Mediacom Communications said Tuesday that it has promoted Jon Coscia to SVP of Customer Service and Jack Griffin to SVP of Finance and Treasurer.

Coscia, who was formerly group VP of Customer Service,  will take full responsibility for customer care, including centers for sales, retention and field support and will report to EVP of Operations John Pascarelli.

“Since joining Mediacom, Jon has established himself as an industry expert in his field and introduced numerous groundbreaking, technology-driven solutions aimed at elevating the customer experience,” Pascarelli said in a press release. “I am confident his strategic insight and proven leadership of over 850 employees will further advance the quality of our customer care.” 

Griffin, previously group VP, Corporate Finance, will continue to oversee Mediacom’s corporate finance and treasury group, including debt financing, liability and cash management, banking relationships, investments, external reporting, mergers and acquisitions and business development. He will continue to report to Mediacom EVP and chief financial officer Mark Stephan.

“Jack has played an integral role in shaping the company’s financial profile over the past several years and achieving our much-coveted investment grade rating,” Stephan said in a press release. “His skillful stewardship of Mediacom’s balance sheet and the corporate finance and treasury group will benefit Mediacom for the many years to come.”

Both men joined Mediacom in 2007. 

“I am pleased to offer my heartfelt congratulations to both Jon and Jack. They have long been recognized as emerging leaders within our organization, and their promotions are well deserved,” Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said in a press release. 

Charter Communications said Monday it has named Jeff Murphy SVP Corporate Finance and Development. He will be based in Charter’s Stamford, Connecticut headquarters and will report to EVP of Finance Jessica Fischer. 

In his new role, Murphy will oversee all debt and equity capital markets strategy and execution, treasury, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate development including equity investments and joint ventures.

“Jeff’s extensive finance and development background combined with his track record of success in the global telecommunications sector will be a valuable asset to Charter day one," Fischer said in a press release. “We are excited to have him join the team, providing the company with strategic financial support and helping to drive our continued growth.”

Murphy spent more than two decades with Credit Suisse Group, most recently as a Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking & Capital Markets division and a Managing Director in the Global Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) group based in New York. He had global responsibility for the data center/colocation sector, regional responsibility for Media and Telecom in Latin America and coverage responsibility for select large cap, US-based clients.

Murphy also worked in Credit Suisse’s London office where he was co-Head of the Telecom, Media & Technology group for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and also led the company’s cable/broadband financing and M&A practice.  He began his investment banking career with CS First Boston in New York and worked in consumer markets at MCI Communications prior to attending business school. 

 Charter Communications said it has promoted Jessica Fischer, senior VP finance and treasurer, to executive VP finance, reporting to chief financial officer Christopher Winfrey.

With the promotion, Charter said Fischer adds oversight of procurement, investor relations, internal audit and corporate planning.

Also Read: Charter COO John Bickham to Retire in 2022

“Jessica’s experience and ability to translate complex financial operations and transactional concepts into commercial plans have been an asset to Charter through the company’s recent integration and subsequent successes,” Winfrey said in a press release. “With her strong leadership, financial communication skills and these additional responsibilities, she will play an even greater role in the company’s future.”

Fischer also will continue to oversee the tax and risk management functions and will be based out of Charter’s Stamford headquarters.

Also Read: Charter, Byron Allen Resolve $10 Billion Discrimination Lawsuit

Separately, Charter said that executive VP corporate finance and development Charles Fisher will add full oversight of all treasury activities, which previously reported to Fischer. He will continue to manage all aspects of Charter’s capital markets, M&A and strategic investing activity, and will continue to provide corporate development for Spectrum Reach and Spectrum Enterprise.

Since joining Charter in 2017 Fischer has overseen the company's treasury and cash management activities, risk management, and directed Charter’s operational and strategic tax groups. Prior to Charter she was a partner in the National Tax Department at EY, where she advised clients on the tax structuring and implementation of partnership transactions in the media and telecommunications space, including advising Charter on its transactions with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016.

From a dozen interviews earlier this year, The Carmel Group was able to garner a strong set of data points and insight into the basic business dealings of small-to-mid-sized cable operators, focused this time on their overall and individual financial needs. Not surprisingly, core access and assistance was provided primarily by ACA Connects’ CEO/president, Matt Polka.

Respondents ranged widely from ACA Connects’ board members, to operators whose main data point is their mid-size subscriber base, to the very smallest of cable operators, in the most rural of locales.

Questions Asked

The Carmel Group concentrated on the responses to six key questions, all focused primarily on the capital and financial needs of ACA Connects’ hundreds of members and constituents.

