While the industry grapples with labor shortages for skilled fiber technicians as incumbents and competitors alike build out massive fiber networks, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson and Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries told the opening general session of the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo that the so-called “talent gap” is largely dependent on the projects at hand.

“There is so much activity going on all at once,” Watson told a Tuesday audience at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. “Every operator is dealing with not only a significant upgrade to the networks, all mapped out, anticipated to improve multiple assets of connectivity, but there are also new things like new passings. …There’s a bit of a crunch in terms of the sheer amount of people needed to pull all of this off.”

Also read: Home Networks Are the New Industry Battleground (Expo) 

Watson said providers that are changing their networks, or large components thereof, to virtualize and add capability need a different set of skills.

“It does require that people get trained up on how to do this,” Watson said. “Our people are adaptable. The front-line leadership is on their toes, working hard, and they’re dealing with all of these changes.”

At Liberty Global, which derives about half of its revenue from mobile, the needs are different. Fries said LGI isn’t having much trouble finding people with experience in 5G or other mobile tech, but he sees a gap in attracting people who can help the company move into new businesses.

“It’s the things we want to do,” Fries said. “We need more data experts, we’re finding it hard to find  people who can help us get us into new revenue streams.”

For most cable companies, 10G is one of those new products with the most potential, and it’s also one of the main themes of the Cable-Tec Expo. Fries said 10G is the technology he is most excited about because he’s already deploying it: Liberty Global has rolled out a 10G product in Switzerland for $50 per month.

Comcast hasn’t rolled out 10G yet, but earlier this month it launched a multi-year initiative to bring multi-gig internet to 34 cities by the end of 2025. Comcast intends to eventually put multi-gig service in front of 50 million homes and businesses.

“It really pieces together an efficient and effective network evolution for us,” Watson said.

Fries added that the European competitive landscape — he estimated that nearly 100% of Liberty Global’s markets will be overbuilt with fiber over the next three years by another company — makes the 10G evolution a necessity for him.

“It’s urgent for us,” Fries said. “It’s not a ‘nice to have’ — it’s life or death.”

Both Watson and Fries thanked the tech side of the business for keeping the networks running during the pandemic, a period that put an unprecedented strain on the infrastructure as usage ballooned as most of the country had to work and learn from home.

While both Fries and Watson praised cable for stepping up to the challenge, Fries said the goodwill associated with cable broadband during the pandemic is also an opportunity the industry shouldn’t let pass.

“Let’s bottle that magic,” Fries said. “During that pandemic, not only did we rise to the occasion and our networks did everything that we hoped they would do, we built up a lot better relationship with our consumers, and the businesses we serve, hospitals and regulators and government. That’s a special thing we have to hold onto. We’ve got to build on that. We can’t just take that for granted.” ■

Altice USA said it will accelerate its fiber-to-the-home buildout efforts, planning to pass 6.5 million homes by 2025 with the state-of-the-art network, after a year where it saw broadband customer additions creep into negative territory.

Altice USA lost about 2,000 broadband customers in Q4 and shed 3,000 for the full year, not including numbers from its most recent acquisition, Morris Broadband.  If Morris Broadband subscribers are included, Altice USA said it would have added 27,000 broadband customers for the full year.

The broadband slide helped drive revenue down 0.6% in the quarter to $2.52 billion, while adjusted EBITDA fell 5.9% to $1.1 billion. For the full year, revenue rose 2% to $10.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA was relatively flat (up 0.3%) at $4.43 billion.

Altice USA stock fell about 3.5% in after-hours trading Wednesday to $13.59 per share. So far this year, the stock is down about 16%.

The company has struggled with broadband subscriber metrics over the past few quarters as it has competed with aggressive promotions from Verizon’s Fios product, losing about 13,000 customers in Q3. Late last year it announced a change in its strategic direction, speeding up fiber deployment, shifting several management positions and planning to rebrand the company under the Optimum name. 

Also: Did Altice USA Cut Costs Too Much?

"We are pleased to conclude 2021 having made progress on our growth strategies by accelerating the enhancements of our network, product and customer experience,” CEO Dexter Goei said in a press release. “We see customer trends improving as we continue the expansion of our sales distribution channels and recently launched our planned competitive converged internet and mobile offerings. Today we also announce a new plan to bring 100% fiber broadband, delivering multi-gig speeds, to more than two thirds of our entire footprint over the next four years, reaching a total of 6.5 million FTTH passings by the end of 2025. We are confident in our strategy and that our focus on these key initiatives will drive long-term sustainable growth and value.” 

Altice had said earlier it had to scale back its fiber rollout in order to adhere to pandemic related protocols. Now that many of those restrictions are being lifted, it can step up its efforts to build out the network. 

Also: Analyst Makes Case for Altice USA to Go Private 

Altice USA said the new fiber expansion should allow it to cover about two-thirds of its total footprint in the next four years and will include about 2.5 million additional passings in its Suddenlink markets and 4 million in its Optimum locations. Altice began building out its fiber network in the Optimum footprint mainly in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut several years ago and currently passes about 1.2 million homes with fiber in those areas. In its Suddenlink markets, construction is expected to begin this year in six communities in Texas -- Abilene, Amarillo, Bryan-College Station, Lubbock, San Angelo, and Tyler -- expanding later into parts of Arizona, California, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.

“Altice USA is proud to announce plans to invest further in our fiber deployment strategy by accelerating the build of a 100% fiber broadband network capable of delivering multi-gig speeds across our Optimum and Suddenlink footprint,” Goei said in a press release. “Fiber is the future and given the progress we have made at Optimum with our fiber expansion, we’re excited to build on that success and break ground later this year at Suddenlink to bring our advanced network to more customers and communities.” ■ 

In March of 2020, I had my second son in the throes of a global pandemic, and in the throes of my career in the fast-paced, never sleeping advertising industry. With it, came an immense amount of joy and laughter, and, to be honest, it also brought stress, doubt and tears. 

Looking back, I realize I have learned so many things from this wild time that will help me succeed in both my personal and professional lives. Managing a four-person household during a pandemic is oddly similar to leading a 120-person planning and monetization team at a Fortune 50 media company. I jokingly refer to these learnings as “pandemic-professional-parent skills,” and I want to share them with fellow parents, with the hope that my learnings will help them too.

Set Realistic Expectations

It’s no secret that every day brings surprises, both good and bad, and the pandemic seemed to bring a lot more than usual. But if you go into your day expecting perfection, that your 4-year-old tornado of a son will actually listen, or your major marketing campaign will go without a hitch, you’ll be disappointed and discouraged. 

Instead, set realistic expectations. Know that downs may happen. But so will ups. Yes, you may find out you are losing your star employee, or your baby may cry for what seems like forever, but if you are mentally prepared, then these will be just bumps in the road as you navigate the day.

So how do you do this? Despite everything going on around you, find a way at the start of your day to center your mind. Whether it is over coffee, while you are feeding your child or when you first sit down at your desk, take a deep breath and determine what your mark is for a good day. It could be one of those days where your toddler was up in the night, and you have back-to-back meetings, so your mark could be simply surviving until your head hits the pillow. Or maybe you just gained a new client and your house is finally in somewhat of an order, so you want to set your mark to checking off three quarters of your to do list. (But don’t make it the full list, as we all know that never happens!)

Overall, be truly honest with yourself, because your expectations are not influenced by anyone but yourself. Perfection is fiction; don’t hold yourself (or other people) to that bar.

Allow Yourself to Rebound

It is amazing to consider what we have all lived through since the start of COVID-19. And, as 2022 begins, pandemic life seems to keep on going, bringing new strains and worries, such as kids staying healthy in school and team cultures staying intact. Plus, fragmentation of our marketplace has never been more prevalent. 

Yet throughout it all, we are continuously evolving and learning, soaring and falling, and it’s important to acknowledge it all rather than shove it under the rug. For instance, when you feel yourself on a slope, let yourself ride down it. 

During quarantine, I sometimes felt guilt on how hard it was to have two kids at home while my husband and I both worked at home (his full-time job is watching the kids!). The daily feeling of “failure everywhere” was at an all-time high. I didn’t finish my strategic plan. We skipped baths again. The presentation didn’t go as planned. The sink is full of dishes. I completely forgot about a deliverable. I didn’t spend enough time with my family. 

But when you tell yourself your feelings are unwarranted – it makes the fall so much worse. What we should take away is how to rebound. The fall doesn’t make you unworthy, unable; it makes you human. So, in work and home life, concentrate on how you recover – not how far you fall or how often you trip. It’s important to allow yourself as well as your family, colleagues, friends, and kids, the space for adjustment. Allow yourself, and them, to rebound. And then celebrate it – you picked yourself up. You rock.

Fill Up Your Cup

How many times have you heard “you can’t pour from an empty cup” or “take some time for yourself”? The problem is that it feels impossible, and even selfish sometimes. More times than I can name this past year, I had to dig into my bone-dry cup and somehow turn it into positive energy for an unhappy team member, a needy kid or a frustrated client. 

Sometimes it feels like every single moment, someone, somewhere needs something from you. Feedback on a report. A snack. A response to an email. A clean shirt. I think often of the analogy of a pot that is boiling over. You can either take the pot off the burner or turn down the heat. A five-minute walk may cool things down, but they will get hot very quickly when it goes right back to the high heat. 

So, try to find longer-term, sustainable ways to “turn down the heat” in a meaningful way. I think many of us forgot who we were throughout this pandemic. I sometimes feel like I am just getting the glimmers back now. Laughing with my husband at the kids, chatting with a coworker about a new show, setting up a birthday party with my friends, signing up for a leadership course, enrolling my toddler in school.

Whether it is running, reading or gardening, or simply just staring at the wall, we all need time to fill up our own cup. Make time for it. Set a reminder. Block out 30 minutes (even 10!) a day. Add it to your to do list. Just make it happen. No excuses. YOU are your most important fan.

We Are Doing It

We should all write “managed a global pandemic” on our resumes – and understand the hidden skill sets and tactics we employed during the past year plus of our lives, so this wasn’t all for naught. The internet and TV doesn’t ever turn off (especially when everyone is in their homes!).

Everyone was hit hard by COVID-19. When it comes to us working parents, many left the work force to support their family. Or they stayed in and had to somehow do it all and stay motivated (WHAT?!) .

Hopefully these three “pandemic-professional-parent skills” will help us all, so we can grow, balance and appreciate our professional and personal lives that much more. Approach each day with room for ups and downs, empathy and time for ourselves. Let’s all get ready to rebound. ■

After holding its annual trade show event virtually earlier this year, the National Association of Television Program Executives said it will hold its next conference in-person Jan. 18-20 in Miami.

The organization said a list of speakers and an event schedule will be announced soon. 

NATPE said the Miami event will follow the highest standards and COVID-related protocols to keep exhibitors, buyers, sponsors, honorees, partners and all attendees safe, including: mandatory proof of vaccination for all attendees, outdoor tents for select sessions and meetings, and designated NATPE Safe zones fully controlled by the event production team. More information on NATPE Safe protocols is available here. 

“We are thrilled to see our exhibitors, sponsors coming back to Miami and to be welcoming new partners as we are ready to be the new year’s first major platform for the business of content as the industry continues to evolve globally,” NATPE president and CEO JP Bommel said in a statement. “All of us at NATPE are hard at work building a strong program focusing on new business, new markets, and financing. But most importantly, we look forward to NATPE Miami as a time to celebrate our return in person for what is sure to be a productive and educational week in the content industry.”

The Federal Communications Commission has signaled there are still concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing impact on broadband access.

On its own initiative, which means not in response to any request, the FCC's Wireline Competition bureau has extended the waivers of various Lifeline rules through Dec. 31, 2021. It is only the latest in a series of extensions as the pandemic continues despite vaccination and masking efforts.

Lifeline is the low-income subsidy program for advanced telecommunications, broadband and voice.

Over the course of the pandemic, the FCC issued eight different orders relating to various procedural hoops that it saw as hurdles during the medical crisis.

“[W]e find good cause to extend, on our own motion, our prior waivers of the Lifeline program rules governing documentation requirements for subscribers residing in rural areas on Tribal lands, reverification, recertification, general de-enrollment, and income documentation,” the FCC said.

“Extending the waivers … will allow additional time for the benefits of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination efforts to continue and will allow additional time for individuals who have lost jobs and faced other challenges as a result of the pandemic to recover,” it added.

The bureau also signaled that it could issue another extension if circumstances warrant.

Comcast said it has expanded its Internet Essentials program to include federal Pell Grant recipients and pledged to invest $15 million in free internet service and equipment, including 25,000 laptop computers, to low income students, seniors, veterans and adults. 

The Philadelphia-based MSO launched Internet Essentials in 2011, and so far the program, which targets low-income families, has helped more than 10 million people connect to broadband at home. The expansion is part of Comcast’s Project UP, the company’s $1 billion initiative to reach 50 million people with the tools, resources and skills needed for success in the digital world.

As the pandemic has highlighted the need for reliable broadband connections to the home, Comcast said research shows how lower income families are faced with unique adoption challenges such as housing insecurity, literacy challenges, language barriers, and broadband relevancy issues. Comcast said its digital equity efforts have been designed to address as many of these challenges as possible, including offering low-cost broadband Internet at home; the option to purchase a heavily subsidized, affordable computer; access to free WiFi in community centers nationwide; and numerous options to acquire the digital skills necessary to navigate distance learning and use the internet.

The 25,000 laptops will be donated to low-income students, seniors, veterans and adults in cities nationwide, such as Houston, Texas; Sacramento, California; Seattle; Philadelphia; Hartford, Connecticut; Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; Atlanta; Detroit; Chicago; Jacksonville, Florida; Minneapolis; Oakland; Boston; Pittsburgh; and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“Digital equity is key to success in education and economic mobility, now and into the future,” Comcast executive VP of public policy and digital equity Broderick Johnson said in a statement. “As our economic, medical, and educational systems become increasingly digital, it’s more important than ever that every American gets online. For those young people pursuing higher education, the expansion of IE eligibility to Pell Grant recipients is a real boost. Through the announcements we are making today, we will help support the development of a workforce that has the digital skills necessary to adapt to rapid shifts in a fast-evolving economy.”

Making the Internet Essentials program available to Pell Grant recipients in its service territory enables students to stay connected as they continue to pursue degrees at colleges, universities, and technical schools. The Federal Pell Grant program, established in 1965, is the largest source of federal grant aid for students pursuing a post-secondary education.

“One thing this pandemic has taught us is the necessity of digital access for all students,” Council for Opportunity in Education president Maureen Hoyler said in a statement. “By expanding eligibility to include Pell Grant recipients, Internet Essentials has taken an important step towards helping low-income college students realize their postsecondary goals.”

 The pandemic has changed everything — the way we socialize, celebrate, communicate and how we work. 

