Charter Communications' Spectrum Reach division said it generated $27 million in local advertising revenue over the past year using AI tech provided by startup Waymark.

Also read: Spectrum Reach and Waymark Using AI To Quickly Produce Commercials

The cable giant's local advertising unit said that the tally came from almost 7,000 TV commercials created by Waymark tech for Spectrum Reach clients.

“Since we launched our partnership with Waymark in early 2023, we've seen an incredible impact, with nearly 7,000 commercial projects in 2023 alone and over $27 million in ad campaigns powered by Waymark’s AI-generated video creative," said Michael Guth, senior VP of ad sales marketing for Spectrum Reach.

"Spectrum Reach brings a deep understanding of the advertising landscape and a commitment to innovation," Guth added. "When combined with Waymark's cutting-edge technology, it enables us to offer a solution that is fast, cost-effective and compelling."

Also Read: Waymark Reaches 90% of U.S. DMAs, Prepares to Expand Into Spanish-Language Media (NAB Show 2024)

Detroit-based Waymark's AI tools provide turnkey solutions for small companies to easily produce low-cost local TV commercials in minutes using creative assets they already have. 

For each TV spot created by Waymark's AI tools, Spectrum Reach says it generates an average of $4,000 in local ad revenue.

Waymark describes this as found money, opening local TV advertising to new small-business clients who, until now, didn't have the knowledge base or resources to create TV commercials. 

Waymark VP of revenue Hayden Gilmer said his company's AI tech enables “the potential for new creative technology to make quick, cost-effective and compelling commercials available to every partner, regardless of their size or budget.”

Waymark's tech has now reached 90 U.S. designated marketing areas, with the startup also securing partnerships with E.W. Scripps Company, Fox owned-and-operated TV Stations, Gray Television, Beasley Media Group and Morgan Murphy Media.

Cable operators controlled more than 75% of U.S. net additions for wireless customers in the first quarter, according to a new tally published by equity analyst Craig Moffett. 

Simply put, cable operators are able to bundle discounted bundles of fast, reliable wireline home broadband and mobile that are undercutting the offerings of wireless giants. 

“Cable’s success owes to a very clear advantage,” Moffett wrote in a Thursday morning report. “Cable can offer its bundle everywhere; every cable customer — and indeed, every customer in a Charter or Comcast market — can get the same bundle at the same price.

“That's not true for the TelCos,” he added. The wireline footprints of wireless companies including T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon “simply don't support a converged offering.” 

The wireless giants “aren’t even in the ballpark of having a national offering,” Moffett also noted. Consider that AT&T, the closest to that benchmark among the trio, currently has fiber available in only 12% of households. 

Meanwhile, cable’s share of gross mobile additions has grown steadily, surpassing 16% in the first quarter. 

“To put a finer point on it, a converged offer that is available in 12% of the country, for a national wireless operator that competes in 100% of the country, is lunacy,” Moffett added. “It simply isn’t a viable strategy.” 

The ranks of U.S. cable operators launching mobile services has increased recently, with Breezeline and Mediacom Communications hoisting new offerings in recent weeks. 

A new, separate research report published earlier this week by S&P Global Ratings suggested that mobile products from tier 2 and 3 U.S. cable operators won't enjoy near the prosperity of Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile. The reason: Comcast and Charter have the ability to offload much of their Verizon MVNO traffic to their own network resources via WiFi and other mechanisms. 

The Walt Disney Co. and Charter Communications ended the network carriage dispute that resulted in a blackout with a unique deal that involved the media company’s streaming properties as well as its traditional television networks.

Disney agreed to provide Charter with the streaming services that the cable operator argued had programming that its subscribers already paid for, while Charter got flexibility to drop some of Disney’s lower-rated, “long-tail” cable networks.

Net-net, Charter will be paying more to Disney, with the increase in wholesale fees for streaming exceeding cuts in payments for cable networks that are being dropped, most analysts have concluded.

MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman looked at the Charter deal and has tried to game out how a similar deal would work out for other media companies.

Bottom line: the deal probably benefits Disney, but will be a tougher pill to swallow for its rivals.

The Charter deal would lead to several long-tail networks vanishing. S&P Global Intelligence listed some of those networks, and estimated when they would face the axe, based on when deals were up for renewal.

