Altice USA said EVP of government & community affairs and chief diversity officer Lee Schroeder will leave the company in July and that EVP of Communications Lisa Gonzalez Anselmo will assume her community affairs and chief diversity officer roles.

Anselmo will continue to head Altice’s communications efforts and will report to CEO Dexter Goei. The company will look to appoint a new head of Government Affairs.

“Lee has been a tremendous and invaluable asset to the Altice USA team from the beginning, and I thank Lee for her leadership and guidance as the company established itself in the U.S. market,” Goei said in a press release. “I am also grateful that Lee will continue to lead our Government Affairs team over the next few months, and I look forward to working with her to transition these responsibilities to a new leader in the near future.” 

“Lisa has always been passionate about our D&I program and our community affairs work, and her close partnership with Lee in these areas make her the perfect fit to lead these important and growing initiatives,” Goei continued. 

Schroeder joined Altice USA in 2016 from Cablevision Systems, which it acquired that year and where she was SVP of government and public affairs. She joined Cablevision in 1997 and had previously served as a policy consultant at the Washington Utilities & Transportation Commission, an aide to commissioner Jolynn Barry Butler at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, and held the position of acting director of congressional and public relations for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

As EVP of government & community affairs and chief diversity officer, Schroeder was responsible for local, state and federal government relations, including the development of regulatory and legislative strategies for the company’s video, telephony, broadband and wireless services, as well as the political and public affairs for the company. Additionally, she was responsible for the company-wide program to champion diversity and inclusion throughout all areas of the business. 

“My time at Altice USA included some of the most pivotal and fulfilling moments in my career, and I have so much respect for Dexter, the entire leadership team, my direct teams, and all my colleagues at the company, who I have no doubt will continue to do great things for the industry and our customers,” Schroeder said in a press release  “I am confident that we will find an excellent leader for our Government Affairs team and that our Community and D&I groups will continue to thrive under Lisa’s guidance.”

Anselmo also joined Altice USA from Cablevision, where she was VP of corporate communications. Prior to joining Cablevision in 2010, Anselmo was director of public affairs and communications at American Express where she was responsible for internal, external and executive communications activities for the company’s U.S. and Latin America Merchant Services Division and the Risk, Information Management & Banking Group, respectively. She began her career at Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, where she managed media relations efforts related to tobacco litigation and legislation, and the company’s corporate reputation efforts.

“Having a diverse and inclusive culture is of paramount importance for Altice USA, and I am incredibly proud of our D&I program and the work we have done thus far to ensure we are creating a safe and positive environment for all people throughout our company,” Anselmo said in a press release. “Our community programs are also key to helping Altice USA make a difference in the many communities we serve, and I’m excited to help lead both these groups in their next chapter.” ■

A first-generation American whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Scotland after World War II, Jim Blackley joined the U.S. Navy after high school in 1974. A military aptitude test revealed his natural affinity for engineering. He entered a two-year training program in Tennessee, and then went to work on a Grumman stealth plane. After completing his military service and computer programming school, he found his first private-sector technology job and attended night school to earn his degree.

Blackley joined Royal Insurance and changed employers six times over the following years, working with companies in the finance and utility sectors. “There’s a lot of value in being an IT vagabond and chasing the next technology,” he said. Specializing in billing and workforce management systems, he said, “I was preparing for a life in cable that I didn’t know I was preparing for.”

After wandering for nearly 20 years, Blackley found a place to call home in 1996 at Cablevision Systems in Bethpage, New York, where his background was needed. The company was looking into building what it referred to as its own MOAB — Mother of All Billing Systems. Blackley convinced Cablevision management that rather than build a billing system from scratch, it would make more sense to modernize and automate the components already being used.

Chasing technology was no longer necessary at Cablevision. “I didn’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “New jobs and new technologies kept coming to me.”

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He was excited to be part of the company’s transition to all-digital, and in his 16 years at Cablevision, was instrumental in a number of groundbreaking industry deployments including outside-the-home WiFi service and the first downloadable security system for set-top boxes. In cable, Blackley said, he was now part of an industry that was changing the world.

In 2012 Blackley left his position heading Cablevision’s engineering and technology to become Charter’s executive VP, engineering and information technology. Under his leadership, Charter has been at the forefront of introducing innovative video, internet and voice solutions using advanced technology. He led the MSO’s integration of Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and legacy Charter systems into a single, virtual infrastructure and supervised the company’s technological transformation. Blackley was instrumental in the launch of the Spectrum TV App, Spectrum Mobile, the cloud-based Spectrum Guide, Spectrum Internet Gig, and Charter’s move to an all-digital network.

Blackley’s work on downloadable conditional access software enabled the development of Charter’s WorldBox. He was honored with the Vanguard Award for Science and Technology in 2015 by NCTA–The Internet and Television Association.

Blackley spends his leisure time golfing, reading and doing “anything on water, either on boats, paddleboards, surfboards or in scuba gear.” As he looks toward retirement, he advises those entering the industry to keep their eye on the horizon. “Technology is coming fast and furious, and we’re uniquely positioned to provide the technology platform that will power this country for a very long time,” he said.

Memorial services have been set for Wilt Hildenbrand, the cable industry pioneer and long-time Cablevision Systems Corp. engineering executive who died on Wednesday, March 21 at the age of 70.

The memorial service is scheduled for Wednesday, March 28 at 11 a.m. ET at The Branch Funeral Home, at 190 East Main Street, Smithtown, N.Y. The Branch Funeral Home has also set up a way for individuals to leave condolences for the family.

A First Visitation is scheduled at The Branch Funeral Home on Tuesday, March 27 from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, and a second one, also that day, from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET.

Wilt Hildenbrand, a long-time exec of Cablevision Systems Corp. and cable engineering pioneer and industry legend, has died of a heart attack at the age of 70, multiple people in the industry have confirmed.

During his cable career, Hildenbrand spent about three decades with Cablevision, starting there as chief engineer of the company's Long Island system in 1976, and rose to become its top technology and engineering executive, including many years as Cablevision's executive vice president of technology and engineering. He also served as director of engineering for Rainbow Media Holdings from 1979 to 1986, where he designed and built a microwave network that cablecast baseball games and later became the SportsChannel.

Hildenbrand, who was retired and a mentor to many, also served as a senior advisor at Cablevision, focused on customer care, technology and networks, prior to Cablevision’s acquisition by Altice in 2016.

RELATED: Dolan Elevates Close Aides at Cablevision

Hildenbrand, known as a straight-shooter and for his penchant for salty language, led Cablevision’s technology and engineering strategy over the decades, enabling the operator to go in ambitious directions that did not always match the path being taken by many of Cablevision’s U.S. peers.

Under his leadership, for example, Cablevision made the move to digital video services without being forced into what was then a video conditional access/security duopoly that was dominated by General Instrument/Motorola and Scientific Atlanta. Cablevision, instead, carved out a path with NDS, using Simulcrypt, that provided Cablevision with more flexibility that many of its U.S. MSO peers. Cablevision eventually did a big deal that included S-A set-tops and headends, but was able to keep the NDS conditional access element (initially by using a Smartcard), a decision that later paved the way toward Cablevision’s rollout of a downloadable security platform.

RELATED: Cablevision's Set-Top Moves Keep Open-System Dream Alive

Cablevision also went against the grain in 2002 via an eye-opening, $1 billion set-top deal with Sony and, in another controversial move, even left CableLabs for a brief period. It was also an early adopter of a cloud-based system from ActiveVideo (now a joint venture of Charter Communications and Arris) that delivered interactive applications to older, non-IP-speaking set-top boxes.

RELATED: The World According to Wilt

Hildenbrand was also at the technology helm at Cablevision as it faced off against Verizon Fios and developed new, faster broadband offerings to stave off the new fiber-fueled threat. Cablevision, for example, was a first mover among U.S. MSOs to tee up a 100 Mbps residential broadband offering.

RELATED: Cablevision First to Hit 100 Mbps

Among his industry accolades, Hildenbrand in 2005 was recognized with a Vanguard Award in the area of Science & Technology. He was also honored as CED’s “Man of the Year” in its January 1996 issue, which detailed some of Cablevision's early work in new areas such as "enhanced" pay-per-view and video-on-demand. 

"We're small, we don't have that much staff, and we're busy," he told CED then, unapologetic that Cablevision’s technology decisions tended to zig when the rest of the MSOs were zagging. "This is a high-task company, so we don't spend a lot of time pontificating, we just go do."

He didn't think of himself as a contrarian, but didn't mind that he (and Cablevision) sometimes thought out of the box. "I cherish that. I really do," he said. "I think differently about a lot of things. I'm just weird. I accept that."

Long before the days OTT video, Hildenbrand knew that the only constant for the cable industry was change and that operators would need to continually evolve.

“There’s no one piece to this constantly changing puzzle,” he told Multichannel News in this Q&A from 2005. “For me, the key to surviving this is you have to pull back away from it a little bit and look at the whole mosaic and see what direction it points to. If you look at any one of the things too closely, they look like ends to themselves.”

Even then, he realized that the future of the set-top box would include the integration of broadband connectivity – for content and interactive apps -- as cable modem services were still in their nascent stages.

“What if the set-top box also could leverage the high-bandwidth platform? What could I do to enhance the set-top applications?” he asked.

He also understood the importance of intuitive, next-gen set-top box navigation as VOD started to become a key part of cable’s video arsenal.

“I could put 10,000 video-on-demand movies on the system,” he said. “The challenge is how do I get you to know they are there? And how do I get you to navigate through them? Without figuring out the answer to navigation, all the other things we’re working on are trite.”

In addition to being an important, influential figure in his own industry, Cablevision customers also appreciated Hildenbrand’s candor and the direct attention he provided, often engaging with them on an individual basis. Several customers, including those who recall personal interactions with Hildenbrand, have been expressing their gratitude and sharing stories on the DSL Reports message board following word of his passing.

Multichannel News will share more details, including information about memorial services for Hildenbrand, as they become available.

Former Cablevision Systems executives Kristin and James Dolan are dipping their toes into venture capital waters, forming an investment fund aimed at providing capital to data, analytics and technology-based businesses in the media space.

Dolan Family Ventures is headed up by former Cablevision chief operating officer Kristin Dolan and her husband, former Cablevision CEO James Dolan.

Kristin Dolan, who has a deep background in the technology industry – she had served in several tech roles at Cablevision during her tenure with the company – is managing partner and founder of DFV. James Dolan will serve as an investor and strategic advisor to DFV. PJT Partners, an independent advisory-focused investment banking firm, provided advice, consulting and support services on the formation, financial and operation structure of DFV.