In the content and connectivity industry, the challenge was twofold: to quickly equip a remote workforce and ensure that people worldwide stayed connected. Proudly, the industry rose to the challenge, exhibiting agility and innovation in a time of crisis. But now that seas are starting to calm, what will organizations continue to do to ride the wave of change?

I talked to industry learning and development experts Diana Monk, VP of learning solutions at Charter Communications; Martha Soehren, former chief talent development officer at Comcast and current executive development adviser and coach; and Allyson Crawford, VP of talent management at WOW! Internet, Cable & Phone, so they could share their thoughts on how the pandemic has changed workplace practices, behaviors and culture. 

Spoiler alert: Even change caused by a global crisis can create opportunities for the future.

Trust, Freedom Speed Innovation  

While most organizations like to say they grant their employees the freedom to innovate, this principle wasn’t really tested until the pandemic caused a sudden and dramatic shift in the way people work. Leaders had no choice but to allow people at all levels to do what they needed to do to get their work done. 

Rather than the feared outcome of remote workers becoming disengaged and unproductive, the new flexibility increased engagement and productivity. “There were a couple of factors that felt very prominent during the pandemic, and one of those was how we built a trust factor that people would get the work done, that they would do what they needed to do,” Soehren said. “And the second of those was that we gave people the freedom to create a new way of working, a new way of being productive, a new way of interacting and I think that those capabilities will help us immensely moving forward in a more intrapreneurial world.”

The Need for Agility Activated Culture Change  

Large industry organizations tend to have bureaucratic cultures, which means big change happens slowly. At the start of the pandemic, organizations needed to adapt extremely quickly, so decision hierarchies and lengthy processes were thrown to the wind — with surprising results.

“It’s amazing to reflect on how quickly we were able to move some employees — for example, our call center agents to their homes,” Monk said. “I was talking with some members of our IT team, and they said, ‘If someone had put a project plan in front of us and said how long will it take you to move your call centers to 50% at home and 50% in the office, the answer would’ve been somewhere around nine months.’ We did it in less than two weeks because we had to. The lesson on the need for agility there is pretty strong.”  

Empowered, Engaged Employees

If employees are given the freedom to try new things without fear of reprisal, the result is greater engagement. Some organizations have realized the benefits of this shift and are planning to build greater agility into their cultural touchstones moving forward. 

“We’re making decisions more quickly,” Crawford said. “It’s exciting. We’re seeing engagement increasing. We’re empowering our employees, our leaders, to make decisions at a different level.” Added Crawford, “I think the real gift of the pandemic is we’re seeing a lot more generation of ideas by even our frontline employees because we’re asking for more opinions.” 

Cultivating leaders from within and engaging high performers are essential to holding on to top talent. Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their organization, and this is especially important in the new competitive employment market.

The pandemic has been a crash course in the need for organizations to demonstrate agility and empower employees. Now, our job is to take what we’ve learned and use it to ride the wave of change — lest we risk going under. 

While Nick Cannon and Jay Leno are both debuting shows this fall — alongside such stalwarts as Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore — the real stars of syndication in 2021 are regular people doing amazing things in their communities across the country.

Whether it’s a new talker, like Nick Cannon, or a veteran program, like Rachael Ray, almost every show is looking to spotlight people who serve their communities. After a year and a half spent slogging through a global pandemic, producers hope to keep audiences enthralled with a balance of inspiration and entertainment, of everyday people and of flashy celebrities.

“One of the things we are looking forward to most is showcasing people doing amazing and incredible things,” said Matt Strauss, one of four executive producers on Debmar-Mercury’s Nick Cannon, along with Katy Murphy Davis, Michael Goldman and Cannon. “We’re looking forward to telling stories about people making a difference in their communities.”

“Community is important to Nick and using his fame to make a positive impact is also important to him,” Murphy Davis said. “First and foremost, we want the show to be fun, inspirational, entertaining and positive.”

Nick Cannon, which will replace Warner Bros.’s The Real as a lead-in to Debmar-
Mercury’s Wendy Williams on many owned-and-operated Fox affiliates (The Real will continue to air on Fox-owned duopoly stations) when it premieres on Monday, Sept. 27, is being produced at the NET Metropolis Studios at 106th and Park in Harlem. Featuring Harlem-based organizations, charities and community leaders as a regular part of the show also is important to Cannon, Strauss said.

The show — which will air live three days a week, with two days taped — will also include a mix of pop culture, celebrity, music and fashion, “all viewed through Nick’s unique lens,” Murphy Davis said. “In daytime, it is all about people wanting to spend that hour with that person,” she continued. “I think it’s really important to Nick to have a really authentic connection to his audience. He calls his audience family. He’s fun to spend time with and we want people to experience that.” 

Betting on Leno

The Fox stations also are introducing another new series this year: You Bet Your Life, starring Leno and his Tonight Show band leader, Kevin Eubanks. The show will start with three or four minutes of comedy from that duo before the contestants — all of whom have some interesting claim to fame — are introduced. The contestants will then answer trivia questions for the chance to win money. 

“We specifically go out and find people who have unique, fun stories,” said Stephen Brown, executive VP, programming and development, Fox Television Stations. “The cool thing about the show is that it really fulfills the promise of America — it’s two strangers coming together to work together. We’re seeing people from completely different sides of the country, in all different colors, shapes and sizes, working together, high-fiving each other, laughing and having a great time. That’s what we need right now.”

All episodes of You Bet Your Life, which is cleared in 98% of the country, are being shot this fall. The show debuts in national syndication on Monday, Sept. 13. 

Getting a Drew-Over

Headed into its season-two premiere on Monday, Sept. 13, CBS Media Ventures’ Drew Barrymore is looking forward to building connections to its audience, especially since the year-old show hasn’t been able to be produced in front of a live audience until now. 

Drew Barrymore, which was shot in a New York City studio without an audience all last year, will open season two with a week of shows shot from the Paramount lot in Los Angeles, with a live audience joining Barrymore in an outdoor setting. 

“We’re coming out of the gate swinging,” executive producer Jason Kurtz said. “The premiere that we’re planning is the one we deserved last year and that we earned this year having been through what we’ve been through. Instead of one season-two premiere episode. we’re building a two-week event under the umbrella of ‘there’s no place like home.’ We were talking about how we can celebrate everyone’s hometowns and Drew was talking lovingly about her hometown of Los Angeles, so we’re taking the show on the road for our first week back. 

“We are planning five eventful episodes that feel big and loud and exciting. Within those five episodes, we’re celebrating different hometowns with our viewers, whether it’s Dallas, Washington, D.C., or Denver. Then we’re continuing that when we return home to New York and create five more eventful episodes in our new hometown or New York City.” 

Drew Barrymore plans to continue with “Drew-Gooder” segments that feature “heart-warming, inspiring human-interest and lifestyle stories,” Kurtz said. “Drew does such an excellent job of making people feel comfortable and we want to continue that. We now want to bring the audience in and make them part of the conversation.”

Kurtz means that literally. Every time a show is taped, one audience member will be chosen to sit in the “co-host chair,” where they will be given a binder about that day’s guests, have a camera on them and be given the opportunity to ask their own questions. 

“We’re looking at that as a way to incorporate the studio audience with the at-home viewers,” Kurtz said. “Last year, we would offer the at-home audience a pop quiz and whoever first answered three questions correctly about what had happened on that day’s show would win $1,000. This year, that will be fun to do with studio audience members.”

Although the cast and crew of Drew Barrymore are excited to finally be shooting in front of a live audience, they also plan to keep some things in place they used during the pandemic — such as technology that allowed a guest to join them from Los Angeles but look like they were on set in New York City. 

Other shows plan to keep some things they did during the pandemic in place, even though they don’t necessarily have to. 

Rachael Ray at Home

CBS Media Ventures’ Rachael Ray was forced to shoot shows from Ray’s home in Lake Luzerne, New York, in the Adirondacks when the pandemic hit. The show moved to her guest house all last season after the main house burned down late last summer. 

Never daunted, Ray just kept on shooting while her home was rebuilt. She’ll provide an update on the house when the show returns for season 16 on Monday, Sept. 13. 

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Janet Annino, an executive producer of Rachael Ray since it debuted in 2006. “What we learned doing the show from Rachael’s house was that viewers loved it and she actually enjoyed it too. It really opened up a whole new layer with her that the audience connected with. We’re building on that this season with a hybrid model in which some shows are shot from her home and some from the studio.”

Rachael Ray also is redoing the in-studio set to more closely reflect Ray’s home to maintain that intimate connection with viewers no matter where the show is shooting from.

“The new set is a little bit scaled down and very cozy,” Annino said. “It reflects a lot of the elements that you see in her house — more casual seating on the floor that’s closer to Rachael. There will be less of an audience behind a proscenium and more people on love seats and chairs and cushions on the floor.”

“When we are in the studio, it is our fond wish and plan to have people there in person,” Annino said. “That might not always be possible so we’re still open to having people Zoom in or whatever. When we’re [shooting the show] at [Rachael’s] home, that is what we’ll do.”

Rachael Ray, which is celebrating its “sweet and savory 16th season,” also will focus on community service this year, with such segments as “The Nice List” and “2021-ders” carrying over from last year. In these segments, the show found people who were doing “incredible things in their communities and making a difference one thing at a time. That’s something we are going to continue — high­lighting people who are bringing food to food deserts, packing backpacks for kids in need and so forth. That’s become one of the hallmark staples of this show. For Rachael right now, it’s really about showing that one person can make a difference.”

Finally, Wrigley Media’s new court show, Relative Justice, which is cleared in more than 82% of the country and premieres Monday, Sept. 13, sees Judge Rhonda Wills solve the problems of average people who are in conflict with someone in their family — whether it’s their parents, siblings or cousins. 

“The feelings people express on this show are so genuine, the viewers will be so drawn in with the families and feeling compassion for them,” said Misdee Wrigley, CEO of Wrigley Media, which is based in Lexington, Kentucky. “Several viewers will say ‘I’ve been in that situation, and that’s happened to me.’ We’ve been surprised by how open people are once they get in front of Rhonda and start to talk about their lives.”

While the pandemic is not over, prod­ucers are relieved to be getting back to some semblance of normal. 

“Last year, the challenges upon us were ever-changing,” Drew Barrymore’s Kurtz said. “Our motto became ‘turn every obstacle into an opportunity.’ It was hard to plan when you were constantly being challenged with new parameters. That still exists to an extent but now nothing is even giving us pause this year — we’re able to pivot quicker, even while we’re ever mindful of what’s happening out there.” 

The Independent Show, slated to return to live-and-in-person for the first time in about a year, has told its members that the conference, slated for Oct. 5-6 in Minneapolis, will now be held virtually.

This will be the second virtual Independent Show -- the 2020 conference was also held virtually because of pandemic concerns. Although the show’s organizers -- the National Cable Television Cooperative and ACA Connects -- were enthusiastic about returning to an in-person format (this year's show is titled "The Power of Together"), concerns about the COVID-19 virus (and its delta variant) forced their collective hands.

“After thoughtful discussion, ACA Connects and NCTC decided to take the Independent Show online next month because of difficult planning issues despite strong enthusiasm for such an important industry event to take place in Minneapolis. It’s the correct decision, with broad support from both ACAC and NCTC members,” ACA Connects Chairman Patricia Jo Boyers said in a press release. “I’m positive the online event will be a smashing success.”

Other industry events that had also been slated to be in-person have pulled back to virtual status because of concerns over the pandemic as well as continued business travel restrictions. In June the Cable Center said it would hold its Hall of Fame celebration virtually in October. Earlier this month, it pushed the date to Nov. 15. Last week, the Mid-America Cable Telecommunications Association said its annual conference would be held virtually as well. 

TIS organizers had planned several COVID precautions, including requiring attendees show proof of vaccination or provide a negative test for the virus prior to the meeting, that face masks be worn indoors at conference events regardless of vaccination status and that social distancing be practiced. The organizers had also planned to live stream sessions so members could watch the events from home or at the show.  

But that apparently was not enough to quell concerns.

“COVID-19 and the Delta variant have been a moving target. While our plan was to finally meet in-person, it has become more and more clear that it was not the responsible thing to do,” NCTC CEO Lou Borrelli said in a press release. “Nevertheless, the online show to me is a can’t-miss program, and I greatly look forward to seeing friends and members on the big screen.”

The Federal Communications Commission said it has approved a first tranche of 62 telehealth applications for $41.98 million in its second round of funding for COVID-19 telehealth services.

In round one, the FCC allocated $200 million of CARES Act funding for 539 applications from 47 states, as well as the District of Columbia. 

The money goes to healthcare providers, but then some of it is passed along to broadband service providers. That‘s because the funds can be used to pay for telecommunications and information services, as well as connected devices, so consumer technology companies also benefit from the program.

Also Read: FCC Approves Telehealth Funding, Round 2

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, access to health care has proven to be not only a national issue, but also a local issue, and it is imperative that every community is given the tools to access this care as safely and effectively as possible," said acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel.

She said the FCC factored in the hardest-hit and lowest-income areas, including tribal areas and previously unfunded states and territories, in deciding how to distribute the initial funds in the $249 million telehealth program mandated by Congress.

The next tranche will go to the next highest-scoring areas, in terms of need, until at least $150 million has been committed.

HBO will look at the pandemic from the perspectives of two different countries in a new documentary, In the Same Breath, debuting Aug. 18.

The documentary will examine the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States, said network officials.

Directed by filmmaker Nanfu Wang, the film explores the early confusion and parallel campaigns by authorities to try to contain the virus as well as shape the public narrative through misinformation, resulting in a devastating impact on citizens of both countries.  

Also Read: HBO and Dish End 3-Year Old Carriage Battle 

Mediacom Communications managed to continue to squeeze profits out of its broadband business even as subscriber additions began to slow down in the second quarter, finishing the period with a double-digit increase in cash flow as revenue rose nearly 6%.

Mediacom reported $557 million in revenue in Q2, up 5.9% from the previous year, while adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA), a measure of cash flow, rose 15.2% to $251.2 million. It was the fourth straight quarter of double-digit cash flow growth at the company. Adjusted OIBDA increased by 15.2% in Q1 2021, 16.3% in Q4 2020, and 15.4% in Q3 2020, according to Mediacom. 

Most analysts expect broadband subscriber growth to slow down across the industry as the impact of the pandemic wanes, and such was the case at Mediacom, where broadband additions shrunk to 14,000 in Q2, down from the 47,000 it added in Q2 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Video customer losses of 15,000 were lower than the 17,000 the company lost in Q2 2020.  

Also Read: Comcast Soundly Beats Expectations in Q2

In a press release, Mediacom founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said the growth was largely due to the company’s decision to "transition to a broadband-centric strategy.