Fishman looked at the revenue those networks generate and how much that revenue means to their parent companies. He also weighed that loss against the upside of increased carriage of those media companies’ direct-to-consumer services.

“The most obvious risk to all media companies following the Charter renewal is exposure to longer-tail networks that could be dropped in future renewals,” Fishman says in his report.

Fishman estimates that U.S. affiliate fees for Disney account for about 17% of the company’s revenue. By comparison, affiliate fees represent 48% of Fox’s revenue, 22% of Comcast NBCUniversal’s revenue and 21% for both Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount.

For Disney, those long-tail networks — Baby TV, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FXM, FXX, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo Mundo — represent 8% of affiliate fees. 

For NBCU, networks like Universal Kids, Oxygen, Syfy and E! Account for 17% of affiliate fees. Paramount networks MTV2, TeenNick, Nicktoons, VH1 and Nick Jr. account for 16% of affiliate fee revenue. Similarly at WBD, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, American Heroes, Travel, Destination America, Cooking Channel, Motor Trend, Science, truTV and Boomerang represent 15% of affiliate fees.

Fishman doesn’t see any of Fox’s cable networks at risk of being dropped.

Losing carriage of the long-tail networks would also cost media companies advertising revenue. For WBD, this would impact 10% of ad sales; for Disney, 9%; for Paramount, 7%; and for NBCU, 5%.

Adding affiliate fee and ad sales for those long-tail networks, Fishman figured 13% of WBD’s linear business revenue is at risk. That’s more than the 12% for NBCU, 11% for Paramount and 8% for Disney.

While distributors like Charter are saving money by dropping long-tail networks, Fishman argued, they will be paying single-digit percentage increases in how much they pay for the cable networks they continue to carry.

He estimated that would leave Disney’s affiliate revenues down 1% to 15.4 billion. The drops would be bigger elsewhere, with NBCU down 17% to $7.5 billion; Paramount down 16% to $5.4 billion; and WBC down 12% to $7.9 billion. Fox’s affiliate revenues would grow 8% to 7.7 billion.

What happens to streaming revenue as DTC services become part of a cable subscription is a bit more complicated. Fishman assumes that future deals will give the 60% of cable customers who don’t currently subscribe to the various streaming services and that viewers who already have the ad-supported versions of streaming services independently will drop them, rather than pay twice.

Fishman sees Disney Plus subscriber revenue rising 5% in the Charter deal, even at wholesale price levels. But other services would see less of a gain because distributors would argue that more of their programming is already including in the cable bundle, notably NFL football now on Paramount Plus and Peacock.

Fishman estimates that under this scenario, WBD subscription revenue would be flat at $3.9 billion, Paramount Plus would drop 6% to $2.8 billion and Peacock would fell 13% to $1.3 billion.

(AMC would get a big boost on a small base — up 33% to $700 million — with the added distribution cable operators could provide to AMC Plus, Fishman noted.)

All in, looking at traditional TV affiliate-fee and ad revenue and streaming subscription revenue, Disney is the only winner, while WBD sees revenues dropping 8%, Paramount down 13% and NBCU 17% lower.

Fishman notes that affiliate fees are high-margin revenue. “On the flip side, a reduction to DTC subscription revenues could have a bigger long-term impact to streaming profitability with the need to reassess associated content spending to drive subscriber growth,“ he said. “Although, this would be at least partially offset as including streaming services within the Pay TV bundle offering would help substantially reduce churn.” 

In terms of earnings, Fishman is cutting his estimate for WBD by 4% for 2023, 2% in 2024 and 2% in 2025.

Ar Paramount, the earnings forecast is 1% lower for 2023, 2% in 2024 and 5% for 2025.

“At Fox, we are decreasing our FY 2024 by 2% estimates to better incorporate weaker ad trends at cable networks and higher corporate costs, but we leave our affiliate and retrains forecasts unchanged as the company stands to take an increasing share of the overall pie as distribution partners tighten the screws with their other content partners,” Fishman said.

Mofftet Nathanson is maintaining its “buy” ratings on Disney and Fox, its “neutral” ratings on WBD, AMC and Netflix and its “sell” rating on Paramount, but it is lowering its target prices for Fox, AMC and Paramount.

