told CNBC. “Our product, fundamentally, is superior when you have fiber into the home versus any of the DOCSIS products. We welcome them into the market.”

Drahi’s strategy hasn’t quite been solidified yet, but he hinted that higher prices for broadband and more flexible video packaging could be a path. “I think broadband is too cheap,” he said.

In a research note, Moffett said that higher broadband prices may be the only way Altice can offset video losses.

“Verizon’s FiOS brand managers must be licking their chops,” Moffett wrote.

European telco Altice didn’t waste any time pushing toward the top of the list among top cable operators, agreeing to purchase Cablevision Systems in a cash and assumed debt deal valued at $17.7 billion.

The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2016, when combined with Altice’s pending acquisition of Suddenlink Communications, will create the fourth largest cable operator in the country with about 4.6 million video customers. In addition to Cablevision’s cable systems in the New York metropolitan area, Altice also will acquire Cablevision’s business services unit Lightpath, its local new operations News 12 and publishing unit Newsday.

The deal brings to an end virtually decades of speculation regarding Cablevision’s ruling Dolan family’s intentions for the cable unit. Over the years the cable operations were rumored to have been sold to Time Warner Cable and other larger operators only to be scrapped at the last minute. The family also unsuccessfully attempted to take the company private three times in the earlier part of the last decade.

“As a family business we are proud to be entrusted by the Dolan family with the ownership of Cablevision and look forward to continuing the pioneering path they have paved for us,” Altice chairman and founder Patrick Drahi said in a statement. “The strategy of Altice in the large and highly strategic US market is reinforced with the acquisition of Cablevision. We will be in a stronger position, as in all other markets in which we operate, to deliver the best services, invest in the most advanced technology, and develop innovative products for the benefit of our customers.”

Cablevision, founded by chairman Charles Dolan in 1973, has been a pioneer in the business – it was the first to successfully launch a $90 triple play and has made countless innovations in the industry.

Lately, Cablevision CEO James Dolan has set the company on a connectivity path, offering cord-cutter packages, and striking deals with over-the-top video companies like Netflix and Hulu.

In the end, it appears the competitive pressures and the consolidation movement that has swept the industry in the wake of Charter Communications’ pending $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable  forced the company to look for deals. At INTX: The Internet & Television Expo in Chicago in May,  James Dolan told an audience that operators should focus on consolidating markets instead of companies and offered the New York metro market as an example. Asked at the time whether that meant Dolan was putting Cablevision up for sale, the CEO replied that he was “proposing a commune.”

“Since Charles Dolan founded Cablevision in 1973, the Dolan family has been honored to help shepherd our customers and employees through the most extraordinary communications revolution in modern history,” James Dolan said in a statement. “Now, nearly half a century later, the time is right for new ownership of Cablevision and its considerable assets. We believe that Patrick Drahi and Altice will be truly worthy successors, and we look forward to doing all we can to affect this transition for our customers and employees. We expect that Cablevision will be in excellent hands.”

“For the Dolan family, we move forward with AMC Networks and The Madison Square Garden Company – two and, eventually, three public companies – all born of Cablevision and each with brighter prospects today than ever before,” James Dolan continued. “With profound gratitude to our employees, customers and shareholders who have made our vision a reality, the Dolans look forward to continuing this fascinating journey.”

The transaction is to be financed with $14.5 billion of new and existing debt at

Cablevision, cash on hand at Cablevision and $3.3 billion of cash from Altice. BC Partners and CPP Investment Board have an option to participate for up to 30% of the equity of Cablevision. Altice intends to raise equity by issuing Class A shares in connection with funding its portion of the acquisition. Altice has received full financing commitments from JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Barclays

“We are very excited about our acquisition of Cablevision, which has developed into a pre-eminent cable operator under the steady, long-term ownership of the Dolan Family,” Altice CEO Dexter Goei said in a statement. “This acquisition, our second in the cable sector in the US, is the next step in Altice’s long-term oriented strategy in the US, one of the largest and fastest growing communications markets in the world.”

JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Barclays acted as financial advisors to Altice. Shearman & Sterling, Covington & Burling, Mayer Brown, Ropes & Gray, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell acted as legal advisors to Altice.

Given that nothing has come before the FCC, a spokesman declined to comment on the deal, which will get the requisite public-interest review by the agency and an antitrust vetting from Justice.

To the degree that it strengthens Cablevision as a competitor to Comcast, Time Warner Cable (or, if the FCC approves it, Charter-TWC-Bright House Networks) and AT&T-DirecTV, the deal could get a favorable nod.

There is no FCC prohibition on foreign ownership of cable television systems, though there is on CARS stations, the microwave systems used by cable operators.

"The acquisition of Cablevision is a good move for Altice's global media strategy," said Adonis Hoffman, chairman of Business in the Public Interest and former chief of staff to FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn. "It may also be a good move for U.S. consumers by providing another competitor with scale in the market. Of course, one of the true tests will be how it structures programming.  I would encourage Altice to be very open to independent and diverse programming and content providers, and build in onramps going into the transaction. This would speak volumes to the industry and the regulators on its intention to advance the public interest in programming."

Diversity commitments, usually volunteered by merging parties at the outset, have become a standard element in merger public-interest statements.

“I do not see any regulatory hurdles at this time that would prevent Altice from accomplishing its goal,” Hoffman added. "They will need to run the traps on the Hill, though, where some members might not be as familiar with the company or its ownership."

UPDATE, 11: 45 a.m.: At a press conference after the FCC's monthly meeting, agency chairman Tom Wheeler was asked for his reaction to the proposed deal.

He said he had two reactions. The first was that he had known Chuck Dolan and the Dolan family for decades, and they were "competitors and innovators in the space."

As to the policy issues, he said the commission would take those on in an "open, fast process." Asked about a timeline, he answered, somewhat incredulously, that the deal had only been announced at 2 a.m. the night before and that nothing had yet been filed.

As to whether there were any particular issues with a French (i.e., foreign) company buying Cablevision, Wheeler said a multitude of government agencies involved in national security and telecom — dubbed “team telecom” — reviews all such transactions.

The Team Telecom website offers this description of the organization: "Team Telecom is comprised of staff from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, representatives from the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Treasury, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Based on its review, Team Telecom may have no comment on any application or may request that the FCC condition grant of the application on compliance with assurances made by the applicant in either an exchange of letters or a formal security agreement."

Such reviews usually take six months to a year, but can take less time. In any event, the FCC cannot act on an application until the review is completed.

Washington bureau chief John Eggerton also contributed to this story.

Cablevision Systems is in talks to license its total audience application (TAPP) software to other operators, company chief operating officer Kristin Dolan said at a recent industry conference.

TAPP utilizes data from set-top boxes and helps advertising buyers plan advanced ad campaigns. Cablevision began using the TAPP technology in April, using data from the 7 million set-tops in its New York metro area footprint.

With TAPP and other analytics, Cablevision is able to target specific demographics – like soccer mom’s that make more than $50,000 per year – and recommend which networks an advertiser should buy ads on to reach that audience.

“We have a lot of networks that are too small to be measured, but actually have really committed interested audiences that are great targets for very specific advertising,” Dolan said at the recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Entertainment & Communications conference in Beverly Hills. She added that Cablevision is talking to other operators about licensing the technology.

“We're talking to a lot of people about it because it's not that huge of a lift for people to aggregate the data,’” Dolan said at the conference. “…They get the benefit of being able to charge a higher cost for the advertising and to recommend, like we do, schedules that might include nontraditional networks that they hadn't been monetizing before.”

Dolan said that Cablevision also has high hopes for its Freewheel WiFi phone product, launched in February.

“We will be talking a lot more about Freewheel in the coming months,” Dolan said. “We are continuing to explore the opportunities for it. And it was a learning experience at first, but now we are getting very enthusiastic about the future for that product.”  