“Our streak of year-over-year revenue growth has now reached a remarkable 98 consecutive quarters, a testament to the perseverance of our dedicated employees in the face of numerous challenges encountered over the last 25 years,” Commisso continued. “Despite becoming a meaningful income taxpayer this year, we still managed to reduce our net debt by $232 million during the first half of 2021. Our lenders continue to benefit from our investment grade financial position, with Mediacom’s net leverage declining below 1.5x, the lowest in our history.”

Tonight’s ESPY Awards show on ABC will look to ride the momentum of the return of live sports after an unprecedented shutdown in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, hosted by actor Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), will honor major sports achievements and salute the leading performers and performances. 

Last year’s June ESPYs event was held without a live audience and, with the lack of live sports events due to the pandemic, focused mostly on humanitarian issues. 

I recently spoke to ESPN Content SVP and Editor-At-Large Rob King about this year’s ESPYs presentation and how ESPN has had to navigate around the pandemic to produce its annual sports awards show. An edited version of the interview appears below. 

Picture This: How has ESPN adjusted to producing the ESPY Awards during an unprecedented time in sports due to the pandemic? 

Rob King: So we went from being in a theater of 5,000 people two years ago to having to do it all virtually last year. That was a struggle on a number of fronts: in some ways you had a bit of a captive audience in terms of athletes and performers who joined the show, but it was also trying to do a virtual show in the middle of a pretty dramatic shift in human history between the pandemic, a reckoning around race, and the early stages of an election cycle. Meanwhile, we didn't have live sports to watch or enjoy, so it felt wrong to hand out awards for best college basketball team when we didn't have an NCAA tournament or to offer a whole host of superlative awards for seasons that were stopped. So we had to shift course last year and really make it be about a celebration of heroism and courage at a time when everyone needed it. Now you flash forward to this year, and we’ve had sports return in a way that we have all needed. You've seen incredible performances around the world and fans have worked their way back into stadiums, so we have an opportunity to return to some of that celebratory feel around the performance of athletes.

Picture This: How will this year’s ESPYs look and feel different from last year?

RK: First let me say that we are not quite out of pandemic, so we've worked tirelessly to think of ways to start our way back to what we believe will be a full theater show next year by creating this safe environment where people can celebrate together. Logistically it meant that you’ll have 500 people instead of 5,000; it'll mean that we'll have folks socially distant, but with the ability to be with one another.

Picture This: Last year the ESPYs moved to Saturday night from Wednesday. Is Saturday an optimal night for the event in terms of reaching viewers?

RK: We’ll see. The Wednesday slot after the [Major League Baseball] All-Star game was chosen strategically because there isn’t anything else going on so you can be the only show in town. We just feel like we’re well situated this year based on the general excitement about the return of sports.

Picture This: What does host Anthony Mackie bring to the ESPYs?

RK: First of all, he is a genuine sports fan, and there have been so many moments of just pure joy working on this show because he really gets why a night like this matters. Secondly, working with Anthony Mackie has made me a lot cooler with my teenage kids -- I’m not saying that’s the only thing that matters, but it matters (laughing).

Picture This: Are you confident that this year’s ESPYs will resonate with viewers?

RK: I think so. I think producers of the show have done a fantastic job of making sure that some of those athletes that we just love, want to spend time with and celebrate will be present. We're going to have a bunch of moments that will be immediately viral and draw a lot of attention. It’s also a really big night in terms of sports across ESPN and ABC with the Wimbledon finals and UFC 264 with Conor McGregor, so I think our time on ABC from eight o’clock until 11 fits nicely into what's really going to be a pretty big day for sports fans.

Read Also: ESPN's Rachel Nichols Sidelined for NBA Finals

Cable operators are poised to report another strong year of broadband subscriber growth in 2021 on the heels of last year’s record-breaking increases, but Barclays media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar warned that growth could slow substantially in 2022.

In a report Thursday, Venkateshwar noted that the momentum from 2020 — where cable operators added 4 million broadband customers — should continue into this year as the impact from stimulus programs to boost household income and government broadband subsidy efforts should keep churn low. But he added those programs also could have masked underlying problems that could resurface as some of the projects disappear. 

In his report, Venkateshwar noted that assuming those stimulus programs accounted for a 10-basis-point reduction in non-pay churn implies growth this year would be lower than in 2019 for the top three cable operators — Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice USA — absent that factor. Then there is the impact of such programs on broadband penetration. 

Venkateshwar estimated that as many as 700,000 broadband additions in 2020 came from stimulus and subsidies, and it is unclear how much of that growth will stick around for the long term. Add planned fiber and fixed wireless broadband rollouts from several telcos, an increased focus on network quality and the need for higher uplink speeds and “these factors could imply that 2021 broadband growth will remain unusually strong but may reverse next year,” Venkateshwar wrote.

The Barclays analyst estimated that Comcast, which added about 2 million broadband customers in 2020, will slip to 1.4 million additions in 2021 and 1.1 million in 2022. Charter, which led the top operators with 2.1 million broadband additions in 2020, will add 1.3 million in 2021 and 1.0 million in 2022, according to Venkateshwar. Highly penetrated Altice USA added 172,000 broadband customers in 2020 and is expected to add 84,000 in 2021 and 65,000 in 2022. 

Other analysts have predicted a similar falloff in cable broadband growth. Last month, Sanford C. Bernstein media analyst Peter Supino predicted total cable broadband additions would slow to 2.9 million in 2021,  2.2 million in 2022 and 2 million by 2023. 

Cable operators have warned investors not to expect the same levels of growth experienced during the height of the pandemic, and other factors like bundling broadband with wireless service could help boost subscriber levels. In addition, operators are continuously expanding their footprints into more rural markets through edge-outs and other programs, which could also mitigate any slowdown.  

With vaccination levels approaching 70% of the adult population, several cable and broadcast conventions are planning on making the 2021 slate at least partly an in-person experience for the first time since 2019.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 66% of U.S. residents aged 18 and older have taken at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 57% are fully vaccinated. 

The National Association of Broadcasters is kicking off its NAB Show Oct. 9-13 in Las Vegas. Actor and comedian Jim Gaffigan is slated to perform live at the NAB Show Sunday Kick Off at 4:15 PST on Oct. 10.

“After a difficult year and unfortunate hiatus for the NAB Show, we look forward to celebrating the opening of the show floor with the ever talented and hilarious Jim Gaffigan,” NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith said in a press release. "His notoriously fun and entertaining performance is ideal for this momentous occasion as we reunite and re-engage in Las Vegas.”

Also as part of the event, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt anchor and award-winning journalist Lester Holt will be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame on Oct. 11.

Like some other organizations, NAB was forced to move the dates for its 2021 confab because of the pandemic. The 2021 event was originally scheduled for April 11-14, but it was decided in September 2020 to move the event to October.

NAB has said it is going ahead still with the NAB Show in 2022 on April 23-27 in Las Vegas.

The Society of Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable-TEC Expo will be held Oct. 11-14 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta and will be a hybrid in-person/virtual event, according to organizers. Last year’s Cable-TEC Expo broke records with more than 3,000 people attending the Opening General Session of the all-virtual event. 

The SCTE also said it will hold a joint forum linking the Cable-TEC Expo with the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology (BEIT) Conference in Las Vegas on Oct. 12. 

According to SCTE, joint sessions will include live, interconnected presentations and audience questions originating from both Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta and the BEIT Conference in Las Vegas, with hosts at each location to field questions and moderate the conversations. The dual-site event will include live panels and interactive discussions that explore timely topics, such as dynamic ad insertion and NextGen TV.

Global marketing organization DPAA said it will hold its Video Everywhere Summit in-person at the Chelsea Piers in Manhattan on Oct. 12.

“Regions are opening up and it’s time for us to all reconnect in-person,” DPAA president and CEO Barry Frey said in a press release “After careful consideration and talking with members, brand and agency leadership we decided to hold this year’s Summit in-person as our community needs to reconnect in person.”

IBC, the big international content and technology convention in Amsterdam, is slated for an in-person gathering Dec. 3-6 at the RAI Amsterdam complex. The theme is Come Together Again.

The 2022 Consumer Electronics Show, which was all-digital in January 2021, is expected to be a hybrid in-person and virtual event, slated for Jan 5-8 in Las Vegas.

“We’re thrilled to return to Las Vegas – home to CES for more than 40 years – and look forward to seeing many new and returning faces,” Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro said in a press release in April. “Hundreds of executives have told us how much they need CES to meet new and existing customers, find partners, reach media and discover innovation.”

As was reported earlier, The Cable Center’s induction ceremony for the 2021 class of Cable TV Pioneers will be held  on Oct. 11 in Atlanta, as part of the SCTE-Cable-TEC Expo.

The Cable Center’s 2021 Cable Hall of Fame celebration will be held virtually, on Oct. 20.

Charter Communications said it has committed $1 million to the 2021 Spectrum Digital Education grant program, supporting nonprofit organizations that educate community members on the benefits of broadband. Organizations can apply for the grants from June 1 through June 25, at 5 p.m. EDT. Grants will be announced in August and awarded this fall.

“The past year has further highlighted the need for high-speed broadband connectivity throughout our country, and Charter is even more committed to doing its part to connect the unserved and underserved,” said Charter vice president of community impact Rahman Khan in a press release. “Since we launched Spectrum Digital Education in 2017, we’ve provided resources as well as promote adoption and education in digital literacy for those in need throughout the communities we serve, and we look forward to continuing to meet those needs this year.”

Through February of this year, Spectrum Digital Education has awarded grants to nonprofit organizations that help communities expand their broadband and technical training, including teaching seniors digital skills, setting up technology labs, providing online classes for families that need homework and job support, and purchasing laptops for underserved groups. Charter estimates that the program has helped nearly 70,000 individuals across 19 states and Washington, D.C. To be eligible for a Spectrum Digital Education grant, organizations must serve communities located within Charter’s 41-state service area and have 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. More information on how to apply is available here. 

Charter launched the Spectrum Digital Education program in 2017 and so far has committed $7 million to support  broadband education, technology and training. Last year the company increased the program to $1 million, in response to higher demand for digital education support due to the pandemic.

For the second year in a row, local TV stations produced a record amount of news in 2020 despite pandemic-related budget cuts and revenue shortfalls. Likely helping sustain that investment was the fact that, according to RTDNA, The Radio Television Digital News Association, at least in the early days of the pandemic the loss of TV station ad revenue did not exceed the gains in retransmission consent revenue.

A record 1,116 TV stations aired local news, up 18 from last year's record. Of those, 710 reported producing their own news, up five, four of them small independent broadcasters; 406 aired news, up 13 from 2019.

RTDNA said increases in weekday news accounted for the boost, offsetting a slight decrease in weekend news. More than a third of stations (34.5%) said they aired more news in 2020.

On network affiliates, news was up on all except Fox, with CBS affiliates most likely to have increased their news over 2019.

That increase in news output came despite the fact that almost a third of stations (29.3%) reported budget cuts in 2020, compared to only 9.1% in 2019, with most of those cuts coming in the top 50 markets.

Still three quarters (75.9%) of news directors who were privy to the bottom line reported a profit.

A majority of news directors (70%) said that they expected either long-term or permanent changes to be one of the inheritances of the pandemic. Those include fewer staffers using the newsroom as a home base, more remote meetings, and more virtual interviews.

Fully 80% of the news directors said that at least some staffers continued to work remotely.

The survey was conducted in fourth quarter 2020 among all 1,762 operating, non-satellite TV stations. Valid responses came from "as many as" 1,358 stations (77.1%). Some data sets (the number of TV stations originating local news, for example) are based on a complete census rather than projected from a sample, according to Pew.

The National Urban League said it has closed on a $3 million commitment from Charter Communications, funds that will go toward the organization's small business lending arm, the Urban Empowerment Fund.

The commitment is from Charter’s Spectrum Community Investment Loan Fund and will help the Urban Empowerment Fund become a certified community development financial institution (CDFI), which increases its ability to deliver capital to minority-owned small businesses in urban areas. Charter first said it would invest the funds last year. 

Charter’s $3 million commitment will be used to make loans to minority-owned businesses. The partnership also includes a $500,000 capacity-building grant for the Urban Empowerment Fund to expand staffing, infrastructure and operations. As a result of the grant and funding commitment, Charter has been designated the Founding Partner of the Urban Empowerment Fund by the National Urban League.

“As the Founding Partner of the UEF, Charter is a game changer in terms of our ability to support the small businesses that are the economic lifeblood and primary employers in struggling urban communities,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said in a press release. “The COVID-19 pandemic both revealed and exacerbated the racial gaps in access to capital for small businesses. With Charter’s support the National Urban League now is better positioned to deliver more funding, more quickly, for the businesses that were most impacted by the crisis.”

The Urban Empowerment Fund provides loans and coaching to minority-owned businesses, but without certification from the U.S. Treasury Department, it must currently work through other intermediary organizations. Certification is expected by the end of the year.  Currently, the Urban Empowerment Fund is providing intermediary loans to the National Development Council in support of their participation in the New York Forward Loan Fund.  Once certified, the Urban Empowerment Fund will begin providing direct loans to Black and other minority-owned businesses in tandem with select Urban League Entrepreneurship Centers, which are currently operating in 12 Urban League affiliate cities.

“Small business ownership and growth are fundamental to developing and sustaining economic power, which is critical to the long-term success of our communities,” said Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge in a press release. “Building on our valued partnership with the National Urban League, these investments will not only support small diverse-owned businesses through access to much-needed low-interest capital, but also will assist the National Urban League in revitalizing the Urban Empowerment Fund to help build thriving communities across the country.”

Since the pandemic began early last year, 27% of minority-owned businesses were closed compared to 18% of other small businesses, according to the National Urban League, adding that even prior to the outbreak  Black-owned businesses were less likely to be approved for loans than their White-owned counterparts. And when they were approved, they received smaller amounts and at higher interest rates, the organization continued. 

“Many Black-owned small businesses were locked out of the Paycheck Protection Program because they didn’t have existing relationships with the large banks that administered it,” Morial said in the release. “CDFIs like the Urban Empowerment Fund are the most efficient and effective vehicle for getting these businesses the support they need.”

The Spectrum Community Loan Fund makes up about $18 million of the more than $22 million Charter has committed to date to support small and minority-owned enterprises in eco­nomically underserved communities. In addition to the $3 million commitment to the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, the Spectrum fund has previously made $1 million investments in CDFIs in New York, Texas, Missouri, California, Wisconsin, and Ohio, as well as $3 million in low-interest loans directly to CDFIs in partnership with and as directed by the National Action Network. Each CDFI also receives a grant to fund technical assistance programs and professional training for small businesses to help establish sound business practices necessary for long-term growth and continuity. Some of these grants have recently been earmarked to support businesses impacted by COVID-19.

Residential video and broadband subscriber metrics at Altice USA were basically in line with analysts expectations in Q1, while the company managed to squeeze out 1.2% revenue and 4.2% cash flow growth in the period. 

