In Las Vegas, where CES 2024 is held, cable TV and broadband provider Cox Communications said it plans to expand its marketing efforts behind its year-old Cox Mobile business.

Cox didn’t provide subscriber numbers for its mobile business, which relies on Verizon’s network, but Mark Lawson, executive VP and chief marketing and sales officer at Cox, told Multichannel News the company has been hitting its targets.

“We have great reason to be optimistic as we move into ‘24 with our mobile product,” Lawson said.

“Operationally, the product’s been really sound,” Tony Krueck, senior VP of Cox Mobile, added. “Obviously, you run into little hurdles here and there but for the most part it’s been real stable.”

As with many new products, a key hurdle has been creating awareness.

“Quite frankly, it takes time,“ Lawson said. “The market has seen us deliver broadband, video and phone services for 20-plus years and now we’re introducing a new mainstream product and it takes time to educate customers that we’re in the business.

“Operationally, we’re ready to scale and run, so you will see a large part of our efforts in ‘24 is to drive awareness with our current customers and new customers that we’re in the mobile business and we’re here to stay,” he added.

Six years ago other cable companies, including Comcast and Charter Communications, jumped into the mobile phone business, with calls going over both Verizon’s network and where possible over cable wifi.

Also Read: Cable Wireless Grows Up

Krueck said Cox has seen a growth pattern similar to what other cable companies have seen in the first year of a mobile launch. “As we head into year two, we’re going to see and drive a similar type of growth trajectory,” he said. 

While cable companies jump into mobile, mobile companies are providing wireless competition for cable’s high-margin broadband business.

Cox expects its mobile business to see a growth profile similar to other cable companies, and help it retain its broadband customer base in the face of cord-cutting in the cable TV business.

“We have seen in our data that when we bundle products and services, customers stay with us longer,” Lawson said. “We’ve seen adding mobile into that mix is driving the highest retentative benefit of any product in our portfolio.”

Cox has been selling its mobile services with what it calls simple, flexible pricing, offering value to subscribers. Cox Mobile offers a choice between paying $15 per gigabyte of data per month, or an unlimited plan for $45 a month. There are no annual contracts, users can change plans anytime and have phones on different plans under the same account.

The notion of having a choice of providers is symbolized by Cox mobile’s mascot Annie the sheep, who appears in commercials using the slogan, “We’re different because you're different.”

“When you actually sell them a bundle that has a discount on both internet and mobile together, that has an incremental churn benefit,” Krueck said.

Close to 50% of customers buying Cox Mobile are taking a converged offer, Krueck said. The vast majority of Cox Mobile signups come from Cox subscribers, and about 10% of the new mobile customers are new to Cox.

Still, only a small percentage of Cox’s customer base has added mobile. “It will take time to build a base where the percentage is meaningful,” he said.

Big Marketing Push Ahead

“We will hit the marketing gas pedal strong in ’24 to drive awareness,” Lawson added. “Tony and his team have built a significant promotional calendar,” that includes both device promotion and service promotion.

Cox Mobile offers devices from Samsung, Apple, TCL and Google Pixel. “We will be introducing new OEM lines in 2024,” Krueck said. Cox is also looking to get into the wearable space, such as watches, this year.

Another part of promoting Cox Mobile is getting Cox employees to use the product.

“We’ve launched employee pricing, so our own employees use the product and service and get familiar with it,” Lawson said. “As customers are talking to any one of our employees, we see that as an opportunity for us to mention the fact that we’re in the business, and so that will help drive awareness.”

Cox will also invest in its sales teams and add new retail locations from its current base of about 100 Cox stores, Lawson said.

“Our goal is to provide connectivity to our customers at home and on the go,” Lawson said. “We think we can drive great value for the customer and that’s what we’re in the market for.”

Cox Communications, continuing its investment in network infrastructure providers of the last couple of years, closed its purchase of commercial fiber provider Unite Private Networks for an undisclosed price. UPN will be combined with earlier Cox acquisition Segra as a standalone company under CEO Kevin T. Hart, the former Cox technology chief. 

Cox has been buying network infrastructure assets, also including cloud services providers RapidScale and Logicworks, after parent company Cox Enterprises shifted away from TV and radio station assets, selling majority stakes in the stations to Apollo Management Group in 2019. The UPN acquisition, though, goes back to 2016, when Cox bought a majority interest in partnership with Ridgemont Equity Partners and UPN management. 

“We’ll draw upon the successes of Segra and UPN, in addition to the rich history and values of Cox as we form our new fiber infrastructure company,” Cox Communications president Mark Greatrex said in a release. “Bringing Segra and UPN together into a standalone fiber platform will enhance our ability to serve our customers with an expanded footprint and greater network capacity.” 

“We’re committed to offering our commercial customers a full portfolio of services," was Hart's quote in the release. “Continuing to enable our customers to win in the marketplace by offering them best in class connectivity and business services is our top priority.” 

UPN is based in Kansas, City, Missouri, and is in more than 300 communities across 21 states, with 12,000 fiber route miles and 9,500 end customer sites. It is one of the largest providers of fiber WAN services to K-12 school districts in the U.S., serving more than 250 school districts, connecting nearly 2 million students, Cox said. Segra and UPN will operate as separate brands for the near future, Cox said. 