As COO of Cablevision, Kristin Dolan led all aspects of the company’s cable operations, overseeing thousands of employees, including the company’s entire customer and field service workforce. Among her other responsibilities, she oversaw Cablevision Media Sales, the company’s advertising sales division, which was widely recognized for its data strategy.

James Dolan, as CEO of Cablevision has been a technology buff over the years – he helped start Cablevision Media Sales and the company was one of the pioneers in high-speed data service and advanced advertising. Cablevision sold out to Altice USA in June in a deal valued at $17.8 billion.

In an interview, Kristin Dolan said that while tech start-ups can navigate the bits and bytes associated with the technical side of the business, translating that to the television industry is more difficult.

“I’m constantly amazed by how new media and digital companies for whatever reason struggle to get TV,” Kristin Dolan said in an interview. “Having worked on both sides of the table, to look at some of these investment opportunities and imagine what they can become relative to the businesses we’ve owned in the past and are still involved with, is pretty fun.” 

She added that DFV will seek out companies that are in various stages of development, ranging from start-ups to more established entities. She declined to reveal the average size of investment or the amount of capital available to be invested, but added that DFV is casting a wide net.

“Anything that we choose to pursue will be well funded,” Dolan said.

Switched digital video is not a new technology, but Adara Technologies, a supplier that’s been focused on independent cable operators, has added a new wrinkle that could help those providers migrate to IP video without breaking the bank.

MSOs such as Cablevision Systems (now part of Altice), Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications have used SDV for years to conserve bandwidth by putting lesser-viewed networks on “switched” tiers. The idea is to send a multicast stream of a specific channel or network only when a viewer in a given service group selects it for viewing. Once that stream is nailed up, others in the service group can tune into that stream. The multicast stream is then torn down when no one is watching that channel.

But Adara has taken SDV to the next level, enabling cable operators to deliver their full video service — not just the long-tail stuff — in a switched environment. The company recently carved out that switched-IP solution as a standalone product.

Adara has plenty of company in that arena, though. Evolution Digital, for example, is pitching National Television Cooperative members and other independent operators on IP video transition strategies that center on its new eVUE-TV platform.

Adara has expanded beyond its early reliance on a Cisco-centric offering to support multiple vendor platforms and set-tops, including products from equipment makers such as Arris and TiVo.

“We changed the purpose of switched-IP video,” Joseph Nucara, Adara’s CEO and cofounder, said. “It’s not just for long-tail [content] anymore.”

Under Adara’s approach, an operator can set aside channels that are typically used for broadcast TV to the new switched-IP video QAMs. Legacy set-tops, meanwhile, are preserved by embedding software from Adara that allows those devices to support the new IP-based multicast video streams.

Because new boxes aren’t required, “It’s extremely non-intrusive to the subscribers,” Nucara said.

He estimates that deployment requires freeing up eight to 24 6MHz-wide channels, depending on how much headroom the MSO needs to accommodate capacity demands.

“It’s like bandwidth on demand,” Nucara said.

Adara’s system monitors usage in real-time, and is designed to flag the operator when available bandwidth usage for the IP switched offering nears the 80% mark on a consistent basis. That, Nucara said, tells the operator when it needs to add capacity to those service groups or subdivide them.

Because that spectrum is now used to deliver IP-style “switched” technology, operators can support “unlimited content” in a smaller swatch of bandwidth, and can use reclaimed bandwidth for other needs, such as DOC SIS 3.1, Nucara said.

He said the same process could also support 4K video services, as MSOs look to take advantage of the new pixel- packed format.

Adara hasn’t broken down the exact costs of its system, but Nucara said a typical deployment requires about half a rack of equipment in the MSO’s headend, plus the new SDV components.

While Adara doesn’t preclude Tier 1s from using the platform, it has been taking hold mostly with small- and mid-tier operators, including Cass Cable of Central Illinois; CCAP in Quebec City and Cable Cable of Ontario, Canada; Cablevision in Warwick, N.Y.; Darien Telephone in Georgia; and Fayetteville Public Utility in Tennessee.

Nucara estimates that more than 75 operators are using Adara’s technology. He also thinks that the switched IP video component will draw the attention of larger, Tier 2 MSOs.

Last Tuesday (June 22), the Cablevision signs were covered or removed. Those removed were replaced with signs of the new ownership. After decades, Cablevision became Altice USA.

Cablevision Systems, whose brand once seemed to be everywhere, is now beginning to disappear. I noticed the changing of the signs, and that digital advertising proclaimed that “Cablevision is now Altice USA.” It’s a subtle change. My neighbors in Northport, N.Y., at first didn’t realize that Cablevision had new owners, or that the name had changed. Once I mentioned this, they remarked that they could never remember a time when there was no Cablevision. No Cablevision?

What seemed a simple rebranding procedure had the biggest impact on those of us who had once worked for this company. The ranks of “former” Cablevision employees grew on Tuesday, when many became new members of Altice USA, and simultaneously became Cablevision “formers.” From now on, there would no longer be any Cablevision employee. I would not have foreseen this.

In a Facebook post, one of my fellow “former” colleagues likened this change of signage to the historic lowering of the Union Jack over Hong Kong when the British colony became part of modern-day China. This prompted others on Facebook to share how sad it was to see the brand disappear.

There have been many similar examples in the cable TV industry. Yet, I believe that Cablevision’s situation is unique in its impact, especially among those of us who spent some, or all, of our career there.

Cablevision was more than a company. It was a place of personal growth, professional development, a lot of fun, and a contribution to the community. Its employees, in tandem with the company’s outreach service programs, made a remarkable impact in the communities they served, especially on Long Island, where the company was headquartered.

Other “formers” commented on Facebook that Cablevision is where we “got our start” in business, or “grew up” or developed “lifelong friendships and business relationships.” Many of those who “got their start” at the company have since gone on to have successful careers and become leaders in the industry.

My own pride in being a Cablevision “former” stems from the kind of company it was. It was a team of dedicated, loyal co-workers and managers, who operated more as a family, led by the gracious encouragement of the Dolans. This team did great things together, had great fun together and built a great legacy together.

I know all the “formers” wish Altice USA the best in the future, as we also look back fondly on what was the great Cablevision era. Goodbye Cablevision. And, thank you.

Joe Schramm, managing partner of New York-based Schramm Marketing Group, was a Cablevision employee from 1979 to 1988.

Soon after closing its acquisition of Cablevision Systems, Altice has launched its U.S.-focused Web site, including a page dedicated to its new leadership team for the region, as well as key stats for Altice USA (i.e. more than 18,000 U.S. employees, 4.3 million residential customers, and 350,000 business customers)

And Altice USA has posted a corporate video. Take a look:

“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,” Altice USA chairman and CEO Dexter Goei told Multichannel News.

Lightpath, a unit of Cablevision Systems focused on Ethernet-based business services, said it has established direct international access to its New York metro area fiber network.

Through a connection to New Jersey Fiber Exchange’s neutral cable landing station meet-me room in Wall, N.J.,  Lightpath’s enterprise customers can now tap into high bandwidth services for connectivity to key international destinations, the company said.

The New Jersey Fiber Exchange 64,800-square-foot facility is set to go live in September 2016, at which time Lightpath’s services will be available via the new connection.

As its customers increasingly seek the fast connectivity to key international hotspots, Lightpath said the new connection meets this need by bypassing carrier hotels and legacy backhaul solutions.

“As our customers’ businesses expand globally, they want to continue to use the Lightpath service that they know and trust,” Dave Pistacchio, president of Lightpath, said in a statement. . “Following our connection to the NJFX facility, we’re able to expand the universe of customers we can serve, helping them develop secure, reliable and high-speed connectivity to key media and financial destinations throughout the world.”

Lightpath’s fiber network in the NY metro covers more than 7,000 lit locations in the region.  Lightpath parent Cablevision is in the process of being acquired by Altice.

Almost a year after the deal was announced, Cablevision Systems said it has begun to distribute Hulu, the over-the-top subscription-based video service, to the MSO's Optimum TV customers. 

Under the integration, subs can access Hulu via the Optimum TV interactive program guide on channel 605 via "all current-generation set top boxes." 

Cablevision is distributing Hulu to the set-top using ActiveVideo’s CloudTV StreamCast, which that converts user interfaces, video and other content from Web formats to formats that can be rendered and displayed by non-IP or incompatible IP set-tops. UPC Hungary, for example, is also using StreamCast to offer YouTube and other apps on set-tops. ActiveVideo is now part of a joint venture of Arris and Charter Communications formed last year.

Cablevision subs with Hulu subscriptions can access it on the set-top using their credentials. Those without a Hulu account are in line with a free trial and can also subscribe to it via channel 605 or by logging in to optimum.net (a Web page dedicated to the offering is here). Hulu offers two services – one with limited commercials for $7.99 per month and a commercial-free option for $11.99 per month, but the Cablevision-Hulu site currently references only the $7.99 tier. 

Financial terms of the Cablevision-Hulu distribution deal were not announced, including how much of a cut Cablevision will get from Hulu subscriptions it helps to generate. 

The Hulu addition comes amid Cablevision's distribution deal for HBO Now, the premium programmer’s $14.99 per month standalone OTT service that launched a year ago today, and the MSO’s  introduction of service packages tailored for cord-cutters.

Cablevision is the first MVPD to integrate Hulu at the set-top level. Hulu has also announced distribution deals with several other MVPDs and ISPs,  including AT&T, Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Mediacom Communications, Midcontinent Communications and WideOpenWest (WOW!).

“As Hulu’s first cable distribution partner, Optimum is pleased to also be the first provider to offer the unique ability to access Hulu directly from the program guide,” said Tom Montemagno, Cablevision’s executive vice president of programming, in a statement. “This new delivery of Hulu, facilitated by ActiveVideo cloud technology, provides Optimum customers with a truly unparalleled experience when accessing their cable and Hulu subscriptions from their television.”

“We are thrilled that Optimum customers can now access Hulu’s content library without having to leave their cable TV environment” addedTim Connolly, SVP of distribution and strategic partnerships at Hulu. “We are pleased to partner with Cablevision and ActiveVideo to bring Hulu’s breadth and depth of content and experience to Optimum TV customers.” 

“Today’s announcement of the integration of Hulu into the Cablevision Optimum TV experience shows how both online services and pay-TV are continuing to sharpen the user experience to provide the most inviting environment available,” ActiveVideo’s chief marketing officer Murali Nemani explained in this blog post that provides a bit more background on the integration, its use of cloud virtualization, and how it bridges Hulu’s digital rights management format and Cablevision’s conditional access system.

Get more of MCN's Advanced Advertising coverage.