Altice USA added about 12,000 broadband customers in Q1, slightly less than the 13,000 some analysts predicted. The company shed about 54,000 video customers in the quarter, compared to the 56,000 losses predicted by some analysts. Overall revenue was up 1.2% to $2.5 billion and cash flow grew a healthy 4.2% to $1.1 billion. 

The subscriber growth was behind last year, when the pandemic was at its height and stay-at-home orders drove record growth in broadband. For Altice USA, one of the most heavily penetrated cable operators in the country, it added about 142,000 broadband customers in 2020 and lost about 237,000 video subscribers for the full year. 

Also Read: Altice USA Chief Says M&A 'Definitely’ on the Agenda

Analysts have been expecting growth to slow down this year after last year’s gains. In a research note, Wells Fargo media analyst Steven Cahall wrote that he expected broadband growth to be the big story for Altice USA during the quarter and the year. 

“The company will have to prove that it can continue to grow organically for investors to fully back the capital return story,” Cahall wrote. “If growth is tracking well then [Altice USA] is a [free cash flow] narrative at a 12% [free cash flow] yield. If growth stalls then that becomes the narrative.” 

In a press release, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said he was pleased with the results, which he added, position it well for the rest of the year.  

“We continue to see increased demand for broadband and higher speeds as we accelerate our best-in-class network performance through our investments in fiber and enhance our product offerings,” Goei said in the press release. “Our team's ongoing commitment to serving our customers continues to be reflected by our strong broadband customer results and financials in the quarter. Furthermore, we delivered best-ever first quarter free cash flow performance, supporting an incremental $523 million in share repurchases. Earlier this month we closed our Morris Broadband acquisition, and we continue to look for opportunities to expand our footprint to complement our numerous organic growth opportunities, including accelerated new builds and fiber upgrades."

 New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office helped return about $76 million in rebates, credits or refunds to cable subscribers in the state for sports programming they did not receive because of the pandemic, which limited play for many professional sports leagues last year.

Last April, James sent letters to various MVPDs across the state asking for rebates or credits for consumers who did not receive the sports programming they paid for. Last year, the NBA, NHL, MLS and MLB all suspended or shortened their seasons because of the pandemic. Operators were negotiating with sports programmers concerning rebates for fees they paid for programming that wasn’t delivered. Those operators all had pledged to pass on those rebates to their customers either through rebates or credits. 

Also read: Altice USA Talking to Sports Nets About Rebates

Most operators have returned the money through credits. Altice USA said in its annual report that it expected to issue about $1.26 in credits to each customer relating to credits it received. Charter Communications said it recognized about $218 million in credits from sports leagues in Q3 that it intended to pass on to customers.

Attorney General James said that in New York state, 4 million customers of seven cable operators received a total of $76 million in rebates, refunds and credits. Those operators are: Altice USA, Charter, Comcast, AT&T, Dish Network, RCN and Verizon. 

“After a year where so many have suffered the devastating economic impacts of COVID-19, my office is proud to announce approximately $76 million that has been delivered directly to New Yorkers,” James said in a press release. “No one should be forced to pay for something they aren’t receiving, especially during a pandemic that has impacted the finances of millions across our state. I’m glad that these seven cable and satellite companies are doing the right thing by delivering substantial relief to consumers. New Yorkers can trust that I will always fight to protect their wallets.”

I know what the Malones are watching tonight, and I know what we’re watching tomorrow. 

Contestants on some tropical island, strategizing over meager portions of rice. Immunity challenges. Tribal Council. Jeff Probst overseeing the whole affair. 

Survivor. 

The kids are obsessed with the unscripted staple, similar to how my wife and I were, along with much of America, when Survivor launched in 2000. (Surely you remember Richard Hatch, and maybe Rudy Boesch, and perhaps even Kelly Wiglesworth). 

Like many families, we seek out programming the family can watch together, to prevent the kids from ducking into rooms with no one else in them to watch YouTube. So a few years ago, I suggested the new season of Survivor. The kids went for it, watching Nick win the David vs. Goliath season, No. 37, and loved it right away. They learned of this archaic boomer concept known as appointment viewing. 

CBS announced that Survivor was not airing this fall due to the pandemic, so we crashed through old seasons of the show on Hulu, then CBS All Access, now Paramount Plus. Winners at War. Heroes vs. Villains. Ghost Island. 

Most nights, we watch two episodes. My kids, a boy and a girl, talk about Parvati, Boston Rob, Sandra, Cirie, Coach and slippery Russell Hantz as if they are our neighbors. They talk about Survivor locales--Tocantins, Cook Islands, Micronesia--as though they’ve lived in them. 

It was 21 years ago that my wife, who was not yet my wife, and I watched Survivor every week, and talked about it--Hatch’s conniving ways, Rudy’s cranky old-guy barbs, Susan’s odd way of saying tapioca (TAAApioca)--the rest of the week. 

After a few seasons--Colby and Jerri in season two, Ethan Zohn in season three, Boston Rob in season four--my wife and I lost interest, watching other stuff or going out, doing whatever it is you do as a young person in Manhattan.  

As we no longer do whatever you do as a young person in Manhattan, we are back to Survivor. We watch so much of it that the kids don’t want to watch much of anything else. We snuck in a whole season of Secrets of Sulphur Springs on Disney Channel--we enjoyed that--but pretty much everything else on the TV during prime has been Survivor. 

The kids say that each episode is unpredictable, and Survivor deftly works in new wrinkles of the game while keeping the framework essentially the same. “It’s a simple concept, but it feels original every time,” my son said. 

A season takes us a week on streaming. The kids note every minute difference season to season, and episode to episode--a truncated intro, Jeff Probst tweaking his usual rote proclamations, whether it’s “If anybody has the hidden immunity idol…” or “I’ll go tally the votes!”

Thanks to my daughter, who follows Probst on Instagram, I learned last week that a new season is finally in the works. “Survivor’s going back into production,” Probst said. “Fiji has invited us back to their beautiful country to shoot season 41. We have all of our COVID protocols in place so that everyone in Fiji will remain safe, all of our crew will be safe and of course our players will be safe.”

At times, it’s too much Survivor in our household. Doesn’t anyone want to try WandaVision? 

Then again, the kids are willing to watch TV with their mother and father, and we all have something to talk about besides the pandemic and school. 

This won’t last forever, so I might as well enjoy it while it does. 

Encouraged by the steady rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations and the prospect of herd immunity to the virus, Moody’s Investors Service predicted that total advertising revenue growth could top 6% this year.

In a note to clients Monday, Moody’s senior VP Neil Begley wrote that the quick pace of the vaccine rollout could provide “multiple paths to a recovery for the subsectors of the media and entertainment industry.”

Moody’s noted that ad revenue fell nearly 4% in 2020, dominated by the pandemic that forced most American to remain in their homes. As a result, GDP dipped almost 4% as well.  

Also Read: Selling Cable Short

While Begley warned the recovery might be inconsistent across different areas of the country, he nevertheless expected a strong rebound.

“Where confidence, employment and economic activity grows more quickly because of mass vaccinations, we expect advertisers to spend heavily to attract pent-up demand for many products and services,” Begley wrote, adding that digital advertising platforms, broadcasters and networks should benefit the most. 

Also Read: NFL Deal Gives Amazon Ad Business a Boost: Analyst

The movie business was decimated by the pandemic -- Moody’s estimated that domestic box office in 2020 was about $2 billion, compared to $12 billion in 2019. But after a shutdown in production, Begley wrote that “studio pipelines are as full as they have ever been and ready to fill the void once theaters can reopen at reasonable levels. Broadcast networks and stations may have a harder go at it," he wrote, because of a longer production hiatus. 

“Production did resume in a limited fashion by the fourth quarter, but the content pipeline is not likely to be filled to normal capacity until production returns to a more normal level,” he wrote. “So the speed of vaccinations is imperative for the industry.”

Cable operators, bracing for a slowdown after the robust broadband growth during the height of the pandemic may be in for a surprise. Federal money from the COVID-19 stimulus package could help maintain, and in some cases spur, high-speed data additions in both urban and rural markets, according to MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett. 

Cable operators added more than 4 million broadband customers in 2020, the sector’s biggest growth spurt in a decade and one that occurred as penetration levels were in the 80% range. Operators across the board have warned analysts and investors to not expect the same growth rates in 2021 and for the most part they have complied, lowering forecasts over the next few years.

But that pullback may be a bit premature given the scope and size of the federal stimulus bill, which has earmarked billions of dollars to make broadband service both more available and more affordable across the country. Taking those factors into account, Moffett ticked up his own subscriber growth estimates for the top publicly traded cable operators by nearly 5% over the next four years. 

“Cable  is not usually viewed as a meaningful beneficiary of federal handouts,” Moffett wrote. “This time, it should be.”

In his report, Moffett wrote that three programs that are part of the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus plan -- the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, the Emergency Connectivity Fund and the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund -- will provide a combined $20 billion in funding for broadband projects. 

But more importantly, a significant part of those funds will be targeted at affordability as well as availability. 

That’s key because a lot of the volatility in the accounting of broadband subscriber additions is centered on how operators tally up customers that signed on as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Keep America Connected Pledge. Operators that adhered to that pledge promised not to disconnect broadband customers for lack of payment during the pandemic. 

Also Read: Charter, Comcast Set New Growth Paths After 2020 

Cable operators have been preparing for the slowdown through edge-out programs that extend their networks deeper into their footprints and by participating in federal programs like the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which supports expanding broadband into rural areas. But the COVID-19 stimulus funding is different in that it also includes more urban areas that have been supported through the KAC Pledge and other programs. 

Also Read: Fringe Benefits 

That led to different accountings for customers who failed to pay for an extended period of time. Some operators opted to consider a broadband customer as a customer as long as service was being delivered -- there was no penalty for not paying. And others stop counting a customer who didn’t pay, but considered them a new customer once they made their account hole. Both ways are acceptable, Moffett wrote.

The uncertainty around whether those KAC Pledge customers would return has created some confusion and affected cable operator stocks over the past few months. According to Yahoo Finance, the stock prices of the top four publicly traded cable operators are down about 13.5% this year, after rising more than 45% in 2020. Only one stock -- Comcast -- saw a gain during the period (10%) but it wasn’t enough to counter declines at Charter (-5.5%), Cable One (-16.5%) and Altice USA (-8%). 

But that could change with the stimulus. 

About half of the $20 billion earmarked for broadband is targeted specifically at areas that were affected by the KAC Pledge, according to Moffett.

For example, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program has $3.2 billion aimed at addressing the connectivity needs of low-income families during the pandemic by providing up to $50 per month ($75 per month in tribal areas) to help families pay for broadband service. In addition, the program will contribute up to $100 toward the purchase of a new computer or tablet (one per home).

That program alone could support service to 4.4 million homes if all of the funding were used in a single year and only for service. But even if that is highly unlikely  -- the funding probably won't be spent in a year and not entirely on service --  it still points to the sheer magnitude of the initiative. 

The Emergency Connectivity Fund, part of the FCC’s long-standing E-Rate program, has about $7.2 billion to spend on reimbursing libraries and schools for providing broadband service and equipment to patrons, students and school staff outside of their respective facilities during the COVID-19 emergency period. The government defines the COVID-19 emergency period as the first June 30 one year after the Secretary of Health and Human Services terminates the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. 

While it isn’t entirely clear what would be covered by the ECF -- the FCC is expected to publish more specific regulations in about 60 days -- Moffett added that the current rule mentions Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers and connected devices. 

It is also unclear as to whether the ECF program would require schools and libraries to conduct competitive bidding for services and equipment -- like the E-Rate program requires. But Moffett added that the amount of money available is “nothing short of breathtaking.” 

As a result Moffett has modified his broadband subscriber estimates upward for the four publicly traded operators, with Comcast now expected to add about 200,000 more high-speed data customers in 2021 (1.4 million) than previously believed (1.173 million). His estimates for 2023 and 2024 -- 1.391  million and 1.432 million additions, respectively --  remained the same. 

For Charter, Moffett raised his 2021 estimate to 1.309 million additions from 1.106 million, and his 2022 predictions to 1.325 million from 1.252 million. In 2023, he is expecting slightly less growth -- 1.276 million additions compared to his previous estimate of 1.3 million , and the same for 2024 (1.342 million additions instead of 1.383 million).

Cable One is expected to add 39,000 broadband customers in 2021 (up from previous estimates of 29,000); 38,000 in 2022 (vs. 33,000); 32,000 in 2023 (vs. 34,000) and 32,000 in 2024 (vs. 35,000)

Rounding out his revised estimates, Moffett now believes Altice USA will add 123,000 broadband customers in 2021 (he earlier projected 91,000 additions) and 121,000 in 2022 (vs, 113,000). His new estimates are lower for 2023 and 2024: 127,000 in 2023 (vs. 134,000) and 126,000 in 2024 (vs. 144,000 previously).   

As vaccines for COVID-19 continue to be administered -- with the federal government setting a May target for all U.S. adults to receive inoculations -- some media companies, including Viacom CBS and CNN, are tentatively scheduling the return of their workers to offices across the country.

In a memo to employees Thursday (March 11), ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish said that workers in its headquarters in New York City and its Paramount Studios in Los Angeles could begin to return to work after the July 4 holiday at the earliest.

Bakish’s memo stressed that the return dates will differ by market and that once back at the office workers would still have to adhere to strict guidelines regarding social distancing, wearing masks and ongoing testing for COVID-19. He added that the return would occur over a period of months and is completely voluntary. 

“Our current plan is to initially cap capacity in our buildings to maintain social distancing and manage elevator capacity; we will gradually increase capacity based on careful review of health metrics and our testing systems,” Bakish said in the memo. “In the coming weeks, we will provide another update about the sign-up process and additional information.”

CNN president and chairman WarnerMedia News and Sports Jeff Zucker said in a memo to employees it is targeting an Aug. 1 return for CNN workers in its News and Sports division in Atlanta. In New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, where COVID-19 cases have been more prominent, the target date is Sept. 1.

In general, WarnerMedia has set a Sept. 1 target date for employees to return to the office across the company, a person familiar with the company said.  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that 64.1 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19, including about 33.9 million that are fully vaccinated. The CDC said that there were 62,689 new COVID-19 cases on March 11, an 18% decline over the last 14 days, and deaths, at 1,522, were down 32% during the same period. 

Other programmers are continuing to be cautious regarding returns to the office, keeping the dates open as infection rates continue to fluctuate across the country. AMC Networks, according to people  familiar with the company, a return to the office is not expected to happen until sometime in the summer. 

At Discovery Inc., the programmer extended its plan for workers to return to their offices from June to Sept. 1.

“To help everyone manage work and personal demands and to be able to plan for the future, we have made the decision to extend #DiscoveryWorksRemote through September 1,” wrote Discovery chief people and culture officer Adria Alpert-Romm in a memo to employees. “We hope that with the increase in vaccine availability and a continued decline in cases, schools will begin to reopen in the fall and this extended time will allow you the flexibility to plan around our eventual return to offices.