Cablevision Systems and Tribune Media have struck a multi-year retransmission agreement for Tribune's stations in New York; Hartford, Conn.; and Philadelphia as part of a larger deal that includes WGN America, data and the Newsday newspaper.

In addition to the stations, Cablevision will carry Cablevision's WGN America network (pictured: Manhattan) in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut beginning in January 2016.

Also, Cablevision renewed its use of Tribune's Gracenote TV listings and movie data for Cablevision's interactive programming guide, DVR and VOD set-top content.

For its part, Tribune will get access to Cablevision's audience data and analytics.

Finally, Cablevision has acquired Tribune's 2.8% stake in Newsday Holdings, giving Cablevision sole control of the company, which includes Newsday and its suite of weekly shoppers.

The Weather Channel said authenticated viewing of the channel on computers and mobile devices -- via weather.com -- is now available to a majority of pay-TV customers following the additions of big distributors including DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Dish Network and Cox Communications. The programmer said it waited until reaching an audience critical mass before announcing the availability of live streaming of the channel via the Live TV section of the web site (pictured). Other TVE affiliates are: AT&T U-verse, Cable ONE, Cablevision Systems, CenturyLink, Grande Communications, Suddenlink and WideOpenWest.

Big distributors missing from that list include Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable provider, and Charter Communications, which is in the process of buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House. Comcast, through NBCUniversal, is a part owner of The Weather Co., and The Weather Channel programming is available on Comcast's own Xfinity TV Go authenticated app -- but Comcast customers can't watch the live stream by authenticating at weather.com. The Weather Co.'s owners also include The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. The Weather Channel was dropped this past March from Verizon FiOS TV and its mobile app.  

The programmer, in a release touting the TVE gains, emphasized it was extending its reach including during severe weather. “Streaming the network live will allow our viewers to get critical, even potentially life-saving information anywhere they are, and perhaps most importantly, even if their power goes out,” Dave Shull, president of The Weather Channel Television Group, said in the release. “Millions of people tune to us each day not just for their local forecasts, but for the most comprehensive coverage of severe weather and for the best explanations of the science behind the weather.”

Suddenlink and other authentication affiliates on the list signed distribution renewals with The Weather Channel in recent months, including Time Warner Cable (which shares programming purchases with Bright House Networks) and Cox. And when The Weather Channel signed a renewal agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative, the pact included TV-everywhere rights that small to mid-size cable providers could sign up for. 

Cablevision Systems and CBS said they have agreed to a broad-based, multi-year content carriage agreement they said covers retransmission consent for CBS-owned stations, continued carriage of Showtime, CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Channel and makes Cablevision the first pay-TV provider to announce plans to distribute CBS All Access and Showtime streaming services to broadband (Optimum Online) customers. Financial terms weren't disclosed and the companies said details on pricing and rollout timing of the streaming services would be provided later. Cablevision also was the first pay-TV distributor to bundle in the streaming programmer Hulu and HBO's standalone service HBO Now -- and offering slimmed-down TV packages to reach new subscribers.

“This comprehensive new agreement builds on our strong relationship with CBS and ensures that every Optimum customer gets the highly popular CBS content they want across multiple platforms and screens,” Tom Montemagno, executive vice president of programming at Cablevision, said in a release. “As the first distributor to agree to provide CBS’ new Internet services, Cablevision continues to expand its portfolio of next-generation offerings, connecting customers to the programming they value when and where they want it.”

“We are pleased with this new agreement that meets all of our economic and strategic goals,” Ray Hopkins, president, television networks distribution, at CBS said in the release. “Cablevision has long been a terrific partner and we once again look forward to providing CBS and Showtime programming to the viewers we share for years to come.”

Cablevision operates in the New York metropolitan area and is the seventh-biggest pay-TV provider with about 2.7 million video customers (3.1 million overall). Pictured: CBS's Big Bang Theory.