1. What is your past experience with raising funds for your cable growth?

2. What is your cable experience with local banks?

3. Do the majority of today's banks "get it" when it comes to helping small cable operators grow and compete?

4. Are there any banks out there that do "get it" when it comes to funding cable?

5. How important are SBA/USDA/CAF funding sources to cable America?

6. What does the ACA community need when it comes to more banking and better financing?

Top Concerns

In two sentences, National Cable TV Co-op board member, Matt Weller, best summed up the overall situation. Weller is president of All West Communications, headquartered in Kamas, UT.

“You either have to have a deep relationship with a financial institute or find one that understands the industry. I have found that banks that understand the industry are really the best place for funds.” Both great wisdom and examples of practice reside in Weller’s responses.

A summary of responses noted that most local banks clearly do not understand the subscriber-based video and broadband telecom industry. Additionally, a too small number of mid-to-large-sized banks appreciate the value of a business model based upon cash flow.

ACA Connects board member, Bob Gessner, sorted the “funding” problem into three categories, each dependent on the size of the would-be or actual borrower. He noted that the “large” operators have what he called “sophisticated banking/financial relationships with no difficulty accessing capital,” and mid-sized well-run companies have “stable local or regional relationships.” Thus, the pressure to find funds falls on the smaller companies, “due to a “lack of understanding by both the operator and the local bank; a lack of experience and comfort.”

Of fascination, also, was Gessner’s and other’s emphasis upon every operator maintaining its system and investing in upgrades, no matter the subscriber size, over the course of many years and decades. “[Problems arise from] systems [that] slowly degrade over time, to a point where they were caught in a catch-22. They could not upgrade without debt, but the systems were insufficient to support the debt. Banks aren't going to do that. Private equity might, but not for tiny systems.”

In addition, getting any bank to transition from a lending model based upon collateral (e.g., trucks, buildings, and tangible items only) to one based on regular, reliable monthly cash flow, can be a challenge. But it is vital.

Top Solutions

Most respondents stated that they self-financed, typically based upon cash flow. This model was associated – positively -- with “slow growth.”

Firms like Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo were cited among large national institutions for possible lines of credit (LOCs).

Surprisingly, Denver/Greenwood Village, Colorado-based CoBank was the only institution that was mentioned, unsolicited, in a third of the responses. ACA Connects members felt it satisfied the requirement of that rare financial entity that both “gets” the traditional pay TV and broadband industries, and has the size and deep pockets to make it capable of funding a wide range of projects.

Other local and specialty funders mentioned were RTFC, M & T, and PNC.

The USDA, SBA, CAF, and RUS government programs received a mix of favorable and not-so-favorable opinions. USDA and RUS were touted for their low rates. Concerns about CAF funding were tied to facilities-based funding requirements. Overall, most ACA Connects’ members do not turn to government-backed financial solutions.

Capable Cable Care and Capital

Special thanks are worth repeating, aimed again at both Matt Polka and VP, communications, Ted Hearn, of the Pittsburgh, PA-based ACA Connects, as well as the 10 anonymous and two named members who participated in this survey and write up. For more information, feel free to reach out to the author at jimmy@carmelgroup.com, or go online to www.carmelgroup.com. 

When a vision of growth arises in the mind of a small-to-mid-sized telecom entrepreneur/operator, often the very next step is for him/her to ask, “How will I pay for it?”

Described below are four distinct types of small-to-mid-sized telecom providers. Each delivers broadband content as a core part of its network.

Why do they need money? How much do they need? Who do they ask for funds? When do they ask? What is involved in the process? Is it public funding or private financing that they ask for?

These and a plethora of additional questions are “must asks,” if success is to be expected. This article presents the basics to get there from a private financing POV, and a view at what comes next.

Succeeding articles will provide operators with additional guidance through the lending process. These will include focused looks at key players in each silo, as well as a look at public funding.

Cable Operators

Likely no better spokes group for America’s small-to-mid-sized cable operators exists than the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based trade group, ACA Connects – America’s Communications Association (ACA). Formerly branded as the American Cable Association, ACA has, for decades, been guided by top execs including Matt Polka, president and CEO, Matt Polka; , Ross Lieberman , senior VP, government affairs; Rob Shema , executive VP/chief of staff; and Ted Hearn, communications VP. Like its peers below, ACA is eager to put new funding options and thus new funds into the hands of its then, usually, much better-off constituents.

For example, many small-to-mid-sized ACA cable operators are looking to study and implement new wireless operations, on top of their current wired models (See, article about cable operator, Midco, buying a regional wireless provider, WOW Lawrence (Kansas)).