“It is possible that offices will open in a reduced capacity prior to the start of September in regions where it makes sense,” Alpert-Romm continued. “When situations like this arise, we will give plenty of notice so you can plan accordingly. If you work in an office that has reopened, you will still have the opportunity to go in on a flexible basis. However, you should feel comfortable choosing to work from home through September 1. As always, the health and safety of our employees is our number one priority. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will share additional information as it becomes available.”

At Disney, the media giant is expected to begin opening its California theme parks to limited capacity in late April. Its Florida parks have been open with restrictions since July 2020, first at 25% capacity that later increased to 35%. According to reports, the Florida parks are sold out for Spring Break from March 13-19.  The company hasn’t given specific guidance as to when workers in its other units would return to their respective offices. 

Sometimes art imitates life a little too closely.

For the hit AMC show The Walking Dead, the lockdowns, social distancing and related protocols associated with the COVID-19 outbreak, which is nearing its one-year anniversary, presented a particular challenge. How do you keep arguably the largest cast and crew in scripted series production safe while at the same time ensuring that new episodes of the still-popular show continue to be produced? For AMC Studios, the production arm of parent AMC Networks and the producer of The Walking Dead, it was a truly collaborative effort. 

All across the television industry, distributors and programmers have walked the fine line between being able to get out their products, satisfy their audiences and customers and meet growing demand, all while keeping their employees safe. For cable operators and networks, that has meant adhering to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protocols and finding new ways to deliver products to consumers. For programmers, it has also meant in some cases finding ways to limit cast sizes and production crew exposures in unique ways. 

The premise of The Walking Dead comes uncomfortably close to an all-too-familiar reality — a global pandemic of questionable origins causes widespread death leading to a zombie apocalypse and forcing the non-zombie survivors to find a safe haven. For the show, which finished its 10th season in 2020 and was headed into its 11th and final season later this year, the dilemma was how to keep the cameras rolling and the 250-person crew — including 22 actors — safe during a real-life pandemic. After some thought, executives, producers, showrunners and writers on the series came up with a unique solution, creating six episodes as an extension of its 10th season that would focus on specific characters and require smaller casts. 

“Creative people are creative,” The Walking Dead executive producer and showrunner Angela Kang said in a Twitter video on making the extended 10th season. “If there is any superpower that we have as people that are making television or movies, is that we are supposed to think of out-of-the-box ways to do things. So I think you’ve really seen people stepping up to figure out how to make these processes possible at a really difficult time for everyone.” 

AMC Networks chief operating officer Ed Carroll said the decision to produce the six extended episodes was made to keep people safe, but it also resulted in some of the best programming in the show’s decade-long run.

“Many of the best episodes of The Walking Dead are the ones that are based on character,” Carroll said in an interview, adding that the show wouldn’t have lasted as long if it relied only on the zombie scare. “You really need to care about the characters. … We were able to do that and get everyone back to work safely, and take a very big show and make the set quite a bit smaller, but I think creatively accomplish some of our best storytelling.”

Character-Driven Episodes 

The first of those six episodes aired on Feb. 28, titled “Home Sweet Home” and focusing on Maggie Rhee, who left the series in season nine and is played by the returning Lauren Cohan. Other episodes are focused on Saviors’ leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). 

COVID-19 protocols were the same on the TWD set as in all other AMC Studios productions — having an on-site epidemiologist; constantly testing and monitoring crew and actors for the virus; thoroughly cleaning before, during and after shooting; practicing social distancing; and essentially keeping people segmented. But in the six new episodes, the writers and producers crafted narratives that gave them the ability to use two different directors and shoot them in a sequence that kept one unit away from another. 

“What you have to do is rethink the entire operation, so your actors are only with the actors they need to be in a scene with and the crew is only coming into direct contact with other crew members that are essential to do their job,” Carroll said. “You’re minimizing the number of people on an active set, and I include network executives in that. We would normally be making set visits for all sorts of reasons. We’re just not doing that. We’re having our interaction with the cast and crew via Zoom or Teams. When you take a big show that is a multifaceted compilation and you reduce it as best you can, you break off small segments of the operation and keep them as discrete as possible.”   

The Walking Dead was unique in that it lent itself to character studies. Other series on the AMC slate won’t likely go the same route.

 “As we’ve all gotten better at the protocols, we think we can go back to a larger canvas of storytelling for season 11 and certainly for our other shows as well,” Carroll said. “Ideally, if you think about years from now, if people are catching up on a show, you wouldn’t want them to be able to say, ‘Oh, those must have been the COVID episodes,’ because they look and feel different.”

AMC Studios is getting back into its production stride, Carroll added. Better Call Saul was expected to start production on its final season in early March, and season 11 of The Walking Dead is in production in Georgia. Prequel Fear the Walking Dead started production earlier near Austin, Texas, although there were some delays because of the frigid weather in that state.

AMC also is more than halfway through shooting the premiere eight-episode season of Kevin Can F**k Himself, and is starting production on the second season of  Walking Dead: World Beyond. Later this month, production starts on 61st Street, a criminal-justice series based in Chicago. Production for many of WE tv’s reality programs has been ongoing, either via Zoom or other means.  

Other Production Restarts

Many other content companies have resumed production in one form or another, including Fox Entertainment, which said it is adjusting and adapting for the “new normal” when it returns, with all scripted series — 9-1-1, 9-1-1 Lone Star, Prodigal Son, The Resident and Last Man Standing — in production. 

In addition, all of the studio’s pilots that were ordered last year have been in production and are scheduled to deliver in mid-to-late March, including comedy This Country from Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, based on the BAFTA-winning BBC format, for 2021-22. Fox Entertainment is also creating new pathways for projects, including opening writers’ rooms for two dramas with an eye toward series orders: Our Kind of People, a co-production with 20th Television, based on the acclaimed novel, from executive producers Lee Daniels and Karin Gist; and an untitled music drama. 

Fox Entertainment added that its animation efforts, including its in-house studio Bento Box, which produced The Great North, Bob’s Burgers, Duncanville and upcoming series Housebroken, has been largely unaffected by the pandemic. Bento Box has added new crew members since the pandemic began and also will produce an untitled Dan Harmon animated comedy scheduled to premiere in 2022. 

It was about a year ago, March 11, 2020, that the World Health Organization called the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, with the first statewide stay-at-home orders issued shortly thereafter. To date, the pandemic has claimed more than 2.5 million lives globally (including more than 500,000 in the U.S.), forced millions of people to work or go to school from their homes and impacted nearly every aspect of everyday life. While hopes have been heightened by the slow but increasingly steady rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and the deceleration of cases in the U.S. and elsewhere, for the TV industry it is anything but business as usual.

For starters, the pandemic is far from over, even as there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. While the number of daily cases was down in the U.S. in January and early February, according to the Center for Disease Control, it began to tick up toward the end of the month. According to reports, there were 77,804 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Feb. 25, up from 55,195 as of Feb. 21. That number started to trend down again — there were 50,925 cases on Feb. 28, down 26% in the past two weeks, with 1,129 new deaths, down 21%. New strains of the virus were found in Houston and other parts of the country, but as vaccinations increase and funding for more widespread deployment is baked into the $1.9 trillion federal COVID-19 relief bill currently before the Senate, optimism that cases will continue their steady decline is high. 

Stay-at-home orders, implemented to halt the spread of the virus, also helped drive cable broadband subscriber growth to record highs, as the top three publicly traded cable operators added more than 4 million high-speed internet customers in 2020. While that level of growth isn’t expected this year, many operators are looking how to address the market as more consumers return to the office. 

At Mediacom Communications, the focus has been on making higher speeds available to its customers. Broadband speeds of 1 gigabit per second are now accessible in all of its markets, and the payoff has been strong.

The need for speed has been evident at the company. Mediacom reported a threefold increase in 1 Gbps customers year-over-year, and said 14.6% of its broadband subscribers take the 1 Gbps tier. That compares to about an 8.5% take rate for 1 Gbps service on average nationwide, according to OpenVault Broadband Insights.  

While most operators aren’t expecting the same broadband growth this year, some are looking closely at how their customers’ work habits could change. Some anticipate a hybrid approach between office and home will become more of the norm. 

“As things start to open up, we see customers that will still work from home permanently or on a hybrid basis and will continue to want to have a better connection that can give them that comfort that they can get their work done,”  Mediacom senior VP customer service and financial operations Tapan Dandnaik said.

To that extent, Mediacom has raised speeds for some levels of service and boosted usage allowances. The current usage allowance levels are 1, 2 and 6 Terabytes for its 100 megabits per second, 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps tiers. 

“We want customers to get the best speeds and the best service and make sure what we have for the customers is the appropriate service at the appropriate price point, so there is value in what we’re offering,” Dandnaik said. 

Charter Communications added more than 2 million broadband customers in 2020. While the No. 2 U.S. cable operator did see some customers migrate to higher speeds, chief operating officer John Bickham said that for the most part, subscribers found they could do a lot with less. Charter raised minimum speeds in most of its markets to 200 Mbps last year, and offers 400 Mbps and 1 Gbps service as well. Bickham said there are a few markets where 100 Mbps is still the minimum.

“We saw some upgrading,” Bickham said. “But fundamentally, if you have a 100 Mbps level of service in your home and it’s solid, there is hardly anything you can do that requires more speed. ... If people want a high level of speed, we’ll sell it to them.”  

Cable operators across the board moved to incentivize workers that had to remain in the field, either through bonuses or other means. Charter pledged to raise the minimum wage it paid hourly workers to $20 per hour by 2022, and said it is well on the way toward that goal. 

Charter also has teamed up with healthcare company Matrix Medical to vaccinate employees who want it on-site. According to executive VP, human resources Paul Marchand, the plan is to establish 50 to 60 megasites at Charter facilities across the country, working with local and state health departments to secure dosages and vaccinate employees that request it. 

Marchand added the company realizes that employees do and will have alternatives to get the vaccine — some are already getting it if they qualify — and that is OK, too. But he added that vaccines are expected to become more widely available in the coming weeks and Charter wanted to be prepared. 

“I can envision in the next four to six weeks on-site, maybe starting in one or two locations and building over time, we will be able to provide shots to our employees,” Marchand said. 

The pandemic accelerated cable’s long-desired plans to move toward self-installation. Comcast claims that more than two-thirds of its total installations are done by the customer. At Charter, self-installs are at about 80%. That pace is likely to continue.

“Don’t undersell self-installation,” MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said. “It’s here to stay, and the MSOs will only get better and better at it.”

Remote Control

While all the emphasis has been on the general public working from home, most cable employees had to perform their tasks remotely and have performed amazingly well under the circumstances. For some workers — especially customer-service representatives — remote work could be permanent. 

“Work-at-home CSRs are a game-changer, particularly if we go back to having a tight labor market like we had pre-pandemic,” Moffett said.  “Among the biggest costs in running call centers are recruiting and training new employees, and one of the biggest reasons for turnover in call centers is lack of childcare. The ability to have CSRs working from home is transformational.”   

At Mediacom Communications, about 95% of CSRs work remotely, Dandnaik said. But he added that anything could change. 

“The thing is, we’re in March and if you asked me the same question in June, I hope to be able to say we have some kind of rotation,” Dandnaik said. “I think things are evolving. At some point in the future, I don’t know when, we will come up with the ideal hybrid approach to make sure we are adjusting to the new normal.”

Mediacom will be flexible with its employees and take their personal situations into consideration, he added. 

“We operate in 22 markets,” Dandnaik said. Where our call centers are, we have 10 or 12 locations. Every market is different and every situation is local.”  

Bickham said he expects the return to normalcy will most likely happen at a gradual pace.

“I think it goes away very slowly in terms of the impact on how people behave and where they work and how they go to school,” Bickham said. “It happens over an extended period of time. It’s not going to be like it was a year ago, when everyone went home and all of a sudden you had this very dramatic change.”  

Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, in a January conference call with analysts to discuss fourth-quarter results, said moving customer-care workers from offices to work from their homes has worked so well, the company is “leaning towards embracing this model permanently.” In 2020, agent-handled calls were reduced by more than 16 million, Roberts said. 

“We are working hard with our communications and marketing efforts to enhance awareness of all we have to offer, which enables us to take cost out of the business while delivering a better experience for our customers,” Roberts continued. 

More than half of Charter’s CSRs are working remotely, but the hope is that once the pandemic subsidies, more will be able to return to the office. 

Although Charter came under some criticism for its approach during the early days of the pandemic, Marchand said the priority has always been to adhere to CDC standards, as well as the varying standards by state. And while Charter is complying with all federal and state requirements, once the pandemic is over, it would like to get as back to normal as possible. 

Weighing an Office Return

Charter has in some cases started a scheduled approach, where some workers would work one week in the office, some two weeks remotely and so on. While there will always be exceptions, he said, overall the company would like to get back to a place where most workers are in the office.  

“In the end, we think work is best done when we are together in person,” Marchand said. “We think collaborating, innovating, leading training, on-boarding all is best done, is most efficient, effective and rewarding and frankly, the best employee experience, when we’re all together. That doesn’t mean some situations don’t necessitate some people working remotely, and that in the future we may continue to have that.” 

AMC’s Carroll said he too misses the days when most of the team was at the office. While there have been some benefits to working remotely — Zoom meetings, he said, can sometimes run more efficiently than in-person ones — he said personal interaction is important on both sides of the business.

“On the client side, we do miss the client contact,” Carroll said. “We are doing it remotely, and that seems to be OK, but
you don’t find out as much about what’s happening with your clients on a 30-minute Zoom call as you do over lunch.”   

While some programmers and operators may crave a return to in-person meetings, the pandemic may have dealt the final blow to large conventions. 

The shift from huge trade shows to smaller, regional and local confabs had already been happening years before anyone had even heard of COVID-19, primarily due to massive industry consolidation. In 2017, NCTA–The Internet and Cable Television Association, ended its annual cable show, INTX, after 65 years. In a blog post at the time about the decision, NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell wrote: “Large trade show floors, dotted with exhibit booths and stilted schedules, have become an anachronism.”

But Moffett said the ultimate demise of the large cable convention shouldn’t be blamed on COVID. “There’s no need for a big centralized show if the alternative is making one visit to Philly, one to Stamford, one to Atlanta and one to Denver, and then calling it a day,” he said.

Other more regional shows managed to survive, even through the pandemic. ACA Connects and the National Cable Television Cooperative held their annual get-together, The Independent Show Reimagined, virtually Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2020, and said the event had a record 848 registered participants. Plans are to hold a hybrid event July 11-14 in Minneapolis. 

But larger shows like CES, which was held virtually Jan. 11-14, drawing about 81,000 attendees (down from 170,000 in 2020) — have come under more intense scrutiny. In 2022, the CES event is expected to be a hybrid live and online event.

The Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES, declined comment. 