Xumo, the streaming joint venture kicked off last year by U.S. cable giants Comcast and Charter Communications, is licensing its TVOS to China's Element Electronics to power smart TVs for the U.S. market. 

Introduced at CES 2023 in Las Vegas this week, Element Xumo TVs will ship domestically sometime later in 2023, with as-yet announced price points and size configurations. 

It's the first major Xumo announcement since Comcast and Charter branded their JV in early November, naming it after the 11-year-old Xumo FAST service that Comcast acquired three years ago for $100 million. 

Xumo is based on OS technology developed for Comcast's X1 and Xfinity Flex pay TV platforms. Charter has pledged a $900 million multiyear financial commitment to back the Xumo JV, announced in April 2021 and intended to transition Comcast's pay TV UX into the broader global retail gateway OS market. 

Notably, the Comcast press release announcing the Element deal said the new TV's will join a Xumo portfolio that includes XClass TVs. These are sets manufactured by Hisense under Comcast's XClass brand name, powered by Xumo and sold exclusively at Walmart. These sets, which have been unavailable recently, will be rebranded with the "Hisense Xumo TV" moniker later this year, according to sources familiar with Xumo's plans. 

As for Element, it has a manufacturing facility in Winnsboro, S.C., and already ships TVs powered by the dominant TVOS that Xumo is trying to usurp, Roku.  

“We look forward to building our brand partnership and providing consumers access to amazing technology and content at an incredible value," said Vlad Kazhdan, president of Element Electronics, in a statement.

“Element and Xumo share a common vision of delivering consumers premium, innovative entertainment experiences at a tremendous value,” added Xumo President Marcien Jenckes.

Charter Communications chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge received total compensation of $41.9 million in 2021, about an 8% increase over the $38.8 million he took home in the prior year.

According to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, Rutledge’s base salary increased to $2.5 million from $2.1 million in the prior year. His stock option awards remained constant at $30 million, while non-equity incentive plan compensation rose 41% to $8.9 million from $6.3 million for the year. 

Chief product and technology officer Rich DiGeronimo saw his total compensation rise 35% to $8.9 million from $6.6 million in the prior year, fueled by increases in option awards and non-equity compensation. 

Also: Charter’s Starting Minimum Wage Reaches $20 Per Hour Company-Wide

Senior executive vice president David Ellen’s total compensation dipped 13% to $9.4 million from $10.8 million in 2020, mainly due to a decrease in option awards from $6.75 million in 2020 to $4.725 million in 2021.

Chief operating officer Christopher Winfrey’s total compensation remained stable at around $11.7 million for the year. 

Vice chairman John Bickham received about $7.5 million in total compensation in 2021 according to the proxy, down from $36.5 million in the prior year. Bickham said he would retire from the company at the end of this year.

Cox Communications CEO Patrick Esser’s decision to retire at the end of the year — he will be succeeded by company veteran Mark Greatrex — was met throughout the industry with equal parts regret at losing yet another of cable’s old guard and good wishes that one of the good guys gets to end his decades-long cable story on his own terms. 

Esser got his start in the cable business in 1979 as a pole climber for a small cable operator in Waterloo, Iowa. According to an interview he did with this reporter back in 2013 after receiving the industry’s highest honor — the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership — Esser packed up his belongings and drove 1,000 miles to Hampton Roads, Virginia, the site of Cox's latest system buy. The catalyst? One of his sales managers in the Waterloo system was a former Cox employee who couldn’t stop talking about what a great company it was to work for. The then 20-something Esser decided to see for himself.  

“I knocked on the door of the cable system and I got a job as the public-access director,” Esser said at the time. “Everything I heard about Cox was true from the moment I stepped on the property.”

Esser’s first job at Cox was officially director of programming at the Hampton Roads system, and he was part of the management team that pioneered Cox’s advertising sales division now known as Cox Media. In 1991 he was named corporate vice president of advertising sales, rising to vice president of operations for Cox’s Western Division in 1999. A  year later he was promoted to senior vice president of operations and in 2004, Esser was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer.

In 2006, Esser was tapped to succeed CEO James Robbins, who had said earlier that he would retire that year. Robbins, who died in 2007,  said in a July 2005 interview he couldn’t have hoped for a better person to take the reins.