Cablevision Media Sales (CMS), the ad-sales arm of Cablevision Systems, has introduced a "political insights tool" to help candidates' campaigns and issue-based advertisers use de-identified set-top box tuning data to target their messages more effectively. Cablevision said the tool is already being used in the cable provider's New York-area market, providing such insights as:

• Caucasian Democrats are more likely to watch Fox Business News and Fox News than the average household; 
• Republican households in Long Island are more likely to tune to sports networks as opposed to Republican households in New York City which are more likely to tune to news and business networks.

CMS senior vice president of Advanced Advertising and Data Analytics Jennifer Koester, who announced the new product during a panel session at the Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable Advanced Advertising summit, said in a statement: “With data playing such an integral role in today’s political campaigns, we continue to evolve our capabilities to deliver insights that transform how advertisers reach audiences. The CMS Political Insights Tool unleashes new possibilities for media planners that want to power the most effective campaigns for driving voter action.” She said Cablevision has done well with political ads in past election cycles and is hopeful about this one, too.

Cathie Herrick, president and founder of Buying Time, LLC, has been trying out the new tool. “Cablevision’s long-time pioneering efforts in the data-driven advertising space uniquely position the company to capitalize on this fast-paced political climate as it delivers crucial advanced audience insights and targeting capabilities,” she said in the CMS statement. “With the CMS Political Insights tool, we can empower clients to run more efficient campaigns with greater precision and improved effectiveness. This tool provides the ability to make well-researched decisions in the quick turnaround atmosphere in which political/issue advocacy campaigns operate within executing same day buys.” 

The CMS Political Insights Tool can be accessed via an app that refreshes monthly, Cablevision said. 

Get more of MCN's Advanced Advertising coverage.

Starz is gearing up a big rebranding of its Encore service that it hopes will drive more subscribers to the premium channel.

The April 5 rebranding of Encore’s services to “Starz Encore” channels will include running past episodes of Starz original series on Starz Encore outlets, timed before new seasons of the shows return to Starz.

Currently Starz has about 23.6 million subscribers, while the lower-priced Encore services have about 32.2 million. Starz would like to narrow that gap.

In January, Starz tested the upsell potential with Cablevision Systems and other operators by airing seasons one and two of pirate series Black Sails on Encore ahead of the third-season launch on Starz. The results, executives said, were encouraging: Of 700,000 Encore (non-Starz) households that sampled Black Sails, more than 2% later added Starz to their subscriptions and went on to watch new episodes on Starz.

“As you look at this business, it’s very competitive, there are a lot of choices, and brands become more and more important,” Starz president of global marketing and product planning Jeff Hirsch said. “We have a great Starz brand that is continuing to grow. Encore has 9 million more Encore customers than Starz customers based on how some of our distributors sell us. How do we strengthen both products by putting them together? The idea is to launch a master brand where we create a windowing strategy across both Starz and Starz Encore. What we hope is, it will strengthen them and simplify them.”

Large distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable have sold the services separately in the past, Hirsch and other executives said.

“What we hope [the rebranding] will do and what we think it will do is strengthen the product for our distributors,” Hirsch said. “By simplifying the portfolio under a master brand, by co-mingling on-demand together and windowing back and forth, we believe this will give a better upsell and revenue opportunity for our distributors’ partners that sell the product separately.”

There are six Starz channels (five are themed, such as Starz in Black) and eight Encore networks (including themed versions such as Encore Westerns).

Starz is backing the eff ort with a marketing campaign using the tagline “Starz: Obsessable,” highlighting original series and hit movies.

Alison Hoffman, Starz executive vice president of marketing, said a study by Hollywood marketing firm Troika found that 85% of adults consider themselves fans of something, and 70% of that group identify themselves as fans of a TV series.

“That was the nugget,” Hoffman said, saying Starz originals like Outlander and Ash vs Evil Dead have passionate fan bases, not unlike fans of the Avengers and Star Wars movies.

Starz has the rights to Marvel’s Avengers movie franchise — it is currently airing Avengers: Age of Ultron — and will have the premium rights to Star Wars: The Force Awakens later this year.

Hoffman said the “Starz: Obsessable” campaign, and a subsequent social-media effort, should further drive new subscribers to the channel.

Dutch telecom operator Altice has told state regulators that it was willing to make some concessions in its quest for approval of its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems, but drew the line at conditions that would return half of the expected cost savings to customers and limit its ability to make changes in its workforce.

The New York Public Service Commission has been critical of the Altice deal. Commission staffers have said in filings that hitting aggressive cost-savings targets could force Altice to drastically reduce customer service and implement massive job cuts. The staff has recommended the deal be rejected unless Altice adheres to a laundry list of conditions.

Altice is confident it will receive the necessary approvals. And with the Federal Communications Commission winding down its review of Charter Communications’s $78.7 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, the agency will now likely be able to focus more on this smaller deal for the New York City area-centric Cablevision.

EYES Q2 CLOSE

Altice CEO Dexter Goei — who is also slated to head up the U.S. cable operations — said he was confident the deal for Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision would close by the end of the second quarter. Goei, during a financial-results call, said Altice expects decisions from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities by the beginning of April, the New York PSC by the end of April and from the FCC in May.

In a March 8 filing with the New York PSC, Altice agreed to offer 30 Megabit-per-second high-speed Internet service to low-income families in the New York area for as low as $14.99 per month.

In a statement, Altice said the filing shows the Cablevision merger “will provide concrete benefits to consumers in the nation’s most competitive market. Altice will make substantial investments to further enhance competition and improve the customer experience, as outlined in the filing. The regulatory approval process is proceeding and we look forward to it continuing in a fair and open manner.

Altice has said it expects to extract at least $900 million in cost savings from Cablevision over the first few years after the deal closes, largely through removing redundancies and operating the network more efficiently.

At an industry conference shortly after the deal was announced in September, Altice chairman Patrick Drahi said better deals with vendors and removing amplifiers from the network would go a long way toward achieving that goal.

In the most recent PSC filing, Altice didn’t offer many specifics about efficiency plans, but did reveal it has earmarked several network improvements — including introducing an all-in-one home center allowing subscribers to integrate pay TV video, over-the-top video, online storage, home media and WiFi- and Ethernet-connected devices into a single hub.

Altice also plans to introduce a new customer interface, similar to one it has developed and deployed in other markets, to offer better navigation and recommendation tools.

PLANS TO INVEST

Because of those investments, Altice recommended passing along about 15% of its overall costs savings to customers — reinvesting the rest in operational improvements — and not the 50% recommended by New York regulators.

Altice balked at the N.Y. PSC staff suggestion to hold off on reducing “customer-facing” jobs for five years after the deal closes, saying improvements in technology and efficiency have already reduced the need for some of those positions.

“[I]mproved service quality will organically reduce the need for customer-facing jobs by reducing key measures of customer dissatisfaction: unnecessary or repeat truck rolls and home visits, repeat calls for technical and service support, and overall support demands to call centers and field service technicians,” Altice told the agency.

Altice said it currently invests a larger percentage of total revenue into operations than Cablevision does. It also said it would not cut back on spending on customer-facing improvements because that would potentially degrade its $17.7-billion investment.

Most analysts believe the deal will win approval with conditions, and point to Cablevision’s stock price since the deal was announced — at $33.10 per share on March 16, the stock is just 5% below Altice’s offering price of $34.90 per share.

“My guess is they make some agreement around investment, maintain the Bethpage headquarters and low cost broadband and they get this done,” Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said.

SIDEBAR: Altice in the Family

Altice mapped out a list of the benefits of its pending merger with Cablevision Systems:

• Offer a 30 Mbps broadband service to qualifying low-income homes in footprint for $14.99 per month, and upgrade the overall network to deliver speeds of up to 300 Mbps;

• Work in partnership with community groups and public authorities to expand broadband into low-income and underserved areas;

• Agree to base its U.S. headquarters in New York City;

• Introduce an all-in-one home center, enabling customers to integrate video, OTT video, online storage, home media and WiFi and Ethernet connected devices in a single hub

• Launch an improved customer interface with better navigation and recommendation tools.

SOURCE: Altice

Less than three months after closing its $9.1 billion purchase of Suddenlink Communications, Altice N.V. has recommitted to the mid-sized operator’s ultra-high speed data upgrade – dubbed Operation GigaSpeed – promising that customers in at least 250 communities will have access to 1 Gigabit-per-second service by year end.

Suddenlink first announced Operation GigaSpeed in 2014, promising to invest about $250 million to bring 1-Gbps service to 90% of its footprint by 2017. Deployments began in 2015.

The European telecom giant – which also is in the middle of the approval process for its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision Systems – is reaffirming its commitment to the Suddenlink program, Altice USA co-president and chief financial officer Charles Stewart said.

“It [Operation GigaSpeed] fits perfectly with Altice’s ownership philosophy,” Stewart said in an interview. “Investment in infrastructure is at the heart of our business model.”

Stewart said Altice has earmarked more than $4 billion for infrastructure investment throughout its worldwide footprint, including Suddenlink.

Operation GigaSpeed was a pet project of Suddenlink founder and former CEO Jerry Kent – who is remaining an adviser to Altice – to bring big-city data speeds to rural America. Altice said that as the 1-Gbps service is being made available, more than 70% of Suddenlink Internet customers should have access to speeds of 400 Megabits per second or greater. Additional GigaSpeed deployments are expected in 2017, rounding out the nearly quarter-billion dollar total investment supporting the program.

The focus on speed could make its way to Altice’s other U.S. outlet – Cablevision Systems – if that deal is approved by regulators. Altice has said it expects to close the deal in the first half of the year, and is confident it will make that deadline.

“For Cablevision, it’s too early to be precise,” Stewart said. “But I think it’s reasonable to expect that we are going to focus on network  investment and speed.”

Part of the controversy around the Cablevision deal has been Altice’s claim it could cut $900 million in costs out of the business over time. While an increased network  investment would seem to contradict that goal, Stewart said they go hand in hand, adding that any reduction in costs for repairs and maintenance would result in increased efficiencies could mean more money for network improvements.

The need for speed is evident in its Suddenlink markets. While Altice rolls out GigaSpeed, it also plans to upgrade other services, resulting in standard offerings of up to 50, 100, and 200 Mbps, plus 1 Gigabit. Local business owners are also provided access to the Gigabit service, along with customized, multi-Gigabit services that the company has offered for years.

Altice also has plans to introduce a home gateway device in Suddenlink markets that enables all services -- TV, Internet, and phone. No timeframe has been set as to when that product will see daylight.

Cablevision Systems said it is the first MVPD to provide authenticated access to CBS’s live streaming feed, so long as they’re accessing it in a market that is served by a CBS owned and operated station.