In the release boilerplate, Evercore acted as exclusive financial adviser to Cox Communications while Eversheds Sutherland acted as legal counsel. UPN was represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and Dentons US LLP. Bank Street Group LLC acted as exclusive financial adviser to Ridgemont and Alston & Bird acted as legal counsel. 

This story was updated to correct the company name of Unite Private Networks.

ViacomCBS said it reach a new multi-year distribution agreement with Cox Communication that includes improved access to ViacomCBS’s streaming services, including Paramount Plus, Showtime OTT and Pluto TV.

In a separate agreement Cox agreed to distribute Discovery’s Discovery Plus streaming service.

The deal with ViacomCBS also covers retransmission of CBS’s TV stations in Los Angeles and carriage of the ViacomCBS cable networks.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to have reached significant agreements with Cox that offer our best-in-class entertainment across broadcast, cable and streaming on behalf of subscribers,” said Ray Hopkins, president, U.S. Networks Distribution, ViacomCBS. “Cox has been a valued partner for years and we look forward to working together to continuously serve millions of households through our long-standing partnership.”

NCC Media, the national TV advertising sales, marketing and technology company owned by Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, has announced its expansion into digital ad buying.

By offering online ad buying capabilities, NCC Media can now deliver cross-screen campaigns across linear, VOD, addressable TV, digital video, display, social media, out-of-home and mobile.

Related: Comcast, Charter, Cox Form New Advanced Ad Group

NCC Media, which functions as the exclusive addressable sales arm of Comcast, Charter and Cox, touts a combined footprint of 80 million U.S. households across its three cable operator owners. It said it surpassed $2 billion in revenue in 2018.

The shop also claims to have partnerships with “every major cable, satellite and teleco service provider.” Its ad buys, NCC Media said, can be coordinated at the household level across more than 85% of the U.S. MVPD market.

"Digital advertising is an important component of our clients' marketing mix,” said NCC Media CEO Nicolle Pangis, in a statement. “Today's launch supports our strategy of expanding the efficient platform NCC built for the TV world to handle more of our clients' media comprehensively. The new capabilities bring increased precision to brand marketing while greatly simplifying the way advertisers manage and monitor consumer narratives across the entire consumer journey."

"By bringing digital ad planning, buying and execution into our comprehensive TV data platform, NCC has opened up compelling, new advertising capabilities, providing marketers with powerful reach and intelligence to run more meaningful, efficient and consumer-friendly campaigns," added Andrew Ward, president at NCC Media. "It's a necessary and transformative step that improves the advertising equation for marketers, media owners and consumers.”

Cox Communications has integrated YouTube Kids and NPR One into Contour TV, the white label version of Comcast’s X1 video platform.

Comcast had already integrated these apps into its flagship X1 product. Contour already offers Netflix, YouTube and iHeart Radio apps, allowing subscribers to access these services without toggling HDMI inputs.

“Now, with YouTube Kids and NPR One, Contour brings even more age-appropriate content to the TV screen for younger members of the family, and the informative, quality audio programming of NPR One for those who want to stay abreast of current events —particularly as election day gets close,” read a Cox advertisement that ran Thursday in a number of the operator’s markets.

Related: Cox: 1M Subs Now on X1-Powered ‘Contour’ TV Product

The programming is available in the “apps” section of the Contour guide.

Privately held Cox doesn’t often release figures on the number of Contour users, although it did say a year ago that it had 1 million subscribers on the platform. Estimates peg the Atlanta-based operator’s total video base to be around 4.065 million.

Canada’s Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Videotron also license X1 from Comcast. 

Cox Communications said it has finalized its purchase of Blueprint RF, a managed network solutions provider serving major hotel brands and properties across the country. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  

Blueprint RF is an approved provider for leading U.S. hotel brands, which allows it to design, install, monitor and support wired and wireless network solutions for companies that own and operate hotel properties.

Cox Business already has a presence in the hotel industry through its Hospitality Network, which provides a full suite of hotel-specific telecommunication, in-room entertainment and managed WiFi solutions to large hotels, convention centers and arenas. The Blueprint RF addition will help enhance those offerings.

“High-quality video, internet and WiFi access are very important amenities for hotel guests during their stay,” said Cox Business executive vice president Steve Rowley in a statement. “By adding a leading company like Blueprint into the Cox family, with its expertise and industry relationships, we now have a more complete suite of technologies and services for hospitality properties of all sizes and industry segments – ensuring hotel guests stay connected to what they care about.” 

Related: AT&T Bows Chromecast-Supported Streaming Option for Hotels

Blueprint RF’s hospitality expertise, coupled with the financial and operational capabilities of Cox, will allow for broader and stronger hospitality-focused technologies, deep analytics, and an accelerated delivery that will benefit hotel owners.

“Cox and Blueprint RF share a commitment to delivering world-class customer service and industry-leading technologies,” said Blueprint RF co-founder and CEO Ron Peterson in a statement.  “By joining Cox, we’ll be better positioned to expand our existing products and service offerings to meet the industry’s managed network solutions needs today and far into the future.”

Peterson and the Blueprint RF team will join Cox and will operate as part of Cox Business’ New Business Ventures.