“Pat has absolutely been the home-run selection,” Robbins said in that July 2005 interview. 

Esser didn’t just have an impact on his own company. While he spearheaded and pushed along efforts to diversify Cox’s workforce and bring the company into the information age, he also enthusiastically waved the cable banner wherever he went. Throughout the years he served as chairman of  NCTA: The Internet & Television Association;  C-SPAN; CableLabs; adviser to the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and on the national Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. 

“Pat Esser’s contribution to our industry has been invaluable,” said NCTA: The Internet and Television Association CEO Michael Powell in a statement. “He’s a true cable success story, rising through the ranks from local executive to company CEO. Throughout, he has represented the heart and soul of our industry, always committed first to the welfare of Cox customers and employees.”

Through his journey throughout the industry, Esser has worked closely with other cable and telecom CEOs. He serves on C-SPAN’s board with Charter Communications chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge and has served with Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso on the C-SPAN and NCTA boards. 

“Pat’s had a great career starting at entry level and rising to the top,” Rutledge said in a statement. “I’ve enjoyed working aside him on Industry efforts at NCTA and CableLabs.  Pat’s contribution to the industry is unmatched.  I have been personally lucky to work with Pat in an industry where long term business success has kept us on the same team for decades.  It’s been a pleasure.”

National Cable Television Cooperative CEO Lou Borrelli has known Esser for years, dating back to their early days in cable. Borrelli has logged 43 years in the cable business, beginning with UA-Columbia Cablevision in 1978. Borrelli also was a founding partner of Marcus Cable in 1986. 

"I had the good fortune to meet Pat back when our cable careers were getting off the ground," Borrelli said in a statement. "His energy was infectious and his word was his bond. Through numerous CTAM collaborations, Pat never ran out of ideas and always was up to the challenge. His track record at Cox is a testament to his work ethic and his ethics in business and life. Good luck and godspeed."

Esser also helped drive Cox forward as the industry changed, building on its decades-long reputation as the “gold standard” for the cable industry and unafraid to invest in new businesses like broadband.

“During Pat’s 15 years at the helm, Cox Communications became the gold standard of U.S. telecom companies,” Commisso said in a statement. “Through his many operational successes at Cox and his leadership within NCTA, Pat motivated us all to make the significant private investments necessary to turn our collective broadband networks into America’s most powerful technology platform.   I thank him for his tremendous contributions to our industry and wish Pat and his family all the best in the years ahead.” 

Powell also pointed to Esser’s history as a champion of the NCTA, leading its board of directors and trade show several times, and his commitment to diversity, both at Cox and throughout the industry. 

“Pat has been a leader and innovator in cable marketing; a visionary in cable operations and technology; an ally and champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and a thoughtful, forward-looking President & CEO of his company,” Powell continued. “As one of our industry’s most trusted and authentic voices, Pat has immense credibility with policy makers. He has helped provide a strong presence for our industry here in Washington and always has committed Cox Communications to the public good. I will miss Pat enormously as a friend, mentor, and advisor on all of our critical issues. We wish only the very best for him in his next chapter. We’re looking forward to working with Mark Greatrex, another formidable presence in our industry who will be a positive force as we move into the future.”

Esser has served as chairman of C-SPAN for about two years but has been a member of the organization since 2005. The Cox chief has also been a regular video contributor, participating in trade show forums broadcast on the channel ranging from the future of the cable business to Open Internet and consolidation. 

“You can't ask for a better chairman than Pat Esser,” C-SPAN said in a statement. “He is passionate about C-SPAN's mission and shares that enthusiasm throughout Cox. Over the past two years, he has been readily available with strategic guidance and encouragement as our network navigates a changing marketplace and we are confident we can continue to call on his wise counsel into the future.”

In 2006, Cox was first named in DiversityInc's listing of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity and in 2020, reached its highest ranking at No.11. Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) regularly recognizes Cox among the top operators for women.

"Pat Esser is an industry legend — 15 years of exemplary leadership at the helm of Cox and countless beneficiaries of his dedication to the industry and its DEI efforts,” Maria E. Brennan, WICT President & CEO, said in a statement. “We likewise congratulate Pat’s accomplished successor at Cox, Mark Greatrex, and look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the Cox leadership team."