Moves like this place the cable ops in the realm of a new generation of wired providers, known as “Hybrid Operators.” Another version of these “Hybrids” comes in the form of fixed wireless operators, adding more fiber to their infrastructures.

Not unlike their usual rivals, i.e., WISPs and FISPs (discussed below), the next generation of cable TV and other broadband providers needs mature financial support from those other than sometimes-unreliable friends and family. All broadband providers are competing aggressively in more populated areas, most are reaching deeper into rural areas, and thus are constantly looking at development options.

For these growth and long-term development opportunities, fortune supports them: more and more banks are “getting it.” More financing is coming to these four broadband sectors, as more banks understand and accept—as a substitute for traditional, personal, assets-backed collateral—the relative steadiness of loyal subscribers, together with a new-found appreciation for the financial strength that monthly cash flow presents.

WISPs

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) have been around since the early 1990s. They are also known as broadband wireless access providers, or BWAs. These operators’ growth as a U.S. industry has been sometimes slow, but steady, to the point where today they number well over 2,250 nationwide (See, “2017 BWA Report“).

Recently revised estimates by The Carmel Group suggest WISP/BWA 2023 U.S. subscriber growth will stretch to over 11 million in the next five years, from a current base of over six million users. Growth in overall U.S. industry revenue increases during the next two years from just under $4 billion currently, to over $6 billion. Concurrently and well into the future, churn and subscriber acquisition costs (SAC) remain the lowest in the industry (i.e., lower than satellite, fiber, cable, mobile, or telco). In general terms, return on investment continues to exceed that of the four major competitors.

Most BWA operator funding today is aimed at expansion. This expansion comes typically in the form of spending for new infrastructure, such as more fiber in the ground to connect the broadband pipe to towers and some neighborhoods. Other WISP development needs include next generation, in-home equipment (AKA: consumer premises equipment, or CPE), towers and antennas, marketing, operational purchases, supplementing government grants and loans, partner buy-outs, employees, benefits, spectrum acquisition, working capital, refinancing, and audits, as well as mergers and acquisitions.

Yet, traditionally, WISPs have been stymied by traditional banks and those maintaining traditional banking perspectives that base lending decisions primarily upon the pure collateral of the business, rather than a focus on the steadiness of cash flow and the loyalty of a growing subscriber base.

Recently, several bankers are beginning to investigate broadband and are finding new avenues to introduce those operators to better choices, having to do with terms and lending decisions. CoBank’s website notes, “CoBank customers form the backbone of the economy in rural America –- agribusiness, power, water and telecommunications.” iNet Capital professes, “Financing that provides secured growth capital to businesses in the fixed wireless and broadband industries.” Live Oak Bank claims, “Financing to acquire, refurbish, refinance and operate America’s small businesses.” And United Community Bank states, “We have small business financing options offered through the Small Business Administration that help your business grow stronger…loans for major fixed assets, payment of operating expenses, equipment purchases and more.”

The main U.S. WISP trade group, WISPA, assists member operators and vendors in their quest for a better financial basis upon which to expand their businesses. Non-members are encouraged to join WISPA, and members are recommended to reach out to WISPA communications director Mike Wendy, specifically within WISPA, in order to discover more about WISP funding choices. WISPA’s CEO and president Claude Aiken, transitioned to WISPA a year ago from then-FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s staff, where he served as that office’s wireline legal advisor. Before that, Aiken was associate general counsel and special advisor on internet law and policy in the FCC’s Office of The General Counsel.

FISPs

Newly appointed Fiber Internet Services Provider Association (FISPA) executive director Betty Burke has her work cut out for her on multiple levels, as she and her FISPA team try to grow a trade group of many hundreds, to many more hundreds of members, in the few years ahead.

FISPs are not unlike WISPs, in many regards. In fact, as noted above, many WISPs find that once they have created a wireless pipeline to profitably service their new wireless customers, that often the investment of wires into the ground or hanging from telephone poles is a good one, because of enhanced capabilities offered only by fiber. Those WISPs then become both FISPs and WISPs, in the true “hybrid” sense of the word.

As fiber continues to be generally regarded as the optimum form to deliver content to the world, the attractiveness of FISPs, to more and more consumers, will rise. Thus, as more and more financiers realize the trend of more broadband being delivered by more fiber operators, that financial playing field will become more fruitful and accretive.

Hybrids

These new “hybrid providers” (such as WISPs becoming FISPs, and cable ops becoming WISPs) then need additional funds to supplement their wireless with wired (and vice versa) growth. This is often because fiber can be so much more expensive to deploy than wireless (See, “2017 BWA Report,” page 12, figure 6, which notes on a relative scale that fiber usually costs five times more than fixed wireless to deploy, and cable costs typically three times more).