Cablevision subs can use their TVE credentials to view a live stream of CBS when in a market served by a CBS O&O, which today includes New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

Cablevision’s authenticated access to the CBS live stream comes on the heels of a multi-year content carriage deal announced last August that covered retransmission consent for CBS-owned stations, continued carriage of Showtime, CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Channel. It also made  Cablevision the first pay TV provider to announce plans to distribute CBS All Access and Showtime streaming services to broadband (Optimum Online) customers.

CBS noted on its Web site that it expects to add more providers to the streaming mix soon. 

Prior to the Cablevision agreement, CBS had limited access to those live streams to subscribers of the broadcaster’s subscription service, CBS All Access. 

“We are pleased to expand on our already robust relationship with CBS by becoming the first provider to launch the network’s new live streaming feature,” said Tom Montemagno, executive vice president, programming, Cablevision, in a statement. “Cablevision now holds distribution rights for all of CBS’s streaming platforms, demonstrating our commitment to providing customers with the ability to watch the high-quality content they desire on their own terms.”

“We applaud Cablevision in recognizing the value of delivering CBS programming to its subscribers outside the home, so they can watch CBS whenever they want on whichever device they choose,” added Ray Hopkins, president, television networks distribution at CBS Corp. 

Patrick Donoghue, an award-winning cable and programming exec vet who last headed up user experience efforts for Cablevision Systems’s Optimum product line, has left the operator to start up a digital-focused consulting company called Next Stop Willoughby Inc.

The aim of Donoghue’s new company is to consult with the cable and entertainment on digital media strategies and new product development.

When contacted about the new endeavor, Donoghue said via email: “I am focused on merging art and technology to create emotional connections with the user and diving deep into the emerging space between storytelling, video games, VR and filmmaking to create new and innovative experiences. After spending my early years as a cinematographer/editor and helping the industry establish the web and interactive television, I am ready to combine that knowledge to invent a new type of digital entertainment.”

As for that company name, it’s seemingly a playful homage to an episode from The Twilight Zone (“A Stop at Willoughby,” and apparently one of Rod Serling’s favorites) about Gart Williams, an “ad agency exec” who’s in a “desperate search for survival” (watch the whole episode on Vimeo).

Following a stint at Time Warner Cable to head up that MSO’s interactive television strategy,  Donoghue returned to Cablevision in 2008 as senior vice president of strategic product development, and most recently served as SVP, user experience and emerging products.  Cablevision, which is in the process of being acquired by Altice Group, has not announced who is succeeding Donoghue, who also served in exec roles at  Showtime, Viacom and Extend Media, and, in the late 1990s, cofounded ITV specialist Big Band Media. 

After a year dominated by news of a rise in pay TV subscriber losses, the emergence of “skinny bundles,” falling ratings for programmers and the continued consolidation of cable distribution, several top analysts said they believe 2016 will be a year when the media business begins to sort out its top priorities.

Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan believes ratings measurement — especially Nielsen’s release of its Total Audience Measurement product — could be a game-changer by offering accurate viewer data across content platforms. Falling ratings have hammered networks across the board as younger viewers move to mobile devices to watch content. With the ability to track those viewers, Total Audience Measurement could change that.

“Maybe we’ll see ratings be flat to up in 2016,” Eagan said. “We’ll know some of that when they roll this [Total Audience Measurement] out and when we see negotiations start in earnest for the upfronts in April. We may actually see a slowing down of the ratings declines, which have been occurring for the past three or four years.”

Being able to accurately measure viewing across all platforms and devices will be the final nail in the coffin for the old media business model, Eagan added.

“The old media model on the content side, which was roll out as many cable networks as you can because you’re going to get affiliate fees, is no longer the model,” he said. “You don’t want to have any weak links in your media stable.”

THE DISTRIBUTION DEALS

Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said obtaining regulatory approval for the biggest merger deals of the year — Charter- Time Warner Cable and Altice’s purchases of Cablevision Systems and Suddenlink Communications — will be the top stories of 2016, but for a different reason than most suspect.

Wlodarczak said the industry will watch the Altice deals closely on the cost synergy fronts. Altice has said it believes it can squeeze $900 million in costs from Cablevision and another $215 million from Suddenlink, figures some analysts have said are too high. (The Federal Communications Commission gave the nod to Altice’s Suddenlink acquisition on Dec. 18.)

“If they do have the magic cost-cutting bullet, then others in the industry can implement the same strategies to boost EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] margins,” Wlodarczak said.

As far as Charter, Wlodarczak said cable operators will be watching closely to see if bringing CEO Tom Rutledge’s business strategies to the combined entity will eventually drive low double-digit cash flow growth in 2017 and beyond.

The emergence of skinny bundles — smaller programming packages for cheaper prices — also made a big splash this year, with Verizon Communications’s FiOS TV Custom TV package, and are expected to continue to be news in 2016. FiOS Custom TV includes 45 channels — minus ESPN — for $54.95 per month initially, stepping up to $84.95 per month after a year. Subscribers also can choose from other programming packages, grouped by genres like Lifestyle, Entertainment, News & Info, Pop Culture, Kids and Sports, for an additional $10 per month.

Skinny bundles caused a bit of a stir at first — ESPN sued Verizon over dropping it from the Custom TV lineup — but haven’t really taken hold yet, mainly because existing programming contracts make it hard for distributors to break up the existing “fat” bundle. And several cable CEOs have said customers may come in inquiring about skinny packages, but the vast majority end up taking the full product suite.

Still, some over-the-top services like Dish Network’s Sling TV, which offers about 23 networks (including ESPN) for $20 per month in a single stream, have claimed success. Others, like Verizon’s go90 mobile-only service and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, are still searching for a market.

Eagan said skinny bundles could end up diluting demand for OTT.

CORD-CUTTING, SHAVING

Subscribing to skinny bundles “is the same as cord-shaving, but it’s voluntary cord-shaving,” Eagan said. “I think it will help offset the popularity of some of the OTT bundles.”

The emergence of more OTT players coincided with an acceleration in cord-cutting in Q2 and Q3, but cable operators were largely spared, due mainly to cable’s dominance in the broadband arena.

The rollout of DOCSIS 3.1, expected in the second half of the year and offering cable customers 1 Gigabit-per-second to 10-Gbps speeds, should help solidify that dominance, Wlodarczak added.

With cord-cutting not as big a concern for cable operators, MoffettNathanson principal and senior media analyst Craig Moffett said he believes the biggest overhang on the stocks will be the fear that Comcast or other operators will participate in the upcoming federal spectrum auctions as buyers.

“In the past, dalliances with wireless have been a significant negative for the stock, and we suspect some of the recent weakness in the shares owes to fears of reckless spending on either spectrum itself or on a network thereafter,” Moffett wrote, adding that it “is honestly not something we worry too much about.”

European telecom giant Altice’s plans to squeeze $900 million in cost synergies from Cablevision Systems hit a bit of a speed bump after the U.S. cable operator released a financial forecast that calls for a nearly 4% rise in capital expenditures over the next four years.

Cablevision filed a proxy statement on Nov. 16 concerning its Altice merger, outlining revenue and cost projections for the next five years.

According to the proxy, Cablevision expects revenue to rise 6.4% between 2016 and 2019, and adjusted operating cash flow (AOCF) to grow 4.4% during that period, lower than some analyst expectations.

But the biggest surprise was on the capital expenditure line. Cablevision estimated capex would increase 3.6% from $908 million in 2016 to $941 million in 2019, which some analysts said could put a damper on Altice’s cost-cutting plans.

“This higher capex outlook is noteworthy given Altice’s expectation for $900 million in targeted cost savings ($150 million in capex), which we believe may hamper investment and impair long-term revenue growth,” Morgan Stanley media analyst Ben Swinburne said in a research note.

Altice agreed in September to purchase Cablevision in a cash and assumed debt transaction valued at $17.7 billion, or about $34.90 per share.

Key to the deal is Altice’s ability to extract cost savings from Cablevision, something it had done with great success in deals with French wireless company SFR and cable operator Numericable. But analysts and investors have been skeptical about synergies Altice chairman Patrick Drahi has said he could achieve.

Altice’s $900 million target is $100 million more than Charter Communications believes it can extract from Time Warner Cable, a company three times Cablevision’s size. Other analysts have said such extensive cost cuts would decimate customer service and plant maintenance.

For his part, Drahi has said he could achieve those savings by streamlining Cablevision’s network and eliminating high salaries. But, according to the proxy statement, several top executives stand to reap huge paydays if they don’t stay with the company after the deal.

And the decision by Cablevision’s controlling stockholders — the Dolan family, led by chairman and founder Charles and his son, CEO James — to receive cash instead of Altice stock has proven to be very smart. Altice stock, at 12.94 euros on Nov. 24 is down about 60% from its midsummer highs of about 33.16 euros. With more than 65.5 million Cablevision shares, the Dolans stand to reap about $2.3 billion.

At a dinner last week celebrating his 20th year as host of HBO’s sports magazine show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, veteran TV journalist Bryant Gumbel said the show’s mission to cover the issues, personalities and controversies of the sports world hasn’t changed since its launch in 1995.

And, in Gumbel’s view, that keeps his Peabody Award-winning show unique.

More than 220 episodes and 28 Sports Emmys later, Gumbel said that not enough of today’s sports media outlets are as committed to delivering hard-hitting, investigative news stories as Real Sports is.

“I still think what passes for sports coverage is sadly sycophantic,” the 67-year-old Gumbel told The Wire during the dinner at New York’s Aureole restaurant. “Obviously there are exceptions — I’d like to see more exceptions — but the money has become so big now and there’s so much competition that it’s di_ cult for a show that’s interested in pursuing truth to find subjects to do it with, because they all have their own networks.”

Gumbel called the athlete-supported The Player’s Tribune website a shining example of the new sports outlets that blur the lines of news, social media and public relations. On that site, athletes post their own stories and videos in an effort to talk directly to the fans.

“This is what it’s come to?” Gumbel said. “That’s where you go to tell your story? And we’re supposed to believe that? The version [of a story] you want is the one we’re supposed to buy — no questions asked? That’s a bad world.”

As to whether today’s sports media has tainted the viewer’s perception of sports news, Gumbel said he’s not sure the modern viewer “can discern the difference between a well-researched, objective, critical piece and an infomercial. My suspicion is not, and that’s kind of sad.”

Gumbel’s show returns with a new episode on Sunday, Dec. 22.

— R. Thomas Umstead

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Altice Ads Headed to U.S. Airwaves

When European telecom giant Altice gains a foothold in the United States — after completing the purchase of Suddenlink Communications, expected to happen before year’s end — U.S. audiences will start seeing the French telecommunications firm’s ads with its new spokesman, Portugese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is one of the world’s bestknown athletes. At the London premiere of his self-produced year-in-the-life film, Ronaldo, he was given a plaque commemorating his stature as the “most liked” person on Facebook.