It may be too early to predict the long-term effect on events, NCTA senior VP of strategic communications Brian Dietz said. He noted that smaller or more-focused conferences like the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers-International Society of Broadband Experts (SCTE-ISBE) Cable-Tec Expo, the Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) Leadership Conference and National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) conference were still very strong.

Virtual Events Draw Crowds

Attendance at the virtual SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2020 broke records, according to the group. WICT said registered attendance at its virtual 2020 Leadership conference was 860, besting the previous mark set in 2018 of 818 attendees. NAMIC said attendance for its virtual 34th Annual Conference was up 40% over the prior year. 

The SCTE plans to hold its next Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta in October, the same month as the WICT Leadership Conference is scheduled for New York. The 35th annual NAMIC Conference is scheduled for Oct. 5-6 in New York.

The consumer-focused San Diego Comic-Con, used by TV programmers as a showcase for their newest offerings, also postponed the live event set for July 23-25 to 2022. Organizers said they will hold a virtual event this year, as well as a potential smaller live event in November.

But the jury is still out for larger conferences.

“I think it will be more interesting to see what happens with conferences like CES in which 150,000-plus gather in tight quarters for a week,” Dietz said. “That concept certainly seems to be more at risk because we are all now so much more educated about public health safety and how germs can spread rapidly.”

Whether big changes come and stick is about as uncertain as predicting when the pandemic will eventually peter out. But it is obvious that after a year (and counting) of relative isolation and disruption to the normal way of doing business, something has to give. Whatever it is, hopefully it will lead to a year ahead of living a bit less dangerously. 

HBO has teamed with filmmaker Spike Lee to develop a documentary series that chronicles the life of New Yorkers beginning with the terror attacks of 2001 through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The multi-part documentary, NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½, will offer a portrait of the city through first-hand accounts from everyday New Yorkers as it rebounded from the September 11th terrorist attacks and now from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said HBO. The documentary will debut later this year commemorating the 20th anniversary of the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center.  

“We’re thrilled to have another groundbreaking HBO documentary event from Spike Lee,” said Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham, co-heads of HBO Documentary Films in a statement. “From documenting the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to the 9/11 attack on New York City and beyond, we treasure Spike’s singular capacity to chronicle and pay tribute to the human toll of these historic events while bearing profound witness to the strength and resiliency of the human spirit.”

Read also: HBO Gets A Boost from Theatrical Films: Hub Study

Altice USA said it lost about 4,300 broadband customers in Q4, a big change from the pandemic-fueled growth of the first three quarters of the year, but including customers that stayed on as part of the federal Keep America Connected pledge it gained about 9,000 high-speed data customers. Add in customers that disconnected temporarily due to three hurricanes that hit its service territory during the period and the gain increases to about 14,000 data subscribers. 

Investors weren’t as forgiving, driving down Altice USA shares by about 7% ($280 each) to $35 per share in after-hours trading Tuesday. 

At a gain of 14,000, Altice USA doubled the 7,000 broadband customers it added in the same period in 2019, but fell short of some analysts expectations who predicted it would add about 15,000 customers in the quarter. For the full year, Altice gained 142,000 broadband customers, twice its 72,000 additions in 2019 and its best year since Altice USA’s inception in 2015.

Residential video losses at 74,000 were above analysts expectations of 50,000 in losses and Q4 2019 losses of 44,000 video customers. 

Revenue in the period was up 2.5% to $2.54 billion and cash flow increased 6% to $1.5 billion. For the full year, revenue increased 1.4% to $9.89 billion while cash flow rose 3.5% to $4.4 billion.  

“Our team's unrelenting focus on serving both our customers and broader community has allowed us to achieve spectacular results in a number of areas, including record broadband customer gains, solid revenue growth, best-ever Adjusted EBITDA margins and highest-ever annual Free Cash Flow,” Altice USA CEo Dexter Goei said in a press release. “We also returned $4.8 billion to shareholders for the full year through share repurchases. I am pleased to cap off a tremendous 2020 with yet another strong quarter, which makes us well-positioned for 2021."

Content company Entertainment One, about a year after being bought by toy maker Hasbro in a deal valued at about $3.8 billion, cut between 50 and 60 workers in its TV and Film divisions on Tuesday. 

The news was first reported by Deadline.com. 

Also Read: Hollywood’s Streaming Makeover: What Shoe Drops Next?

According to a memo obtained by Deadline and confirmed by the company, TV and Film president Steve Bertram notified employees of the layoffs Tuesday. In the memo, Bertram spoke of the ongoing shift toward “greater control and creative stewardship” of the TV and Film business, adding that it was in response to the disruption of the traditional studio model by tech companies, accelerated by the pandemic.

Bertram continued that as a result, about 10% of the TV and Film workforce were let go, and the company is speaking with other employees about possible changes to their roles.

Reports estimated that eOne has about 1,200 employees globally, with about half of those workers housed in TV and Film production, meaning between 50-to-60 workers were likely affected worldwide.  

“These team members have delivered outstanding work and demonstrated a staunch devotion to eOne throughout their respective tenures and we are immensely grateful to them all,” Bertram wrote, adding that departing workers will receive severance and healthcare packages.

“To those departing today and over the next few weeks, I want to thank each of you for your contributions to eOne and offer both my assistance and that of our senior leaders as you think about the future,” he added.

EOne produces movies, TV shows and music. In the TV space, it produced kids fare like Peppa Pig, Power Rangers and Transformers; broadcast shows like The Rookie and Designated Survivor and scripted and unscripted cable shows like Hell on Wheels for AMC Networks, Streets of Compton for A+E Networks, and Growing Up Hip Hop for WE TV.  

Hasbro paid about $3.8 billion in cash for eOne in December 2019. The purchase was expected to unlock film franchise opportunities for Hasbro toy lines and plans to produce projects based on Dungeons and Dragons, My Little Pony, Power Rangers and the board game Risk had been announced earlier last year.

EOne shut down its German theatrical distribution business in October according to reports and in 2019 stopped direct theatrical distribution in Australia and New Zealand. In May, it hired former HBO programming executive Michael Lombardo to head up its TV division. Lombardo left HBO in 2016 and spent several years as an independent producer.

Comcast added 538,000 broadband customers in the fourth quarter, a record for that period for the cable giant and enough to outpace steep declines in its theme park and content units fueled by the pandemic. 

The 538,000 high-speed internet additions pushed Comcast’s total broadband additions for the year to 2 million, its best year on record. Video customers declined by 248,000 in the period, nearly twice the 149,000 lost in the same period in 2019. 

The broadband gains culminate what has been a record year for the segment, fueled by work-from home orders and home schooling driven by the pandemic. In Q3, Comcast added 633,000 broadband customers, its best growth quarter in that segment ever.  

ALSO READ: Peacock Signups Increase to 33 Million, Comcast Says

“Outstanding performance at Cable drove very strong fourth quarter results for our company,” Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a press release. “Our theme parks in Orlando and Osaka reached breakeven; and, encouragingly, Sky returned to customer growth in all three of its markets, bringing our total customer relationships and overall revenue in Europe essentially back to 2019 levels."   

But the broadband additions were enough to push revenue up by 6.3% in the quarter to $15.7 billion and cash flow up by 12.3% to $6.6 billion. For the year, cable revenue was up 3.4% to $60.1 billion and cash flow rose 8.6% to $25.3 billion.

Those gains helped offset continued losses at NBCUniversal’s theme parks — where revenue was down 62.9% in Q4 and fell 68.9% for the full year — broadcast television and filmed entertainment units.

Broadcast television revenue fell 12%, fueled by a 9.6% decline in advertising revenue. Retransmission consent and other fees were up by about 10% in the period.  

At its cable networks, revenue fell 6.4% to $2.7 billion in the quarter, due to lower licensing,  content and distribution fees. Ad revenue in the period was down 4.2%. But lower production expenses during COVID-19 helped boost cash flow in the segment up 22% to $1.3 billion.

ALSO READ: NBCU Plans to Shut Down NBCSN Cable Sports Net

At the theme parks, the pandemic decimated attendance, and mainly reflect operations in its Orlando, Florida and Osaka, Japan parks, which were opened on a limited basis during the year. 

U.K. satellite company Sky saw some gains, as total revenue was up 3.3% in the quarter (but down 3.3% for the full year), while cash flow sank 82.3% to $129 million. Total customer relationships were up by 244,000, more than three times the 77,000 additions in Q4 2019 which offered some encouragement. As more countries begin to roll out COVID-19 vaccines, Comcast was optimistic that its fortunes would improve.  

“With the vaccines rolling out throughout the world, we are optimistic that the parts of our business that had been most impacted will soon be back on a path towards growth,” Roberts said in the press release. “This confidence is shared by our board of directors, which has announced an increase in the dividend for the thirteenth consecutive year. In addition, it is now our expectation that we will be in a position to begin repurchasing shares again in the back half of this year. While this is certainly the most challenging period we have faced, I could not be more proud of how our management team and employees continue to pull together and deliver. Today’s results are a testament to their commitment and dedication.”  

House Energy & Commerce Democrats are slamming ISPs over what raising prices and imposing data caps during a pandemic, questioning their "commitment to consumers" during the pandemic.

“Over the last ten months, internet service became even more essential as many Americans were forced to transition to remote work and online school," they wrote. "Broadband networks seem to have largely withstood these massive shifts in usage. Unfortunately, what cannot be overlooked or underestimated is the extent to which families without home internet service — particularly those with school-aged children at home — have been left out and left behind.”

Also Read: Cox, Altice Extend FCC's Keep Americans Connected Pledge

Those that were doing the writing were E&C chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), joined by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.).

Getting the letters were Altice, AT&T, CenturyLink (Lumen), Charter, Comcast, Cox, Frontier, T-Mobile and Verizon.

The legislators cited the fact that the companies back in March had expanded their affordable broadband offerings, opened up wi-Fi hotspots, waived data caps and took the FCC pledge to keep customers connected during the pandemic, but that since then, and following the expiration of the FCC's voluntary pledge, some of the same companies had raised prices and expanded data caps, calling that "an egregious action at a time when households and small businesses across the country need high-speed, reliable broadband more than ever but are struggling to make ends meet."

Also Read: Comcast Expands Data Cap to Full Footprint

Saying it was part of an ongoing oversight effort, the legislators want answers to the following questions:

1. "Did the company participate in the FCC’s “Keep Americans Connected” pledge?

2. "Has the company increased prices for fixed or mobile consumer internet and fixed or phone service since the start of the pandemic, or do they plan to raise prices on such plans within the next six months? 

3. "Prior to March 2020, did any of the company’s service plans impose a maximum data consumption threshold on its subscribers?

4. "Since March 2020, has the company modified or imposed any new maximum data consumption thresholds on service plans, or do they plan to do so within the next six months? 

5. "Did the company stop disconnecting customers’ internet or telephone service due to their inability to pay during the pandemic? 

6. "Does the company offer a plan designed for low-income households, or a plan established in March or later to help students and families with connectivity during the pandemic?

7. "Beyond service offerings for low-income customers, what steps is the company currently taking to assist individuals and families facing financial hardship due to circumstances related to COVID-19?"

Comcast said it will extend its COVID-19-related commitments to keep folks connected.

It said that means it will provide free internet for the first 60 days for new Internet Essentials subs and continue to provide free access to its over 1.5 million Wi-Fi hotspots to anyone who needs them.

Related: Comcast Opening Wi-Fi Hotspots to All

The commitment will extend through June 30, 2021.

It is the third time that the company has extended those commitments, it pointed out.

“Our teams have worked tirelessly to ensure our network is operating at peak performance and help our customers and our communities navigate this unprecedented crisis,” said Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson in a statement. “For nearly a decade, we’ve been on a mission to ensure students have the resources they need to be successful. We have accelerated that work during COVID-19 by partnering with public schools to provide Internet for more low-income students and by working with community centers to create safe spaces for families to connect to free Wi-Fi through Lift Zones.”

Comcast has also teamed up with Common Sense Media to provide thousands of ours of free educational programming for its Xfinity video subs.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), co-sponsor of the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act of 2020, told a virtual House hearing audience Thursday (Nov. 19) that Congress needed to step in to make sure businesses could be insured against future pandemic-related losses.

She pointed out that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks the New York economy completely shut down because insurance companies would not insure any property against terrorist attacks, after which Congress stepped in. She said that was what she was trying to do with her legislation.

Pandemic insurance has the backing of video programmers and distributors also facing pandemic-related insurance issues. They banded together this week to push for congressional action.

Maloney, who is chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said that entire industries, including film and television, "have been upended and have no way to protect themselves from future pandemic-related losses.

Business interruption insurance currently excludes pandemics, she pointed out, and does not cover damages that are not to physical property.

She said the government would have to step in during the next crisis, so "why not be pro-active and develop a long-term solution."

The bill would provide a federal backstop for pandemic coverage in business interruption policies and remove virus exclusions from commercial property policies.

It would be a voluntary program. Business would not have to offer pandemic coverage, but if they did would get government help.

She said a broad consensus has emerged, that incudes insurance companies, that pandemic risk is insurable with an "appropriate" federal backstop. She said the only issue now is how to structure the program, and she was willing to work with anyone on either side to get that done.

Ranking member Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) said that since this is about the next pandemic, it is critical that they get the bill right rather than that they do it fast. He said that they should take a step back and not try to achieve a predetermined outcome.

Stivers also said any solution should look at one-time event cancellation, which is not in the current legislation. While the Maloney bill is modeled on Congress' response to 9/11, Stivers said pandemic losses are on an order of magnitude greater.

John Doyle, CEO of Marsh, the nation's largest insurance broker, supported a pandemic insurance public-private partnership, but suggested it could start now rather than wait for the next pandemic. He said acting now would speed recovery by providing more confidence in the marketplace. He said starting now would "bend the risk curve" for future pandemics.

Witness Michelle Melendez McLaughlin, chief underwriting officer at Chubb North America, said her company had some ideas about a framework for coverage. She said that, for small businesses for example, it would provide pandemic coverage for up to three months of payroll, plus rent and utilities. Claims would be paid automatically when the policy was triggered. Policy holders would only pay for the private portion, not the government assistance.

R. J. Lehman, executive editor and senior fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics, said he was not sure insurance, rather than direct assistance, was the best way to deal with a pandemic's impact.

He said that insurance was a system of risk transfer and not a system of economic assistance and that while there may be a role for government, there are limits to its efficacy of business interruption insurance to mitigate a pandemic impact since only a third of businesses even have business interruption insurance and less than that would buy pandemic insurance.

He said the best argument for a public private partnership is that insurers can help business holders mitigate risk, but that the risk they are trying to reduce is that a business will shut down, "but in a pandemic we want businesses to shut down. We want them to have a safety net so that they can shut down and survive and not lobby to lift lockdown orders because that is how you get the situation where schools are closed but bars and gyms are open."