Taking Oklahoma-based @Link as a model, it calls itself a “Hybrid Wireless-Fiber Network.” Within its systems, @Link typically deploys fiber to its towers in the form of the trunk or backhaul of the content to that distribution point. Less often, @Link takes fiber right to the home, but only in rare cases where that makes sense. Adds @Link principal, Samual Curtis, “@Link still uses some wireless point-to-point backhaul wireless links, but when use increases, we often switch to fiber.”

More Money Moving

As noted above, in recently updated figures, The Carmel Group finds both the subscriber and revenue growth of just the WISP industry, to be substantial. Indeed, in a world looking inside the traditional pay TV industry and seeing significant shrinkage, there is on the other hand optimism among FISPs, WISPs, and “Hybrids.”

Much of this expansion comes as the wise money minds become more creative, making money not just for their institutions but, as importantly, working with and guiding their broadband lending clients toward making far more money – and thus “wise money” – in the process. That “wise money” will typically be the funding that comes from things like the lowest rates, plus less or no business collateral, longer payment time frames, and serving the borrower and its business after the loan closes.

It’s a good time – and getting better – to be a WISP, a FISP, a “Hybrid,” and/or a small-to-mid-sized cable operator in America. It’s also a good time to be a specialized SBA- and USDA-backed government lending bank, because those banks are increasingly jumping in, as well.

The money is beginning to move. And America’s broadband borrowers are delivering much better answers to that age-old inquiry: “How will I pay for that?”

Jimmy Schaeffler is the chair and CSO of The Carmel Group, a broadband, broadcast, and pay TV/video consultancy. He has spent nearly five decades studying, writing, researching and analyzing, working with every type of player in the space. If you are a small-to-mid-sized operator looking to expand or better understand the industry, and the financing and funding available, feel free to reach out to him at jimmy@carmelgroup.com.

Television station ad revenue is expected to grow at a 3% compound annual rate over the next five years, according to a new report from Kagan.

Kagan, a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, says TV stations generated $30.84 billion in revenue in 2016, including advertising and retransmission consent payments. Radio station generated another $17.7 billion in revenue.

TV advertising revenue is expected to decline 6.5% to $21.38 billion in 2017, a non-election, non-Olympic year, with rises in other revenue categories (including 18% in retransmission consent, to $10.23billion) not fully offsetting the loss. But in 2018, ad revenue will increase to $23.43 billion, with the Winter games and mid-term political campaigns. 

Kagan says that while political ads will remain important, the TV station business is expected to become less reliant on the traditional spot marketplace, with a bigger share of revenues coming from retransmission and digital reducing the swings from even and odd numbered years.

Suddenlink Communications said it has named Mike Shelton as vice president of fiscal operations for its North Carolina Region.

Shelton, a 25-year veteran of the finance industry, will be responsible for all aspects of regional fiscal operations including financial planning and analysis, warehouse and inventory control functions, as well as credit and collections efforts. He comes to Suddenlink from Central Parking Inc., a professional parking management company, where he was vice president of finance. Shelton has previously worked in various positions with Boeing, Fred Meyer grocery stores and Hollywood Video.

“We are delighted to have Mike join the Suddenlink team,” said Senior Vice President of North Carolina Region Operations Jared Sonne in a statement. “He is a proven leader with an extensive background in financial planning and analysis.”

Shelton received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from California State University, Long Beach. He will be based in Greenville

Mediacom said Tuesday that it has promoted Joseph Commisso to Group Vice President of Corporate Finance, reporting to executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer Mark Stephan.

Commisso, whose father Rocco founded Mediacom and serves as its chairman and CEO, will be actively involved in all aspects of the Corporate Finance Department’s activities, including debt financing, banking relationships, investor relations, external financial reporting, corporate strategy, business development, portfolio investment and liability management.

Joseph Commisso joined Mediacom in 2006 on a full-time basis and most recently served as Vice President, Financial Operations and Corporate Strategy, where he developed and managed the enterprise data warehouse and business intelligence systems.  Since the Company’s founding in 1995, he has played an integral part in Mediacom’s growth and has held various internships in financial operations, field management, programming, acquisition due diligence and information technology.

A graduate of Columbia University with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering, Commisso also completed the Cable Executive Management program sponsored by the CTAM Educational Foundation at Harvard Business School.  He serves on the board of directors of both the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation and the alumni advisory group, Friends of Columbia Soccer.