Altice said the Real Madrid star’s “speed and power complement the international development of the Altice Group’s core businesses: high-speed broadband (fiber and 4G), content and media.”

Altice ads featuring “CR7” will soon be seen in Portugal, France and Israel, and adapted later in Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Dominican Republic and the United States. Altice also is buying Cablevision Systems, for $17.7 billion, but that deal is expected to close after the Suddenlink merger.

— Mike Farrell

Cord–cutters, shmord-cutters.

The notion that cord-cutting millennials will erode the cable business into oblivion is being turned on its ear, as cable operators across the board are reporting some of their best video-customer results in nearly a decade and their younger, cooler satellite and telco TV counterparts have encountered mounting losses.

The trend continued last week as Cablevision Systems reported better-than-expected results in third-quarter 2015. Cablevision — which has been a victim of its own success and stepped up promotional efforts by telco Verizon Communications — reported a loss of 33,000 basic-video customers, a 10.5% improvement over the 56,000 video customers it lost in the same period in 2014.

Though customers are still leaving, the erosion has slowed. The results build on those of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, each of which in the past few weeks reported their best basic-video customer improvements in about a decade.

Comcast was first out of the blocks, reporting on Oct. 27 a third-quarter loss of 48,000 video customers, nearly half of what it shed in the same period last year and its best third-quarter performance in nine years. It was followed by Time Warner Cable, which shed just 7,000 basic-video customers (compared to a loss of 184,000 in the prior year), and Charter Communications, which gained 12,000 basic-video customers, its first increase since the fourth quarter of last year and a big improvement over its 9,000-customer loss in Q3 2014.

CABLE HOLDS ITS OWN

And telco-TV providers are no longer taking up the slack for cable losses. In the third quarter, AT&T — which completed its $48.5 billion purchase of satellite giant DirecTV in July — reported a loss of 92,000 U-verse TV subscribers. At the same time, Verizon Communications said its FiOS TV service added 42,000 customers in the third quarter, one-third of the 114,000 it added in the same period last year.

The improvements reveal that even in the face of stiff competition (Cablevision has the greatest exposure to Verizon’s FiOS TV product at 49% of its footprint), cable has managed to hold its own.

The trend of cord-cutting — stopping monthly subscriptions to MVPDs — isn’t over by any means. Collectively, all pay TV providers are still losing customers, and most are expected to do the same in the fourth quarter. What’s new is, cable is gaining share in relation to its telco and satellite rivals.

The results have some analysts wondering if they should rethink the whole cord-cutting concept.

“It is time to ask whether we’ve got the story right,” MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a recent research note.

But not everyone sees a sea change. Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said AT&T was likely distracted by its merger with DirecTV — satellite-TV provider DirecTV added 26,000 net new customers in the period, compared with a year-ago loss of 28,000 net customers — and should recover in later quarters. And the practice of “cord-shaving,” or migrating to a less-expensive video package, including basic cable, may explain some of the industry’s performance, he said.

From almost the beginning, cord-cutting was seen as a cable problem, Moffett continued, and investors took solace in the fact that MSOs at least had the broadband business to fall back on, if video revenue were to disappear.

Broadband has played a major role, and cable is by far the dominant provider of that service (in the second quarter, cable accounted for 100% of broadband customer additions, only the second time that has ever occurred).

But cable’s relentless focus on expanding its video-on-demand libraries and lineups, enhancing its user interfaces and beefing up its authenticated TV everywhere offerings and apps have also made it and its much maligned video, voice and data bundle into a more attractive choice.

MORE THAN BROADBAND

“Cable is now unmistakably taking share from satellite, and telco TV is fading fast,” Moffett wrote, adding that broadband deserves some credit for the transformation.

“But some of it owes to fundamental changes in the way we are watching TV,” he added. “Cable’s two-way architecture and Comcast’s best-in-class user interface and VOD libraries are emerging as genuine sources of competitive advantage.”

Comcast’s X1 operating system is seen by many as the gold standard for content navigation. At the recent Next TV Summit in New York, Bank of America Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen half-jokingly wished that regulators had approved Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable just so New Yorkers could finally experience the X1 interface.

And seamless navigation is becoming critical to cable operators’ survival. Clunky text-only, scrolling interfaces offered by many providers are now met with derision by customers who find their smartphones are much more intuitive.

With new sources of traditional shows and short-form content emerging practically every day, finding an elegant way to choose entertainment has become a priority not only for consumers but for the content providers as well.

Last week during the company’s earnings conference call, The Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Bob Iger listed his top three essential elements for media success. No. 2, in between high-quality programming and mobility, was creating a “fantastic user experience with incredible interface navigation.”

“You have to make the service easy to use and the content easy to find,” Iger said.

CLOSING THE WINDOWS

Other programmers are getting into the act as well. Last week Time Warner Inc. chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said the programmer is evaluating whether to retain its content rights for longer periods or even “forgo or delay certain content licensing,” which would essentially push windows for online subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix closer to those for syndication.

SVOD licensing generally brings in less revenue than traditional licensing through cable, satellite and telco operators, Bewkes said, and has no advertising revenue attached.

“We think a lot about how to enhance the value of the traditional pay TV bundle and it’s something we’re obviously looking at [with] our networks,” Bewkes said.

In a note to clients, Sanford Bernstein media analyst Todd Juenger praised Time Warner Inc.’s moves, adding that they won’t be effective unless other programmers follow suit.

“It’s also very important, we think, not to just curtail SVOD licensing,” Juenger wrote. “It’s equally important what you choose to do with the content instead. We think the best answer is: Put it on cable/satellite VOD, as part of the bundle.”

The bundle — thought not too long ago to be the reason for high cable prices by forcing customers to pay for channels they don’t watch — is increasingly becoming the more attractive alternative to over-the-top video offerings like Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue and others. In a research note, RBC Capital Markets media analyst David Bank wrote that when higher charges for standalone broadband service and limited choices for programming are considered, the cable bundle is still the best value.

“A household could save more money forgoing two bottles of wine in a month rather than replacing traditional cable TV with an OTT-based lighter bundle,” Bank wrote.

While Wlodarczak isn’t convinced that cord-cutting or cord-shaving is easing up, he believes cable will continue to improve its results in the fourth quarter. Charter will add about 30,000 video customers in Q4, he predicted, ending the year on a positive note, while Time Warner Cable and Comcast should be flat and Cablevision will lose about 30,000 over the same timeframe.

“I think it is too early to make the call that cordshaving needs to be rethought,” Wlodarczak said. “I think it is here to stay, but as I have noted in the past, I think it will be likely more contained than most media investors seem to be pricing in — one-to two percentage points of decline driven mostly by the fact that pay TV is increasingly too expensive.”

The turnaround in the cable business hasn’t been a one-quarter phenomenon. The turn in the tide for cable-subscriber losses started four years ago, with Comcast in 2011. Since then, the nation’s largest cable operator has reported basic video-subscriber improvements in 14 of the past 15 consecutive quarters, reducing losses by a staggering 83%.

At the same time, No. 2 U.S. operator Time Warner Cable, after a dark period in 2013, has turned around its operations. TWC reported improved basic video subscriber results in the past six consecutive quarters.

Charter, which reported positive quarterly subscriber growth four times in the past two years — 20,000 in Q1 2012; 18,000 in Q1 2014; 3,000 in Q4 2014; and 12,000 in Q3 of this year — is continuing on that path and, along with TWC, has estimated that it will report positive basic-video customer growth this year.

RIVALS TRENDING DOWNWARD

While cable has shown consistent improvement, telcos and satellite providers have been mired in an opposing trend. Once the main growth engines for the pay TV sector, AT&T and Verizon have seen their TV-subscriber growth dwindle in the past two years.

AT&T added 924,000 U-verse TV customers in 2013 and 680,000 in 2014, but in the first nine months of 2015, that growth has dissipated to a loss of 64,000 customers.

Growth at Verizon — which did not close a megamerger this year — has also slowed down. The telco added 536,000 FiOS TV customers in 2013 and 387,000 in 2014. So far this year, the telco has added 158,000 FiOS TV customers.

On the satellite side, Dish Network — which is scheduled to release third-quarter results on Nov. 9 — has struggled with subscriber losses, shedding 79,000 net subscribers in 2014. In the first half of this year, Dish has lost a total of 215,000 net customers.

All of this seems to bode well for the cable industry.

“Cable’s improvement in basic video looks sustainable,” Moffett wrote.

Cable operators made the case for the bundle in the third quarter.

In reporting their best basic-video subscriber performance in nearly a decade, U.S. MSOs cast some serious doubt on the actual impact of cord-cutters — young consumers who’ve dropped their pay TV subscription for a broadband connection — and of online content.

Comcast started things off, reporting a Q3 loss of 48,000 video customers, nearly half of what it shed in the same period last year and its best Q3 performance in nine years. Up next was Time Warner Cable, which reported a loss of 7,000 basic-video customers in the period (its best Q3 since 2006); and Charter Communications, which tallied a gain of 12,000 basic-video customers for its first positive growth since Q4 2014.

Not all cable operators have reported their third-quarter numbers yet — Cablevision Systems is scheduled to release results Nov. 3, with other smaller operators following suit in the coming weeks. But Comcast, TWC and Charter represent about 70% of all U.S. cable-TV homes.

So far, the numbers are in sharp contrast to the second quarter, when sector-wide declines sent stocks into a tailspin over fears that cord-cutters were taking a bigger bite out of pay TV companies than originally expected. While there are still some question marks left, cable has more than held its own.

Collectively, the three largest cable operators shed 43,000 basic-video customers in the third quarter, about one-third of the 121,000 they lost in the second quarter.

“Clearly, 2Q ’15 was not a negative inflection point for the industry,” Evercore ISI Group media analysts Vijay Jayant and David Joyce wrote in a research note.

MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett went further out on a limb: “It’s time to change the narrative about cord-cutting.”

It’s not that analysts believe cord-cutting has gone away, just that it is taking customers from sources other than cable. And Moffett said he believes cable’s video resurgence is due to a combination of its better content offerings and its longstanding broadband dominance — high-speed Internet additions at the three top cable operators were all ahead of the prior year, while AT&T lost 100,000 U-verse Internet customers, and Verizon Communications’s FiOS Internet additions were down.

“Cable’s two-way architecture and Comcast’s best-in-class user interface and VOD libraries are emerging as genuine sources of competitive advantage,” Moffett wrote in a research note.

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge had a simpler answer. “Our competitors continue to aggressively promote products at low price points,” he said on Charter’s Q3 earnings call. “We think, fundamentally, we have better products than they do.”