Multicultural News Network (MNN) has secured a multi-year nationwide linear distribution agreement with Charter Communications to make MNN available to its Spectrum customers when the network launches. 

DuJuan A. McCoy, founder and chairman of Multicultural News Network, is aiming for a fourth quarter launch. 

“Charter has been an unconditional supporter of me and my companies since my first interactions with my broadcast TV station group in 2015,” said McCoy. “It is to no surprise that Charter is the first major multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) to agree to launch MNN this year. They were also the first MVPD to offer to launch MNN in 2018 when they were first introduced to the network. Working with their programming distribution department and multicultural team has been refreshing.”

Cox Media Group is a partner on MNN, which describes itself as “a 24-hour, non-partisan national news network that will bring an unbiased forum for the voices of America’s underserved multicultural communities.” It will target Blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, Asians, Native Americans and people of Middle Eastern descent, among others.

“Charter is dedicated to offering our customers the best programming that showcases diverse voices and perspectives,” said Tom Montemagno, executive VP of programming acquisition for Charter. “We look forward to adding Multicultural News Network to our lineup and giving Spectrum customers access to its topical news and issues-oriented multicultural programming.”

MNN will be headquartered in Indianapolis, in the facility that houses Circle City Broadcasting’s WISH and MyINDY-TV 23.

“As one of the few Black-owned media companies in the United States, I can confirm that Charter is a true advocate for diversity in media and, in my opinion, has been one of the industry leaders and on the forefront of DE&I. I am hopeful that others will take note of Charter’s success in this area and join this necessary movement,” said McCoy.

Cord-cutting for bundled pay TV services in the U.S. is now a widely accepted fact, with cable companies largely emphasizing broadband connectivity, and media companies having mostly moved onto prioritizing direct-to-consumer streaming. 

But the pace of change has to be concerning.

Updated 2.23.21: An earlier iteration of this post miscalculated how bad AT&T's 2018 pay TV losses were. Turns out, they were even worse than we knew. 

With Dish Network’s reporting of fourth-quarter earnings Monday, we can tally the trajectory of the four biggest providers of pay TV service in the U.S. and say decisively that the velocity of the erosion is still really, really fast ... the rate is slightly down from 2019's record pace, but still more than double the 2018 speed. 

While Charter’s Spectrum TV service actually gained 56,000 subscribers in 2020 amid a massive expansion of the cable company’s high-speed internet customer base, Comcast, AT&T and Dish Network each experienced significantly accelerated pay TV customer losses.

Combined, the Big Four operators--those that are publicly traded and with video subscriber counts exceeding 10,000--lost 5.625 million customers in 2019. In 2020, they lost 5.139 million subscribers.

Including its DirecTV satellite platform, its sunsetting U-verse service, its IP-based AT&T TV product, and its discontinued AT&T TV Now virtual MVPD, AT&T lost 3.261 million pay TV customers in 2020. That's only slightly better than the nearly 4.1 million video customers lost in 2019.

Sure, AT&T's massive pay TV losses in 2019 and 2020 skew the picture. But Comcast saw its rate of attrition nearly double from 732,000 in 2019 to 1.408 million in 2020.

And Dish Network lost a combined 526,000 subscribers across its satellite and Sling TV vMVPD platforms last year. In fact, Sling TV lost 118,00 customers in 2020. 

Earlier this week, the eighth largest cable company in the U.S., Atlantic Broadband, announced that it has become the latest MSO to launch a managed WiFi service based on a cloud-based technology developed by Plume, OpenSync. 

Atlantic Broadband, which reported 492,212 broadband customers as of the end of September, is now offering these subscribers the managed WiFi service “WiFi Your Way.” Powered by Plume’s "HomePass" technology, the new service includes AI-driven optimization features, which adapt router settings to customer usage patterns to deliver better speed and performance over time. There are control and personalization features that let parents shut down and enable their kids’ devices from their iOS and Android smart phones. 

There are also online security features, as well as home security enablements, such as motion detection. 

The Atlantic Broadband announcement comes about 14 months after the No. 2 U.S. cable operator, Charter Communications, announced that it would deploy managed WiFi services based on Plume’s core technology, the open-sourced, cloud-based software OpenSync. 