While he said he has long preached the gospel of risk-based insurance, he said the government does not want this to be a risk-based program. "That would mean tech firms that work remotely would pay the least but restaurants, community theaters and churches would pay the most. I don't think that is the outcome you want."

Local TV and cable news nets are in a virtual tie for the title of primary source of news since the beginning of the pandemic.

That is according to a new survey of over 5,000 U.S. news consumers conducted by strategic consulting firm Altman Solon.

According to the survey, 26% of respondents cited local TV news channels as their chief news source, followed by cable news at 25% (essentially a dead heat given the margin of error), then network newscasts at 22%, online news sites at 14%, and social media at 10%.

Among the other survey highlights:

1. At a time of concern about fake news, almost one in three Americans said they would be willing to pay more for "well-researched and reliable news."
2. 27% said they were more likely to pay for racially diverse news, while 26% would do so for news with gender diversity and 22% for news exhibiting sexual orientation diversity.
3. 34% are watching three or more hours of news per week.

The web survey was conducted August-September 2020 and has a margin of error of 1%.

On Veterans Day, Comcast honored the nearly 50,000 National Guard and reserve service personnel that have been called up to battle the pandemic in recent months, including more than two dozen cable company workers.

As the nation celebrates Veterans Day and National Veterans and Military Families Month, Comcast said that more than two dozen of its employees in the National Guard and reserve services have been called up to complete thousands of missions such as manning testing and screening centers, delivering food and essential equipment to those in need, and building critical infrastructure. 

In a blog post Wednesday, Comcast pointed out two of its workers who have stepped up to the challenge: Leriqua Jackson, an Xfinity retail sales associate and specialist in the Texas Army National Guard, and Deeva Williams, a retail sales representative and specialist in the Washington Army National Guard. 

Jackson is from a military family -- her father served in the U.S. Marine Corps and her siblings are in the military, too. She is part of a headquarters unit overseeing administrative tasks, such as coordinating lodging, pay, and logistics, for units working in the field.

“I always did community service during my free time at school,” Jackson said in the blog post. “I was looking for more, so being able to dig in my heels and uplift the people of Texas during this time is an honor.”

Williams and her unit are supporting mobile food distribution sites throughout the Tacoma, Washington area.

 “It feels humbling and amazing to be able to see the smiles and the sigh of relief on people’s faces when you take away some stress during a time like this,” Williams said in the blog post.

In August, Comcast NBCUniversal was named the No. 1 employer for veterans by The Military Times in its Best For Vets: Employers 2020 list. 

“As a military-ready company, we are committed to ensuring that our military teammates have the resources and support they need to answer the call to service,” Comcast said in the blog posting. 

 At its NBCUniversal content unit, Comcast , as part of its BOLD Veterans Day celebration, launched a new Veterans Residency Program, designed for mid-to-senior level veterans who often face challenges locating opportunity in the civilian workforce. Beginning next year, the new partnership will allow two members of the military community exposure to all aspects of NBCU’s Advertising & Partnerships business, with the opportunity to become a full-time member of its team. 

Comcast is among several cable companies that have actively recruited military personnel to its employment ranks. About 10% of Charter Communications’ workforce are former military and the company has said it makes it a priority to hire veterans as they possess many highly-valued skills.  

Charter participates in military-focused career fairs that put job seekers in direct contact with Charter recruiters and also has established partnerships with military bases and organizations such as Centurion Military Alliance, Hiring our Heroes, Military Spouse Employment Partnership, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Wounded Warrior Project, to help recruit veterans to its workforce throughout its 41-state footprint.

Over the past eight months since its February launch, Black News Channel has had to navigate through an extraordinary news cycle that included a ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, the manifestation of social injustice protests and a contentious Presidential election. 

Currently heading the network charge is its President and CEO Princell Hair, former CNN general manager who knows the cable news business and has positioned the network to fill a void in delivering news and pertinent information targeted to an underserved African-American audience.

Hair recently sat down with Multichannel News for an extensive video interview in which he talks about the Black News Channel brand as well as the shifting cable news environment. Hair also weighs in on the television's diversity and inclusion efforts.

The Walt Disney Co.’s sports juggernaut ESPN will reduce its workforce by about 500 people, network president Jimmy Pitaro said in a memo to employees Thursday, the latest division in the company to feel the sting of COVID-19.

ESPN has about 6,000 employees, so the reductions work out to about 8% of its total workforce. News of the layoffs comes as Disney prepares to release its fiscal Q4 results on Nov. 12.

“For some time, ESPN has been engaged in planning for its future amidst tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports,” Pitaro said in a statement. “The pandemic’s effect on ESPN clearly accelerated our thinking on all fronts. Today, as a result of these circumstances, we informed our employees that we have made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce to create a more agile, efficient organization.

“We are parting ways with many exceptional teammates, all of whom have made important contributions to ESPN,” Pitaro continued. “These are not easy decisions, and we will work hard to make their transitions easier. We will move forward in a manner that will allow us to continue to best serve sports fans.”

According to the memo -- first reported by the New York Post --  ESPN will eliminate 300 positions and 200 jobs currently open won’t be filled. It is the latest round of layoffs from the entertainment giant, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. Earlier in the week, Disney said it would lay off an additional 11,400 workers at its Florida theme parks by the end of the year. 

According to sources familiar with ESPN, there is no specific timing for the layoffs, but the network is communicating them to employees now and they will have a period of time before their last day with the company. In its report, The Post said on-air personnel would be spared, but the paper added that it has kept a keen eye on contracts, allowing some to expire. 

The layoffs are the latest of several personnel moves that Disney has made since the pandemic took hold in March, including reducing executive salaries, furloughs and other cost cutting mergers. But in his memo, Pitaro alluded that those moves weren’t enough. 

“We have, however, reached an inflection point,” Pitaro said in the memo. “The speed at which change is occurring requires great urgency, and we must now deliver on serving sports fans in a myriad of new ways. Placing resources in support of our direct-to-consumer business strategy, digital, and, of course, continued innovative television experiences, is more critical than ever.”

The full memo sent to employees follows:

Dear colleagues,

As you know, we value transparency in our internal dialogue, and that means in both good and challenging times. After much consideration, I have some difficult organizational decisions to share. We will be reducing our workforce, impacting approximately 300 valued team members, in addition to 200 open positions.

Today is hard because ESPN has always been — and will always be — fortified by its fantastic people. Teamwork, dedication, spirit and grit have built this place and are what make ESPN special. 

Prior to the pandemic, we had been deeply engaged in strategizing how best to position ESPN for future success amidst tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports.  The pandemic’s significant impact on our business clearly accelerated those forward-looking discussions. In the short term, we enacted various steps like executive and talent salary reductions, furloughs and budget cuts, and we implemented innovative operations and production approaches, all in an effort to weather the COVID storm.

We have, however, reached an inflection point. The speed at which change is occurring requires great urgency, and we must now deliver on serving sports fans in a myriad of new ways. Placing resources in support of our direct-to-consumer business strategy, digital, and, of course, continued innovative television experiences, is more critical than ever.

However, building a successful future in a changing world means facing hard choices. Making informed decisions about how and where we need to go – and, as always, in the most efficient way possible - is by far the most challenging job of any leadership team. And, while it must be done looking through a business lens, it also must be done with great respect and genuine concern for people.  

We are parting ways with some exceptional team members - some of whom have been here for a long time – and all of whom have made important contributions to ESPN. We’re very grateful for all they’ve meant to us, and I assure you we are taking steps to make their transitions easier.

I am proud of the people at ESPN. Together, we have overcome tremendous challenges and adversity over these past several months and please know that the decisions and plans executed today were not made lightly. They are, however, necessary and I am convinced that we will move forward and effectively navigate this unprecedented disruption.

Our Human Resources and Communications teams will continue to keep you posted on any updates, and you’ll be hearing more detail about our future direction in the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you have questions about anything outlined in this note, please do not hesitate to raise them with your leadership team or HR Business Partner.

With gratitude,

Jimmy

Charter Communications once again bucked the trend of video customer declines in the pandemic era, adding 67,000 video customers in Q3, on top of another strong showing for broadband, which added 537,000 subscribers in the period.  

While the broadband additions were not as strong as the 850,000 additions in Q2, they were well above the previous year’s mark of 380,000 additions. Charter added video customers for the second straight quarter. In Q2, the company added 102,000 residential video customers, while losing 8,000 business video subscribers. In Q3, Charter gained 53,000 residential video subs and 14,000 business video customers. 

The gains helped drive overall revenue up 5.1% to $12 billion and EBITDA up 13.6% to $4.6 billion. 

"Our long-term strategy of growing customer relationships by delivering high-quality products and service remains on track," Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said in a press release. "We've added two million customer relationships in the past year and remain focused on executing a proven operating and investment strategy that works for customers, employees and the communities we serve, creating shareholder value for the long term.”

Revenue was flat, impacted by $78.7 million in regional sports network credits the distributor has earmarked for customers, and broadband subscriber additions nearly doubled for Altice USA in the third quarter.  

Altice USA reported revenue of $2.43 billion in the quarter, down 0.2% from the previous year. The cable operator said revenue would have risen 3% in the period, excluding RSN credits it expects to return to residential and business customers. Altice said it expects to return about $76.7 million to residential customers and another $2 million to business customers as a result of the affiliate fee credits it anticipates will come from RSNs for events and games not delivered during the past nine months during the pandemic. Adjusted EBITDA increased 5.5% to $1.13 billion.

Altice added 26,000 broadband customers in the quarter, up from the 15,000 additions it had in the prior year. Video customer losses increased to 86,000, more than twice the 32,000 video subscribers lost in the same period in 2019.

“We delivered strong subscriber and financial performance in the face of the ongoing pandemic, driven by strong underlying revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow trends,” Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said in a press release. “Our cable business continues to outperform during this unprecedented time, and we also saw resilience and recovery in both our Business Services and News and Advertising businesses. We remain excited about the long-term outlook of our business and continue to focus on opportunities to drive value for shareholders."

Lamenting siloes within the marketing world is like lamenting fleas on a dog. They’re irritating, we take great pains to rid ourselves of them—but ultimately, it seems like they come with the territory. But that mustn’t weaken our resolve to continue attacking the problem. Siloes have long been an issue within the TV media buying landscape, with the challenge becoming more pronounced in recent years with the rise of OTT, VOD and digital. 

As an industry, we’ve been making steady progress when it comes to integrating the power of linear with emerging opportunities in OTT, VOD and digital. And now, the pandemic has reminded us why we need to accelerate our efforts in tearing down walls within TV buying. Let’s look at the new pressures the siloed TV buying process faces in the pandemic, and the areas where the greatest effort needs to be made in uniting efforts. 

Shifting Behaviors, Budgets and Buying Vehicles

What was a gradual current propelling us toward a more-integrated TV advertising landscape has become a tidal wave in the pandemic. We’re seeing multiple forces converge in this regard—behavior, economics and logistics alike. 

Consumer shifts. It’s no secret that the pandemic and its associated lockdowns have driven a tremendous spike in consumer OTT viewing behavior. Sean Adams, senior director of the global ad platform at Roku, recently noted that the increase in OTT is proving to be much more than just a pandemic-related blip. We are seeing a greater surge in streaming viewership, which means buying around events is going to be a more-nuanced, cross-channel endeavor going forward.  

Budgetary pressures. Of course, despite the surge in audience attention across new TV modalities, today’s marketers are operating in a new financial reality. For many brands, that means doing more with less, including in the TV realm. This has led a lot of marketers to dig deeper when it comes to understanding addressable TV opportunities and how they can leverage their budgets to target more precisely and in a measurable capacity. 

Buying processes. The desire to minimize fragmentation across media buys and unify measurement across channels has also prompted calls in the industry for media organizations to make it simple to buy linear in partnership with OTT, VOD, digital and other video opportunities. Some networks and media sales organizations now offer advertisers the opportunity to target audiences across every platform (think linear, OTT and addressable) in one media buy. The industry is slowly moving forward, but it’s up to the organizations themselves to create holistic opportunities that work.

The Pursuit of Alignment 

The pressures on the fragmented TV landscape have accelerated over the past six months. It’s time, in turn, for the breakdown in siloed processes and systems to accelerate concurrently. In this regard, there are two key places where our industry needs to focus: 

Team structures. These days, responsibility for buying among the ever-expanding array of TV inventory has become an area fraught with division, uncertainty and inconsistency among brands and agencies. Some linear teams have been tasked with purchasing digital modalities, while some digital teams have been tasked with absorbing emerging TV channels into their purviews. Neither approach is perfect. Only in breaking down the walls between teams to understand the impact of cross-channel TV buys in full context of other initiatives can marketers hope to properly optimize their efforts.

Measurement. Much of today’s fragmentation and uncertainty among TV buying teams is mirrored within the question of measurement. While traditional linear buys generally still communicate in the language of GRPs (though some have made the transition to CRM), emerging opportunities in OTT, connected TV, VOD and others tend to speak the language of digital as it relates to attribution. Now, more than ever, we need to be uniting our understanding of cross-channel effectiveness around audiences and identity, which is an area where players like LiveRamp are taking great strides. 

As those planning content and advertising seek to bridge the gaps among linear, OTT, VOD and digital, the fractured TV landscape faces pressures anew, with the pandemic introducing new dynamics to the conversation. These dynamics aren’t fleeting. They’re here to stay, and they demand action. As an industry, it’s time for all players to come together to break down the walls—walls between teams, measurement modalities and legacy mindsets—to enable the full growth potential of TV and all its manifestations going into 2021 and beyond. 

New York Interconnect (NYI) is a joint venture between Altice USA, Charter Communications, and Comcast that connects brands to over 20 million consumers in the nation’s #1 market.

Credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service raised its rating on the cable television sector to “positive” from “negative” on Tuesday, fueled mainly by expected growth in broadband.

In a research note Tuesday, Moody’s wrote that it expects cash flow in the sector to rise more than 5% over the next 12-to-18 months, based on the continued rise in broadband customers due to the pandemic. 

In the report, Moody’s noted that cable broadband subscribers grew by about 2.5% (3.5 million customers) in Q2, and market penetration rose to 50% in the period, compared to 48% in the prior year. This despite video and voice customer declines in the 4-6% range annually. Moody’s estimated that broadband is replacing video at a 1.9 times clip, rising to 2.2 times in Q2 for the first time in five quarters, a sign of future strength.

Although 5G wireless deployment could cut into wireline growth, the credit ratings agency noted that most operators are prepared to both defend against the threat and participate in the opportunity by expanding their footprints and purchasing spectrum.  

"We believe the cable sector has less exposure than many others because voice and video subscriber losses have temporarily moderated, and there is much greater demand for residential broadband," Moody’s senior vice president  Jason Cuomo said in the report. "Video viewership and engagement is rising sharply as subscribers spend extraordinary time watching TV news and entertainment programming."