So far, cable has resisted playing the price-cutting game. And though promotions like the $90 triple play have brought in customers, operators are careful to lessen the shock once those promotions expire.

On TWC’s earnings call, chief operating officer Dinni Jain said the company made a concerted effort not to repeat past mistakes. Promotional customers are now told up front that prices will rise after the 12-month promo period expires, and those increases are now about $20 per month, compared to the muchstiffer hikes of the past.

“I think a combination of that transparency on the front end coupled with really working hard to nail the customer experience through the life of that first 12 months will give us a much better churn profile,” Jain said.

RELATED:A Cable Empire Grows — Fast

In the end, it took a foreigner to do what no domestic cable company could do for the past two decades — convince the Dolan family to sell Cablevision Systems.

Altice’s purchase of Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision for a hefty $17.7 billion marks the end of an era that was begun by Cleveland native Charles Dolan 42 years ago. Dolan, who started out in the TV business by splicing together sports clips for local television stations in his kitchen, had a hand in developing the modern cable industry.

It was Charles Dolan who first thought of a cable channel that showed uncut movies (which later became HBO); who wired Manhattan for cable TV; who developed regional sports channels; and who took a small cable system in Long Island and built it into one of the top performers in the industry.

When Dolan’s son Jim took the helm as CEO in 1995, that growth continued. Cablevision had the highest penetration of advanced services; pioneered the triple play of voice, video and data; and dedicated the capital to build an unparalleled WiFi network when other MSOs were concentrating on cellular service.

Despite its success — and some say because of it — Cablevision has stumbled of late. Slim growth prospects and tougher competition from a reawakened Verizon FiOS, as a well as threats from over-the-top competitors such as Netflix and Hulu, have forced the company to rethink its strategy.

Lately, that has meant focusing on connectivity. The company has made some landmark deals with Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now and others; launched a WiFi-only phone service called Freewheel; and offered a package of high-speed data service and a digital antenna, dubbed the “cord-cutter package,” for cost-conscious millennials.

But that hasn’t been enough to stem subscriber losses. According to MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, competition with FiOS has been worse than expected. Citing U.S. Copyright Office statistics, Moffett said in a recent report that in the second quarter Cablevision had lost about 6% of its subscriber base in the Bronx and 8% of its base in Brooklyn. It seems like the Dolans, who have been known for their scrappiness and refusal to quit, have had enough.

The family said almost as much, saying a statement that nearly half a century after the company was founded, “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,” the statement read. “We expect that Cablevision will be in excellent hands.”

The Dolans also will be well-compensated for their troubles. According to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CEO Jim Dolan will receive a package worth $128 million in severance, bonus and stocks awards if he is not kept on as CEO.

There has been speculation concerning a Cablevision sale for more than 20 years. In the early 2000s, the Dolan family, taking advantage of cheap debt, tried to take Cablevision private three times, only to be thwarted by minority shareholders. After that, Cablevision embarked on a divestiture strategy, spinning off its programming assets into AMC Networks and its sports and arena business into The Madison Square Garden Co. MSG is set to be split yet again, into separate sports and entertainment companies, later this year.

Other analysts weren’t too surprised the Dolans decided the time was right to sell. They pointed to comments Jim Dolan made at the INTX show in May, in which he called for the New York market, his market, to be consolidated.

“They found a buyer,” Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan, a longtime Dolan watcher, said. “If it’s not him [Drahi], who is it going to be next year? It’s unlikely it’s going to be anybody local, and private equity probably isn’t as attractive as it used to be because of the lower cash-flow growth. They’re kind of lucky that they have Drahi in the company.”

Altice Group turned a few heads this week with claims that it could squeeze $900 million in synergies from its proposed $17.7 million acquisition of Cablevision Systems.

While deep cost-cutting is expected to play a big part in helping Altice reach that goal, the company could face major challenges harmonizing the technical operations of  Cablevision and its other U.S. cable pursuit – Suddenlink Communications.

While Cablevision and Suddenlink operate residential services on similar HFC networks, their product game plans differ greatly. It’s too early to say whether Altice will pick winners and losers from each camp or look to adopt technologies and platforms it’s using today in Europe.

However, Altice chairman Patrick Drahi did shed some light on how the company might improve technical operations when he spoke Thursday (September 17) at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference in New York. The plan for Cablevision’s relatively dense network involves pushing fiber deeper and eliminating the electrified amplifiers required between the home and the fiber node (Comcast, per Light Reading, has been utilizing this sort of “N+0” architecture in markets it is deploying its fiber-based Gigabit Pro residential 2 Gigabit per second broadband service).

“We need to push the fiber and get rid of the amplifiers,” Drahi said, suggesting that the cost of running the Cablevision network should be about half the cost of running Altice’s network in France. “It is a little more expensive for your capex. But it is for a short period of time because you eliminate your electricity bill. The good thing is when you do that you don’t have any more amplifiers and you don’t have to pay to maintain the amplifiers. The whole cycle of expense decreases just by the simple measure, which is to push further the fiber.”

By product category, here are some of the big differences between Cablevision and Suddenlink’s tech-driven product strategies.

Video boxes/platform

Suddenlink: Next-gen approach driven by TiVo boxes and TiVo-powered devices equipped with broadband connections, CableCARD security, and integration with Netflix and other apps.

Cablevision: Boxes from Samsung and others that run a new form of downloadable security platform that relies on tech from Cisco/NDS.

Network DVR

Suddenlink: None

Cablevision: MultiRoom DVR service lets subs record up to 15 shows at once.

Home security/automation

Suddenlink: Offers service based on the Alarm.com platform.

Cablevision: None.

WiFi Network:

Suddenlink:  Limited largely to support in in-home devices.

Cablevision: More than 1 million quasi-public hotspots through deployment in home-side routers and in business and public locations. Part of Cable WiFi roaming alliance with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks.

Wireless Voice Service:

Suddenlink: None

Cablevision: Launched Freewheel, a WiFi-only offering, in February.

Broadband Speeds

Suddenlink: As a component of its Project GigaSpeed project, the operator recently began to roll out a 1 Gigabit per second residential tier in select markets that leans on a new DOCSIS 3.0-powered device from Hitron Technologies Americas.

Cablevision: Its top residential cable modem tier tops out at 101 Megabits per second.

Broadband Usage Policies

Suddenlink: Has rolled out a monthly data plan whereby customers can purchase buckets of additional data for $10 if they exceed their monthly allotment.

Cablevision: Residential broadband service is uncapped and unlimited.

-Multichannel News Senior Finance Editor Mike Farrell contributed to this report. 

Patrick Drahi’s Altice NV has made another big splash in U.S. cable, agreeing to pay $17.7 billion for Cablevision Systems,  a deal that will vault the European telco (when coupled with its $9.1 billion acquisition of Suddenlink Communication) in to the No.4 spot among cable operators in the country. The fact that Drahi has done it so fast – they announced the Suddenlink deal in May – and his whirlwind string of European telco deals over the past few years have drawn obvious comparison to cable legend John Malone. Drahi himself has made the comparison and Malone has expressed admiration for the Altice chairman (mainly in Drahi’s ability to do deals almost exclusively with stock).

There is no doubt that Drahi, a French-Morroccan who lives in Switzerland but runs a company based in the Netherlands, has been successful – he’s No. 60 on the Forbes list of richest humans. But with Cablevision the telecom executive has strayed a bit from the template, agreeing to pay about $10 billion in cash for Cablevision and assume another $7.7 billion in debt. The fact that Cablevision insisted on a cash payout seems to say that the Dolan family was not too optimistic that Altice’s stock – more than double its price of a year ago, solely on its deal acumen – may not be able to sustain its current rate. Typically cable operators push for deals that have a heavy stock component to avoid the tax hit.

Altice has been more than willing to pay top dollar for cable assets – it paid more than 9 times forward looking cash flow for Suddenlink (minus synergies) and the Cablevision deal, depending on how you slice it, is valued at about 9.5 times cash flow, more than a full turn higher than past deals in the 7 times  to 8 times range.

While Drahi himself has said he has modeled his business life after Malone, to me at least, his first two forays into the U.S. cable business look a lot like another former cable billionaire, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Think about it. Allen burst on the scene in the late 1990s, flush with cash from his Microsoft stock and hell-bent on making his vision of a “Wired World” a reality.

The cable market was a bit like it is today – in turmoil, with companies scrambling to acquire others in a quest to better cluster their operations. Allen came in during the peak of consolidation – around the time Tele-Communications Inc. was acquired by AT&T – buying Marcus Cable for $2.8 billion and Charter Communications for $4.5 billion in 1998, later paying huge prices for cable properties all over the map. Some deals were good, some were bad, but most of them were for too much money. At one point, Charter was using almost all of its cash flow just to service its debt, a reality that eventually led it into bankruptcy in 2009. Charter emerged from that hole about a year later, Allen left in 2011 and with new management and a fresh balance sheet is one of the most highly respected cable operators in the country and the leader of the latest consolidation wave.

I don’t mean to bash Allen. He’s a very smart guy and his Wired World vision wasn’t off base, just maybe a little ahead of its time. But the cable graveyard is littered with smart guys with good intentions – AT&T’s Mike Armstrong and AOL’s Steve Case are just a few.  The hard fact is that cable isn’t just  the phone business (like Armstrong learned) and it isn’t just the dial-up Internet business and Drahi may soon find out that it isn’t just the wireless business either. Deciding to take the knife to a business that is at another crossroads, with competition coming from over-the-top as well as from traditional sources, requires that the surgeon is very careful with his cuts. Slashing headcount, customer service, repairs, maintenance and marketing indiscriminately could ultimately result in creating a bargain buy for a larger company down the road. Here’s hoping that Drahi and the others that probably will follow him keep that in mind.

Comcast and Cablevision Systems have both launched initiatives around so-called WiFi “homespots,” which center on the use of secondary SSID signals in wireless routers that enable other credentialed customers to connect at no additional cost.  

Comcast and Cablevision now have something else in common – they’re both facing almost identical lawsuits over this practice.

The latest suit is being lobbed at Cablevision over allegations that using MSO-supplied wireless routers violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Courthouse News Service reports. Cablevision sets up its homespots “Optimum Smart Routers" that are provided to residential high-speed Internet customers at no charge; customers do have the option to purchase and use their own WiFi routers. 

The class action suit, filed by July 16 by lead plaintiff Paul Jensen, claims that Cablevision didn’t ask for his consent to use the router as a quasi-public hotspot, and asserts that the practice compromises his Internet speed, puts him at a greater security risk, and also increases his electricity costs, the report added.