But Charter still hasn’t deployed the managed WiFi service, which it calls “Advanced In-Home WiFi,” to key market such as Los Angeles. 

Also Read: Charter Promises 200 Mbps Base Speeds in 17 More Markets

Earlier this week, Charter published a self-produced Q&A with its top technology executive, Stephanie Mitchko-Beale, who said the cable operator is “in the process of launching” Advanced In-Home WiFi “throughout our footprint.”

The service, she said, will enable Charter’s more than 28.6 million home internet customers “control over their security and privacy by letting them see every device that’s connected to their network and how it’s being used.

“Throughout the year we plan to make Advanced WiFi available in more markets, and we continue to expand the availability to our own Spectrum-branded WiFi Pods to enable customers to maximize network connectivity throughout their home,” Mitchko-Beale added. 

When asked which Charter markets have seen Advanced In-Home WiFi deployments, a Charter rep referred Multichannel News to the Mitchko-Beale statement. 

Notably, top U.S. cable operator Comcast, an early inventor in Plume, has been offering managed WiFi services based on OpenSync to 30 million-plus broadband customers for several years. 

For now, the limited penetration of managed WiFi doesn’t appear to be curtailing Charter’s overall proliferation of broadband services, with the cable operator adding 537,000 high-speed internet customers in the third quarter. 

Comscore, whose weak financial position has hampered its ability to compete as a provider of media measurement, has wiped out its debt with a $204 million strategic investment from Charter Communications, Qurate Retail and Cerberus.

In addition to cleaning up its balance sheet, the deal gives Comscore access to data that will help it provide the new types of audience and impression based measurement that are being demanded by a changing media and advertising industry.

Also Read: ‘New Nielsen’ Introduced at Firm’s Investor Day

The deal follows a lengthy strategic review at Comscore. 

At the same time, Nielsen, the leader in the TV measurement market, also conducted a strategic review. It would end up agreeing to sell its Global Connect business for $2.7 billion in November. Nielsen also announced in December plans to launch Nielsen One, which will use big data to measure all media across screens and advertising on all platforms.

Comscore said that with its new partners, it will be able to move more swiftly to provide more accurate measurement for brands, agencies and media sellers, give local markets more data for media measurement and provide smaller and independent networks with better viewership information.

“The retirement of debt provides the company with the financial flexibility to execute our plan. The investment and commercial agreements we announced today will supercharge our ability to deliver trusted cross-platform measurement for all customers. We are built to deliver now,” said Bill Livek, CEO of Comscore.

As part of the transaction Charter will provide enhanced access and rights to use its consumer-level data under a 10-year license. 

Also Read: Comscore in Breakthrough Deal for Comcast TV Data

Last year, Comscore signed a deal giving its access to data from Comcast. That deal is being extended.

The Charter deal will also make Comscore Charter’s preferred local measurement provider for Charter’s advertising business, including its addressable advertising business.

With Charter operating in New York and Los Angeles, Livek said Comscore will be able to provide data in those markets that no other company can match.

“The time has finally come for Comscore, with its industry-leading impression-based data sets, to be able to offer advertisers, agencies and inventory owners the kind of granular measurement, attribution and reporting they will need to compete in our high-tech world. As people continue to consume content in different ways and on multiple platforms, our investment in Comscore will further enhance the television industry and Spectrum Reach’s ability to provide marketers and advertisers with effective and measurable data-driven solutions,” said David Kline, executive VP at Charter and president of its advertising sales unit, Spectrum Reach.

“More effective audience measurement will help clients to better reach targeted audiences throughout the communities we serve and ensure a greater return on their advertising investment," Kline said.

Cerberus, whose other holdings include the Albertsons grocery chain and Chrysler, will be providing expertise in advanced data and analytics, programmatic ads and media optimization.

“We look forward to partnering with the Comscore management team, Charter and Qurate to build on Comscore’s next phase of transformation and growth,” said Matt Zames, president of Cerberus. “With Comscore’s leading data and analytics capabilities, we are excited to apply our expertise and resources to help build on its portfolio of trusted products and drive value for shareholders.”

Qurate Retail, controlled by Liberty Interactive, owns QVC and HSN will be providing expertise on eCommerce. 

Advertising agency and media buyer WPP is already a Comscore investor.

Comscore will continue to operate as a standalone company under current management. Charter, Qurate and Cerberus will each get two seats on Comscore’s board of directors, which will be expanded to 10 members.

Comscore has been in turmoil since irregularities were found in the company’s books four years ago. Since then the company has gone through a painstaking re-audit, several CEOs and reported operating losses.

In November, the company reported an $11 million third-quarter loss.

The investment from Charter, Qurate and Cerberus will enable Comscore to repay debt headed by Starboard Value LP.

A shareholder vote to ratify the agreement is expected to be held in the first quarter of 2021.

NBCUniversal and Charter Communications announced a renewal of their program licensing agreement, which will not only keep the NBC broadcast network, and the full range of NBCU cable channels on the No. 2 U.S. cable service, but also offer streaming service Peacock Premium to Charter subscribers for an “extended free trial.”

NBCU didn't disclose the length of the free trial. But a source close to the conglomerate said that while those terms are still being decided, the duration could last as long as one year for select Charter Spectrum TV subscribers. 

Regularly priced at $4.99 a month, Peacock Premium is the streaming service’s mid-range tier, offering the full flora and fauna of Peacock content (vs. a limited amount offered on free base-level Peacock), but with a limited amount of ads (the $9.99 Peacock Premium Plus is the version without commercials).

Also read: Is 'The Office' Now Driving Peacock's Business Model?

NBCU said that Charter will natively integrate the Peacock app into its Spectrum Guide OS “in the future.”

Notably, Peacock Premium has been a native feature for Comcast X1 and Xfinity Flex pay TV customers since April. 

As for the broader content licensing agreement, Charter’s Spectrum TV customers will continue to receive the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, aw well as Bravo, CNBC, E!, MSNBC, The Olympic Channel, Oxygen, Syfy, USA Network, Universal Kids, Universo, The Golf Channel, CNBC World, New England Cable News (NECN), and NBC Sports Network. Also included are NBC’s regional sports networks: NBC Sports Bay Area, NBC Sports Washington, NBC Sports Northwest, NBC Sports Boston and NBC Sports Chicago.

For Peacock, the Charter deal further expands distribution already improved in November, when NBCU carved out an agreement for app support on Amazon Fire TV devices. 

The app is now available on most OTT and mobile platforms, in addition to the major cable TV systems. 

“Charter is a valued partner with passionate NBCUniversal fans in millions of homes nationwide,” said Matt Bond, chairman of content distribution for NBCUniversal. “We look forward to delivering our industry-leading network content portfolio, as well as the strong collection of original and library content in our Peacock Premium offering, to Charter’s subscribers everywhere.” 

In these tough economic times, Charter Communications’ Spectrum Reach ad sales business has launched a Rebuild My Town initiative to help small businesses with promotional ideas and advice from celebrity entrepreneurs.

The initiative is backed by a localized ad campaign with commercials that feature a small business based in each of 34 markets.

Spectrum Reach is looking to emphasize its local connections by using the slogan “Let us show you around the neighborhood.”

“Where Spectrum Reach is unique is this intersection of technology, but also local expertise,” said Michael Guth, senior VP, Marketing, at Spectrum Reach. “Let us show you around connotes a level of expertise without having to say you’re an expert. And the sense of neighborhood is not just about a literal neighborhood in Brooklyn or St. Louis, but it’s also the neighborhood of multi-screen advertising.”

The spots open on an image of a market on a map and talks about local points of interest. Then it explains how Spectrum Reach makes local businesses big, and big brands look local. The logo of a real local business appears in the spot against a background that shows what kind of business it is--a coffee shop in San Antonio or a car dealer in St. Louis. “Be on every screen with that one idea you need to turn a consumer into your customer,” the spot advises.

“To really have an actual car dealership, an actual retail shop says that you care enough about the market to understand some of those nuances,” Guth said. The spots also give some free promotion to those businesses. “We suspect it’s going to be something that we’ll do on an ongoing basis.”

On top of that, the Rebuild My Town initiative invites small businesses to be a part of online virtual mosaics in which their picture or logo becomes one of the tiles forming an image symbolizing that market, such as the Statue of Liberty in New York or the flag in Texas.  Clicking on the tile gives visitors a description of the business. 

More than 3,500 local businesses have already submitted images to Rebuildmytown.com.