"Engineers at Speedify, a technology company offering services to increase customers' Internet connection speeds, have run tests on routers supplied to residential customers, which broadcast secondary Wi-Fi networks - exactly like those Cablevision supplies to its customers to establish its Optimum Wi-Fi Hotspots," the complaint says. "The purpose of the tests was to determine whether such equipment used more electricity than comparable equipment that was not emitting a second Wi-Fi network." With respect to the electricity-focused complaint, the suit points to tests conducted by Speedify that found that devices that host and emit secondary signals use more juice than those that don’t.

Jensen also contends that Cablevision, which launched a WiFi-only phone service called Freewheel in February, told him that the homespot feature could not be turned off, and that his only other option was to buy a wireless router at retail.

Cablevision stood by its approach.

“Our customers love having access to Optimum WiFi both in and out of the home, and this frivolous lawsuit appears to be the result of plaintiffs’ attorneys looking for something to do,” Cablevision said, in a statement. “For more than 40 years, privacy and security have been of paramount importance to Cablevision, and all Optimum WiFi access points provide both convenient and secure wireless broadband connections for our customers.”

Comcast, meanwhile, is facing an almost identical lawsuit that was filed in December 2014 -- the same attorneys are involved in both legal actions. In the pending Comcast case, the plaintiffs are also seeking class action status, and are also arguing that Comcast’s homespot approach violates the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The suit also cites tests conducted by Speedify (this blog post sums up Speedify’s position on the use of homespots).

Comcast homespots are currently set up as “opt-out,” meaning that DOCSIS gateways that are part of the deployment emit the secondary SSID by default. Comcast is fighting that challenge, holding that it provides information to customers about the service and how they can turn off the public WiFi hotspot if they wish.

Cablevision Systems has landed a U.S. patent that covers audience measurement and analytics at the set-top box level.

The patent – U.S. No.  9,071,370 – is titled “System and Method for Set Top Box Viewing Data” and covers “critical aspects” of the cable operator’s system for capturing, synthesizing, and running analytics against viewing data. Leveraging granular data in a secure, anonymized and privacy compliant manner supports Cablevision Media Sales clients as they seek to optimize media campaigns and provide actionable results, the MSO noted.

Cablevision filed for the patent on Aug. 3, 2010. It was granted on June 30, 2015.

“Cablevision is firmly committed to addressing clients’ need to reach audiences across multiple platforms with data-driven and measureable solutions,” Ben Tatta, president of Cablevision Media Sales, said in a statement. “This new patent further demonstrates our commitment to developing census-based measurement and analytics that serve the needs of programmers and advertisers. It is a result of more than five years of commitment to census-level measurement and provides the foundation to work towards scaling these capabilities as the industry eyes broader deployment.”

For more about Cablevision’s use of and strategy behind census- and impression-based viewing measurement, please see this recent Q&A (subscription required) with Tatta.

Cablevision Systems said it has increased the max downstream speed of its “core” Optimum Online high-speed Internet tier from 15 Mbps to 25 Mbps, a move that also happens to puts it in line with the FCC’s new definition of broadband.

The downstream speed boost for the flagship tier, which starts at $39.99 per month as a standalone offering, is being provided to new and existing residential and business customers at no incremental cost, said Cablevision, an MSO that has been styling itself as a “connectivity” company. 

Of recent note, Cablevision CEO James Dolan told an investor conference that the MSO’s data service outperforms video by a 7-to-1 margin, and that operators much be ready to shift their business approach as high-speed Internet customers surpass video subs. Cablevision has been backing that up by introducing new packages tailored for cord-cutters, becoming the first MVPD distribution partner for the new HBO Now standalone OTT service, agreeing to offer Hulu, expanding its WiFi network to 1.1 million hotspots (via a mix of access points in public locations and in home-side routers), and launching Freewheel, a WiFi-only phone service.

Cablevision is also a member of Open Connect, Netflix’s private CDN, and ranks near the top of the OTT provider’s monthly ISP Speed Index.

“We are taking the next step as New York’s premier connectivity company to provide a better, faster data experience both inside and outside the home at no additional cost,” Kristin Dolan, chief operating officer of Cablevision, said in a statement about the speed bump. “This speed increase, along with Optimum WiFi, provides a superior broadband experience to meet and exceed the needs of our customers.”

Cablevision, which tangles with Verizon FiOS, also offers cable modem tiers that provide downstream speeds of up to 50 Mbps, 75 Mbps, and 101 Mbps.

In January, the FCC raised the definition of broadband to 4 Mbps downstream/1Mbps  up, to 25/3.

Five more U.S. MVPDs have joined Cablevision Systems in striking deals with Hulu that will enable them to offer the over-the-top streaming service to their respective customers. 

Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Mediacom Communications, Midcontinent Communications and WideOpenWest (WOW!) have agreed to distribute the OTT service. Those deals follow a similar agreement announced by Hulu and Cablevision on April 28. 

Hulu’s subscription service sells for $7.99 a month as a stand-alone OTT service. In its announcement about the Hulu agreement, Mediacom noted that pricing, availability date and “other particulars” will be announced in the near future, echoing what Cablevision said last month.

Update: A Hulu official confirmed that the OTT service will also sell for $7.99 per month via its MVPD partners. 

Hulu said the agreements will allow its pay TV partners to offer Hulu's full library of content, including Hulu originals, directly to their video and broadband subscribers via their "advanced set-top boxes."

“At Hulu, we believe users should have the ability to consume their favorite content, when, where and how they want,” Tim Connolly, Hulu’s senior vice president, distribution, said in a statement. “We are very excited to partner with these MVPDs to bring Hulu to users where they are already watching TV.” 

“We believe Hulu is the perfect complement to Mediacom’s Internet service offerings,” John Pascarelli, Mediacom’s EVP of operations, added in a statement issued by the MSO. “Hulu brings a robust video selection to our customers who want to supplement their traditional cable service with online content at home or on the go.”

Hulu, co-owned by NBCUniversal, Walt Disney Co., and 21st Century Fox, announced last week that it has nearly 9 million subscribers, a 50% increase since 2014.

Freewheel, Cablevision Systems’ new WiFi-only phone service, is currently limited to the Android-powered Moto G smartphone, but could soon be marketed as a paid app on a broader array of devices, including Apple iPhones.

Cablevision is developing a paid Freewheel app that could launch later this year, Gregg Seibert, Cablevision’s vice chairman, said Monday at the Deutsche Bank’s Media, Internet & Telecom Conference investor conference.

Seibert didn’t reveal an exact launch date or expected pricing on the app, but said the idea of a paid Freewheel app is “something that I think is another way of trying to differentiate the network and get away from all the hyperbole around price.”  Rather than focusing on a $79.99 per month triple play with a Visa card attached to it, “we’re trying to shift that dialogue. But, certainly, consumers still do react to price.”

Freewheel, he added, “should really help to highlight the value of WiFi to our customer base.”

Cablevision’s Freewheel service went live on February 5, available to the MSO’s high-speed Internet customers for $9.95 per month and $29.95 per month for everyone else.  Cablevision offers the Moto G for the partially-subsidized price of $99.95.

Siebert, pressed on why Cablevision opted to start with a WiFi-only service rather than tying it to cellular via an MVNO relationship, reiterated the position that Freewheel is positioned as a data/video product, and that voice will be one of the least-used features of the phone.

In that light, “there really isn’t a need for an MVNO…We’re not actively considering an MVNO at this point.”

But he later acknowledged that there’s “always the possibility that our offering will evolve, but right now we’re comfortable with the WiFi-only nature of the product.”

Cablevision has not announced any subscriber figures for the new product, but Siebert said the operator has been selling units outside the confines of its cable systems.

“We’ve had orders from a number of areas that actually fairly far from our footprint,” he said, later noting that Freewheel will be one of several new WiFi-facing initiatives coming from Cablevision.

As for Cablevision’s WiFi buildout, that’s a top priority for the cable operator, as the plan is to build it out to the point that “it’s virtually ubiquitous within our footprint.”

Following the launch of Freewheel, Cablevision Systems’ new WiFi-only phone service, on February 5, the reviews are starting to trickle in from sources such as GigaOm and Consumer Reports.

The early verdict is that the service shows some promise and a decent option for certain use cases, but will likely serve as a niche product in its current form. 

GigaOm’s Kif Leswing sees Freewheel as a possible blueprint for similar services from other cable operators, but “[i]f you’re looking for a smartphone replacement, you’ll probably find Freewheel to be a disappointing service. But if you want a home phone that you can take with you, then Freewheel might be right for you.” Leswing also noted that it’s not clear to him what Freewheel does better (or cheaper) than traditional mobile phone plans.

On the plus side, he said the Moto G, the first model to support Freewheel, is a “solid device,” and also liked that caller ID is handled via the Freewheel dialer app.

He also liked the service’s call quality and had few troubles when connecting to a strong WiFi signal, but also experienced some of the challenges faced by a WiFi-only service that doesn’t fall back to cellular -- there’s “some wonkiness if you walk out of a network’s range when you’re making a call — you’ll simply lose service.” But he was impressed by Freewheel’s ability to auto-connect to hotspots on Cablevision’s WiFi network.

Check out his full review here.

Consumer Reports also weighed in with a review of its own, which also bemoaned the lack of a cellular backup feature, but agreed with Cablevision’s general stance that Freewheel is best suited for consumers who “spend a lot of time in Wi-Fi-rich environments, including colleges, offices and homes.”

Mike Gikas of Consumer Reports also liked Cablevision’s pick of the Moto G and said its testers were able to maintain calls as they moved around in areas with access to Cablevision’s WiFi network (here’s a video of those testers in action).

Here’s the review’s bottom line:  “A small subset of Cablevision customers may find this new service useful. But until the company adds more phones, brings down the price for all customers, and adds a cellular-connection option, Freewheel will remain a niche product.” 

Cablevision, meanwhile, has said it doesn't feel the need for a cellular backup option because users of Freewheel will be using it predominantly for data. 

About 74% of tuning hours in Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable homes are done outside of primetime, and the average household tunes to 25 channels per month, with 90% of the tuning hours being consumed on 100 networks, the cable companies found in a new report that tabulates tuning data from the New York DMA.

Those findings, from the first quarterly New York Television Audience Insights Report, is based on census-level audience tuning data from more than 3.5 million homes across more than 300 common networks, representing nearly half of the New York DMA and data that can’t be gleaned from traditional measurement methods, the companiess said.

The New York Television Audience Insights Report is based on aggregated data from both service providers that have been analyzed using advanced analytic capabilities.

Among the findings -- with new, more granular insights for marketers that are targeting the influential DMA -- are that roughly 21% of local news tuning (Monday through Friday, 6-9 a.m.) across broadcast and local cable origination stations is exclusively on News 12 and NY1, the cable news channels owned and operated by Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, respectively.