“Our markets are still hurting, so we wanted to see what we can do as we’re relaunching our brand in the fourth quarter to show empathy and a sense of community and compassion,” Guth said. “We’re trying to position ourselves as a catalyst for those local communities.”

Spectrum Reach has pledged to spend more than a $1 million backing the mosaic program with spots that feature some of the local businesses.

Guth said it’s been interesting to see how many ways its spots have been customized to feature different types of businesses, with versions with people wearing masks or not wearing masks, and so on. “It’s not infinite but it’s not that far off,” he said. “This is literally the manifestation of what we price ourselves on, the combination of local understanding and the expertise with this ad technology to support it. If it’s good enough for us, imagine what we can do for you.”

Spectrum Reach will also host an exclusive monthly Rebuild My Town VIP speaker series featuring celebrity entrepreneurs with extensive backgrounds and success in growing small local startups. Daymond John of Shark Tank will participate in the webinar in November; Bethenny Frankel will lead December’s event; and The Profit’s Marcus Lemonis will participate in the webinar in January. The celebrities also will share resources with Spectrum Reach clients on rebuildmytown.com. 

“We are a national company. We have the ability to access national talent and bring those insights to the local markets in ways that others may not be able to,” Guth said. “Having that connection with our customers is meaningful.”

It also has a caravan featuring a product demonstration truck that travels to markets where there’s an event going on. To respect social distancing and CDC guidelines, only one visitor can enter the truck, but messages are delivered by the big screens on the sides of the vehicle.

The truck has been in Buffalo with the NFL Bills, it did a Hallmark Channel event in Ohio and and some celebrations of first responders and hospital workers.

“We’ve really been pleased with the reception in the marketplace," Guth said.

Charter Communications will start construction on a new 500,000-square-foot headquarters building in Stamford, Conn., next year, agreeing to add 1,100 new jobs in return for state tax incentives and loans amounting to about $20 million.

The 15-story building will be located at Gateway Harbor Point and construction should be concluded in 2019. Building and Land Technology, a Connecticut-based real estate developer, will construct the build-to-suit facility at 406 Washington Blvd., with an option to expand the site into a two-building campus. The project will break ground immediately following final land use approvals from the City of Stamford.

Related: Charter CFO Calls Company ‘Strategically Complete’

"Since relocating Charter's headquarter operations to Stamford in 2012, the company has undergone a transformation to become the second largest cable provider in the U.S.," Charter chair and CEO Tom Rutledge said in a statement. "This new, state-of-the-art facility in downtown Stamford will provide Charter the necessary resources to facilitate its continued growth. We are excited to continue expanding in Connecticut, and thank Governor Malloy, Mayor Martin, the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, and the entire Stamford-area federal, state and local delegation of elected officials for their continued partnership and support."

Charter relocated to Stamford from St. Louis, Mo., shortly after Rutledge took the helm, leasing a 15-story building on 400 Atlantic Ave. in the city’s downtown area and agreeing to create 400 new jobs. The new building comes with a commitment to add 1,100 new corporate positions, and Charter has agreed to a total of $100 million in planned capital expenditures in Connecticut over the next several years.

As a result of those commitments, the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development will provide an incentives package that includes a direct loan of $10 million and up to $10 million in tax credits. Additional tax credits are available if Charter further increases the total number of Stamford-based jobs. 

Related: Charter to Hill: We Want to Expand Vet Hiring

"Today is a great day for Connecticut," Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement. "Charter's announcement to create an additional 1,100 jobs shows that our strategic investments are continuing to spur economic growth and create good paying jobs in the state. We look forward to the continued success of Charter Communications as they grow within the state."

The Gateway Harbor Point site was chosen for its close proximity to mass transit as well as its easy access to Interstate 95. The new headquarters is set to become the first commercial facility with direct access to the Stamford train station platform, providing employees with immediate access to both Metro-North and Amtrak Acela service. The building also provides for large floor plans which provide greater flexibility in workplace design.

Charter was represented in the transaction by the commercial brokerage team at Cushman & Wakefield.

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LEARN MORE: NYC TV Week is coming up, starting with the 27th annual Broadcasting & CableHall of Fame on Monday, Oct. 16. For more about #NYCTVWK, click here.