“Since introducing our census-level audience data early last year, we have seen significant growth in demand for more granular audience measurement and analytics,” Ben Tatta, president of Cablevision Media Sales, said in a statement. “We are delighted to work with Time Warner Cable to provide the advertising community more comprehensive and actionable insights for TV audiences and viewership in the New York market.”

“TWC Media is proud to partner with Cablevision on this initiative. In addition to providing TV Tribes analysis of diverse viewing patterns, we can now offer our clients more precise data within the NY DMA,” added Joan Gillman, chief operating officer and executive vice president, Time Warner Cable Media. “As viewing habits continue to evolve, our clients need increasingly sophisticated data and analytics to inform their marketing decisions.”

With Verizon Communications pushing out FiOS upgrades that enable the telco to pump out symmetrical data speeds and, therefore, expose cable’s relative weakness in the upstream direction, it’s expected that MSOs are going to get a lot of questions on how they will respond.

Like clockwork, the question came up Tuesday on Cablevision Systems’ second quarter earnings call. Cablevision Systems -- which offers 35 Mbps upstream on its high-end DOCSIS Internet tier, pretty hefty when compared to the max upstream speeds delivered by many of its U.S. cable operator peers -- naturally shrugged off Verizon’s latest competitive speed tactic, believing that Cablevision delivers plenty of pop in that direction based on current consumer requirements.

“We currently do 35 [Mbps]. We can go higher than that,” Wilt Hildenbrand, Cablevision’s long-time engineering exec and currently serving as a senior advisor, said. “Right now, we’re not going to chase that dog around the track of speed contests, but we have some bullets left in the gun.”

He didn’t go into specifics, but Cablevision, like other MSOs, could boost upstream capacity through various options, some trickier than others. It could try to bond more upstream channels with DOCSIS 3.0, split nodes, or, if it’s feeling really nutty, go for a mid-split, a remapping and expansion of the upstream that is generally considered operationally onerous and an option that’s currently about as rare as a unicorn or a leprechaun. There’s at least one U.S. operator that’s actually giving it a shot, and Cox Communications, which is working on a big 1-Gig deployment project, has said that the mid-split is on its technology roadmap.

Or Cablevision could cool its heels for now and go a bit crazy on the upstream when DOCSIS 3.1 is ready for prime time… in about two years. At the 2013 Cable Show in Washington, D.C., Comcast EVP and CTO Tony Werner called DOCSIS 3.1, and the bandwidth efficiencies it will bring, “a godsend in the upstream,” offering up something that might prolong the need to do a mid-split.

But perhaps there’s too much of a focus on raw speeds and the focus on megabits and gigabits. An initiative underway at CableLabs is lavishing some attention on milliseconds.

CableLabs is exploring the implementation of Active Queue Management (AQM), a technology that’s designed to reduce latency, buffering and packet loss – elements that can improve the overall performance of DOCSIS-delivered broadband services. Posting big speeds will always provide grist for the marketing people, but CableLabs believes that an additional focus on latency can juice up the performance of broadband-fueled multiplayer gaming, video conferencing, video streaming and even the simple task of loading Web pages.

The implementation of AQM “could have a dramatic impact on the user experience,” Dan Rice, CableLabs’ senior vice president of network technologies, said in a recent interview

CableLabs has amended DOCSIS 3.0 with a recommendation that AQM be added to existing gear, via a firmware upgrade if possible, and has mandated AQM in DOCSIS 3.1 equipment — both at the cable modem and at the cable modem termination system.

More details about that effort is available here (subscription required). CableLabs has also posted a more thorough explanation of its exploration of AQM here. 

Another former Cablevision Systems exec has reunited with Tom Rutledge and several others at Charter Communications.

Charter said James Nuzzo has joined the MSO as executive vice president, business planning, reporting to Charter COO John Bickham, who joined Charter from Cablevision in 2012.

In his new role, Nuzzo will oversee business planning for Charter, working closely with the field operations, customer care, marketing, network operations, technology and product teams. Nuzzo joins Charter following 27 years with Cablevision, most recently as SVP, operations and business planning.

"Jim's extensive background and experience in the cable industry makes him the ideal choice to lead Charter's Business Planning efforts," John Bickham said, in a statement. "During his time at Cablevision, Jim was instrumental in building a highly effective Business Planning organization and I am confident he will provide Charter the same great leadership."

First came HD video. Now meet HD phone.

Cablevision Systems is sprucing up its Optimum Voice offering with the rollout of an HD phone service that provides customers with improved voice quality and clarity over its standard phone offering.

Cablevision claimed that its Optimum Voice network is the first landline service to launch HD calling in the U.S.  But to get the benefit of the higher quality voice service, which is being offered for no additional fee, both sides of a call must use HD-capable handsets and both must be on Optimum Voice’s HD network.

However, Cablevision noted that it will support a broader HD calling network by integrating with HD voice services that are launched by other service providers

The MSO noted that HD voice is currently offered in “select Cablevision services areas,” but will roll it out in phases across its entire footprint over the next two months.

“With HD calling, Optimum customers have access to the best available voice quality, allowing them to enjoy richer, fuller audio when on the phone,” said Kevin Packingham, Cablevision’s executive vice president of product management, the former Samsung and Sprint exec who joined the MSO in May. “Similar to the advancement from standard to high definition for television, HD calling is a remarkable innovation to our voice services, and we believe customers will be thrilled by the call quality that they will experience with this network upgrade.”

The new HD voice feature is coming into view as MSOs look for new ways to stoke growth in a category that’s showing signs of stagnation as a growing number of residential customers eschew their landline phones and go mobile-only.

Cablevision, for example, ended the first quarter of 2014 with 2.8 million voice customers, about the same it had in the year-ago period.

As first reported by Multichannel News last week, Cisco Systems announced Monday that former Cablevision Systems exec Yvette Kanouff has joined the company to head up its Service Provider Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS) organization, the unit that heads up Videoscape, Cisco’s multiscreen video platform.

Kanouff will be joining Cisco on June 16, according to this blog post from Panjak Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and chief development officer. Cisco confirmed that Kanouff will be based on of London.

In her new role, Kanouff will be responsible for a part of the business that's centered on Videoscape, with duties extending to content protection, cloud video services and end-user multiscreen experiences, according to Patel.

Kanouff most recently served as executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology at Cablevision. Before that, she was a longtime exec with SeaChange, and was its president before departing in February 2012.

“I’m thrilled to be joining Cisco at such an exciting time for our industry,” Kanouff said in a statement posted on the blog. “Cisco is playing the most crucial role it ever has in helping service providers deliver new experiences, new consumption models, and to compete with myriad new entertainment and service options. During my time at Cablevision we made tremendous progress on key technological advancements that enabled us to provide significant value to our customers and move the industry forward.  I believe Cisco also has the people, the technology and culture to help our customers win. I’m looking forward to joining the team!”

Yvette Kanouff, one of the most recognized and regarded engineering execs in the cable industry, is leaving Cablevision Systems to take on a key role at Cisco Systems, multiple sources familiar with the move told Multichannel News.  

Kanouff’s precise start date and title at Cisco were not immediately known, but it’s believed that she will be a senior vice president and take charge of Cisco’s service provider video group, a role that includes duties that were previously handled by Jesper Anderson, the former SVP and general manager of a Cisco unit that’s focused on Videoscape, the company’s multiscreen platform for cable operators and other video service providers, and has become the new home of NDS, the video security and software company Cisco acquired in 2012 for $5 billion.

Kanouff, who has been serving as Cablevision’s executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology, will be based out of London, sources said. 

Kanouff, who joined Cablevision in March 2012, has been responsible for software, hardware for video, data and voice, as well as operations, architecture and information technology. It was not immediately known who will be taking on Kanouff’s duties at Cablevision on an interim or permanent basis.

Kanouff’s exit comes less than a month after the departure of another Cablevision exec, Stephanie Mitchko-Beale, the MSO’s former SVP of video infrastructure software, and one of the primary developers of Cablevision’s network-based DVR service. 

According to multiple sources, Cisco plans to announce Kanouff’s hiring sometime next week.

Cablevision and Cisco declined to comment.

A move to Cisco also marks Kanouff’s return to the supplier side of the industry. Before joining Cablevision, Kanouff was a longtime exec with video software and advertising technology specialist SeaChange International. She joined SeaChange in 1997 and served in several roles, including chief strategy officer and president, before departing in February 2012.

Before that, Kanouff was Time Warner Cable’s director of interactive technologies, where she worked on The Full Service Network, a pioneering pilot program in Orlando that paved the way for cable’s shift to digital video and interactive services, including video-on-demand.

Kanouff received the 2014 Vanguard Award for Science & Technology from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. Broadcasting & Cable named her on of the 11 most influential women in the television industry, and Multichannel News honored her as a Wonder Woman in 2001. Kanouff has also won a technical Emmy for her work at SeaChange and holds several patents on VOD-related digital technologies.

“I’ll see your ability to record 12 shows at once, and raise you three more,” seems to be the message Cablevision Systems is delivering to Verizon Communications following an upgrade that allows customers to record up to 15 shows at once via the cable operator’s network-based DVR. 

Cablevision’s product, branded as the “Multi-Room DVR,” previously allowed customers to record 10 shows simultaneously. The upgrades enter play about a week after Verizon launched  two new “FiOS Quantum TV” packages that feature souped-up whole-home media servers, including a Premium option that allows customers to record up to a dozen shows at once and provides 2 terabytes of storage – enough to record about 200 hours of HD video.

Cablevision’s upgrade also preempts the new level of DVR competition coming from Verizon, as the telco has so far limited the availably of FiOS Quantum TV to the Dallas, Texas, and Harrisburg, Pa., markets, but plans to extend it to all other FiOS TV markets over the next three months.

Verizon’s Quantum FiOS TV tiers, which supports 1 TB or 2 TB, still has the edge on storage. Cablevision’s network-based DVR product currently offers enough for customers to store up to 300 hours in standard-definition, and 75 hours in HD.

According to Cablevision, the upgraded capabilities were introduced Monday (April 7) and was added automatically to the service, which currently runs on digital set-top boxes (CableCARD devices are not currently compatible with Cablevision’s Multi-Room DVR).

Despite the upgraded recording capabilities, the monthly price for the MSO’s upgraded Multi-Room DVR remains at $12.95 per month. Multi-Room DVR customers also have the ability to manage the DVR at Optimum.net or the Optimum App.

Check this week’s issue of Multichannel News for a deeper look at the pay-TV industry’s recent spate of DVR one-upsmanship (subscription required).