Moody’s expects broadband subscribers to rise by at least 4% over the next 12-to-18 months, driven  by demand for greater capacity and speed. Video customer losses are expected to rise beyond 5% over the same period, according to Moody’s. 

The National Football League has postponed the Oct. 4 Tennessee Titans-Pittsburgh Steelers game after several Titans players tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, according to ESPN. 

The league Wednesday said in a Tweet that the game would be rescheduled “to allow additional time for further daily COVID-19 testing and to ensure the health and safety of the players, coaches and game day personnel." Four Titans players as well as five team personnel members tested positive for the virus this week, according to ESPN.

In its statement, the NFL said the Titans-Steelers game could be played as early as Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, the Titans have closed their team facilities through Saturday, according to ESPN. 

The postponement marks the first game affected by the COVID-19 outbreak since the league launched its season four weeks ago. The postponement comes as college football looks to ramp up play on the field. Last week the Pac-12 voted to play a seven-game, conference only season beginning Nov. 6, joining the Big Ten in reversing initial season cancellations due to the pandemic.  

After months of people stuck at home during COVID-19 shutdowns and social distancing, and multiple platforms launching including NBC’s Peacock, connected TV (CTV) has grown at a quicker rate than previously predicted. Per Deloitte, the average U.S. consumer now pays for four different services, up from three pre-pandemic. Furthermore, Conviva found global CTV viewership was up 63 percent year-over-year in Q2.

This shift in viewership means that CTV advertisers will need to adjust their strategies accordingly. The situation presents a unique opportunity for them to reach consumers with increased reach and frequency. But there are also some considerations that must be addressed. With this in mind, here are three ways that COVID-19 is impacting CTV advertisers.

TV will become more measurable with a performance-orientation.

While brands are adjusting spend, temporarily pulling investment from certain channels and platforms like print and digital out-of-home (DOOH) media, they are shifting dollars to CTV. According to the IAB, more than 35 percent of marketers have now moved budget to CTV, while "traditional" advertising is down 39 percent. Advertisers are simply following consumption trends. CTV was always poised to grow this year, though the pandemic has accelerated the channel's maturation timeline.

Yet as more dollars flow to CTV, advertisers will seek to justify their spending through more performance-oriented campaigns. This means investing in interactive ad formats that command a greater engagement lift than standard pre-roll and offer the potential for real earned time and attention. The push for performance also means a larger desire to partner with publishers who can share granular, in-depth data about campaigns. Transparency has never been more important.

COVID and political advertising will drive record demand and increase pricing pressure on brands.

At the beginning of the pandemic, political advertising on CTV fell substantially. This had to do with two things. First, the Democratic primary had been all but decided, with Joe Biden defeating Bernie Sanders as the presumptive nominee. With a cleared field, fewer dollars were being spent until the general election started getting ramped up. The second reason for the pause is COVID-19. Election messaging wasn't necessarily in line with the type of content most are looking for at the beginning of the pandemic, which is hopeful and uplifting.

However, now those dollars are coming back. In August, the Biden campaign reserved $280 million in paid media,including a record-breaking $60 million in digital media, focused on CTV. As we get closer to the election, Biden, Trump and their backers (Super PACs, for example) will flood even more money into the CTV market, buying up supply and putting pricing pressure on brands trying to engage with at-home audiences. With no clear end in sight to the pandemic, we should expect record inventory demand, and in a space where its inventory is already scarce.

Creative will need to be more thoughtful and personalized.

One of the biggest reasons advertisers paused spending at the beginning of the pandemic was to reassess their campaign creative. Suddenly, ads that would have otherwise been relevant were now taboo because of the pandemic. Hershey, for example, had to pull ads with hugs and handshakes. Similarly, a study by Pattern89 found that social media creative featuring images of human contact was down 30 percent. Overnight, what was once considered normal has now been upended. Five months into the pandemic, advertisers still need to make sure their ads are in tune with our current situation. New ads, like the one released by Heineken, must relate to the current environment.

This is especially challenging as different regions grapple with different stages of the pandemic. CTV ads in New York, for example, should be different from those that run in Texas. That’s why we're likely to see more advertisers embrace advanced creative or Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) technology for video. DCO’s promise is in making it possible for advertisers to adapt creative at scale. It allows brands to create relevant CTV experiences by using flexible templates and a decision tree to modify creative based on a variety of data signals. COVID-19 is forcing marketers to take a more personal approach across CTV platforms, and DCO is the lever for accomplishing that.

Innovid is the only independent omni-channel video advertising, creative and analytics platform.

ISPs' ears must have been burning Tuesday (Sept. 1) as FCC chairman Ajit Pai praised them for the performance of their networks during the pandemic and that investments they had made in those networks that paved the way for that performance.

Pai was providing remarks for a virtual ITU global regulator symposium.

Asked to address the experience of dealing with the pandemic, Pai said the headline was that America's communications networks had performed extremely well.

"Our wired and wireless networks handled this surge without any significant service disruptions or declines," said, citing Ookla figures showing that between March 2 and July 13, average U.S. fixed broadband speeds were actually up 10%, while average mobile broadband speeds were up by 4%.

Why was this the case in the face of increased demand from a stay-at-home populace? He said part of it was the hard work and creativity of carriers. "As one example, from March to July, Comcast, our nation’s largest cable operator, averaged nearly 900 network improvements per week, on top of over 450 improvements to its core network. Because of these efforts, they added more than 128 Terabits of capacity."

But beyond that, he said, "I would argue that the biggest reason U.S. carriers were equipped to handle the unexpected surge in traffic was the investments they made long before anybody had ever heard of COVID-19. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen network investment hit levels that our nation hadn’t seen for over a
decade."

As he has said before, Pai credited the FCC's elimination of net neutrality rules in 2017 for that increase in investment. "I would also point out that broadband investment declined in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016 (two years when the Internet was treated like a public utility)—the first time that had happened outside of a recession in the Internet era," he added to push the point.
 
He also pointed out that ISPs had responded when the FCC asked them to voluntarily keep subs connected during the economic hit of COVID-19. "By working with industry cooperatively, we made progress much more quickly than we would
have had we pursued command-and-control regulation," he said.

Pai suggested the takeaway for regulators is that "unleashing private markets often can be the most effective way to advance the public interest."

What, you mean someone studied the OTT consumption habits of consumers stuck at home in front of their TVs during the pandemic?

OK, after peddling in this content for months, we’re as fatigued as anyone by these reports. But this latest survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers from London-based cloud video technology company Grabyo has some interesting numbers.

Americans are spending an average of $1 billion a month more on video streaming since Grabyo polled U.S. consumers back in January. 

Amid the pandemic, video streaming services have reached 72% penetration into American homes, up 13% since January. Pay TV currently has 56% penetration, the firm claims. Sixty-five percent of U.S. video customers aged between 50-64, and 50% of those 65+ years, now pay for online streaming.

Notably 85% of streaming customers say they’re planning to keep the same number of subscription services even after the social distancing period ends. 

“While the U.S. was already in front of the curve for streaming adoption, the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this trend,” said Gareth Capon, CEO at Grabyo. “With most of the U.S. population staying at home, consumers have had the chance to watch more TV, trial new streaming subscriptions and discover which  services offer the most value. Our findings show that online streaming has come out on top across all consumer segments and these changes in the market are here to stay.”

Comcast is getting ready to issue credits to its video customers for regular season Major League Baseball games not played due to the ongoing pandemic, and according to people familiar with the company, subscribers will receive those benefits in the “coming weeks.”

Just how much Comcast customers would receive is not yet known. But according to the cable operator, once Comcast determines what it will receive from the RSNs for games not delivered, it will pass them along to customers.

“We have consistently said that we would pass along all credits or any other adjustments we receive from RSNs to our customers and will be offering adjustments to our customers based upon the MLB games that weren’t played in the second quarter because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Comcast said in a statement.

Determining how much each customer will receive is a complicated process, depending on their market, the number of RSNs in that market and the teams that are part of the particular RSN. For example, a customer in an area with one RSN will likely get a smaller credit than one in a market with four RSNs.

Adding to the complications is that each RSNs has to determine how much of a credit they will give each operator, who in turn has to pass along that savings to the appropriate customer. That will take some time, but according to one person familiar with Comcast’s thinking, Comcast is estimating how much it will receive from the RSNs so it can issue credits sooner.

“It will be in the coming weeks,” said the person familiar with Comcast ‘s thinking about the credits. “They’re working through the whole process right now.”

The issue of giving rebates to video subscribers has been a big one ever since the pandemic postponed the seasons of the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and MLB back in March. At the time, the NBA and NHL had completed the majority of its seasons, and likely won’t have to give any money back for lost games to RSNs.

But baseball is another story.

Major League Baseball cut its 162-game regular season to 60 games because of the pandemic. And since the shortened season began on July 24, some of those games had to be canceled after teams revealed some players contracted COVID-19.

To help offset the high cost of sports programming, many operators have been charging all video customers a sports surcharge. During the pandemic, when most sports were canceled, customers have chafed at paying a surcharge for games they can’t watch. For Comcast, the sports surcharge averages about $8.75 per month, but depends on the market. Larger cities generally have more RSNs -- New York has four -- and therefore the sports fees in those areas would be higher.

Comcast also owns the NBC Sports Network RSNs, which would be issuing rebates to distributors.

According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, NBC Sports Philadelphia said the amount of rebates due distributors would be determined after the number of regular season games each league played is finalized. Any credits or adjustments would be passed along according to individual agreements.

In April, New York State Attorney General Letitia James asked cable operators to look into returning at latest some of those fees to customers. 

Other pay TV providers have said they would return some sports fees as they receive rebates from leagues or networks. In May, DirecTV said it would offer subscribers to its MLB Extra Innings and MLS Direct Kick credits for any payments the had made for the out-of-market sports packages and said they could cancel without penalty up to two weeks after play resumed. 

Comcast said during its Q2 earnings conference call that it expects to receive rebates from RSNs, but that it hasn’t been determined what those amounts will be as of yet.

“...[W]e expect that we'll be getting some monies back from some of the sports leagues based on games played or not played in the U.S.,” Comcast chief financial officer Mike Cavanagh said on the Q2 earnings call on July 30. “And when that does happen, we as we've said, we'll pass that back along to customers.”

LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media president and CEO Lee Berke said the amount that the operators could receive from RSNs will vary depending on the teams involved, the markets and the number of games delivered. He added that while baseball could account for about 40% of a total RSN fee, the amount due to an operator could vary and it could be spread out over time..

“If you’ve lost 100 games, you’ve lost roughly 40% of what you were providing,”Berke said. “There are a variety of ways this could play out. It may be offered up in stages, it may be spread out over the course of several years, the term of the deal could be extended to ameliorate the hit. There may be something paid out immediately, but I think the overall financial hit may be spread out over a couple of years.”

While it could take time for any money to change hands, Comcast apparently is ready to offer its video customers credits even before it receives the rebates from the RSNs, based on estimates.

Other operators have said they expect to receive some form of compensation for lost games, but so far haven’t received anything.

“We continue to be in close contact with all the networks," Charter Communications said in a statement. "If and when we receive any COVID-related rebate for canceled sports, we will pass that along to our affected customers.”

On its Q2 conference call with analysts, Charter chief financial officer Christopher Winfrey said that the operator had not yet received any RSN rebates.

“We did not accrue any RSN fee savings in our programming expenses in the second quarter as the certainty, amount and timing of any credits is not yet clear,” Winfrey said. “If and when any COVID rebate for lost games occurs, we will pass that along to our video customers.”

At Cox Communications, spokesman Todd Smith said, “Right now, networks continue to charge us full price for this programming. If we receive any money back from the networks, we will pass all of it along to our customers.” 

While streaming got a boost from the pandemic, the economic weakness caused by the virus hurt advertising aimed at streaming viewers, according to a new report from Conviva.

In its State of Streaming Report for the second quarter, Conviva said that ad demand dropped, with attempts to insert ads down 22% in the U.S. and down 28% globally, compared to the first quarter, due in part to the lack of sports.

But Conviva found that the quality of stream advertising improve, with viewers spending 38% less time waiting for an ad to start. Viewers leaving before an ad started dropped 22%. The picture quality of ads, as measured by bitrate, was up 53%.

“Shelter-in-place mandates skyrocketed streaming viewership in April, led by Europe which saw a 174% increase year over year,” said Bill Demas, CEO of Conviva. “Unfortunately advertising moved in the opposite direction with global demand significantly reduced due to COVID-19. We expect advertising to bounce back in the coming quarters as the industry and viewers acclimate to a ‘new normal’ including streaming being part of the everyday routine.”

Streaming growth slowed in May and June slowed from April, when viewing was up 81%, compared to the previous year.

Global share of smart TV viewing more than doubled as viewing time increased 239% year over year. Viewing was also up on connected devices. Viewing via Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and others was up 61%. Viewing on game consoles was up 55%.

Connected TV devices had the largest share of viewing time in both North America (56%) and Europe (32%).

Coastal Elites, which HBO calls a “socially distanced comedy,” starts on the network Sept. 12. Jay Roach directs this satire, which tells contemporary stories of characters breaking down and breaking through as they grapple with politics, culture and the pandemic all around them. 

Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson and Issa Rae are in the cast. Midler plays a teacher in New York. Dever plays a nurse from Wyoming who flies to New York to volunteer. Levy portrays an actor in Hollywood, videoconferencing with his therapist. Paulson plays a YouTube personality filming a meditations series. Rae’s character is a philanthropist whose network leads her to the highest levels of government. 

HBO shared about the show at the WarnerMedia virtual TCA presentation. 

HBO said the show “explores our current world of deeply divided politics and the universal pursuit of human connection.” 

Coastal Elites was originally conceived for the Public Theater in New York. Filming for the television project took place earlier this summer under quarantine guidelines.

Paul Rudnick wrote Coastal Elites. He executive produces alongside Roach, Jeffrey Seller, Flody Suarez, Scott Chaloff and Michelle Graham.

CBS’ The Young and The Restless will be the final daytime drama to return to the air after the pandemic production shut-down with new episodes on Monday, Aug. 10, CBS said Monday. 

The Young and The Restless joins CBS companion The Bold and the Beautiful, which was the first soap to return to originals on June 16. Y&R started taping new episodes on July 14. ABC’s General Hospital is coming back with originals on Monday after resuming taping on July 22 and NBC’s Days of Our Lives never stopped airing fresh episodes, with new episodes in the can to last through early October. Days resumes taping on Sept. 1. 

CBS renewed The Young and the Restless for four more seasons in January, taking the show through 2024. The Young and the Restless is now in its 47th season. It’s produced by Bell Dramatic Serial Company, in association with Sony Pictures Television. Created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell.

Programs aimed at keeping residential customers connected online during the nationwide pandemic helped fuel growth at Charter Communications in Q2.

Charter said it added 102,000 video subscribers in Q2, a reversal of the 150,000 video customers it lost in the prior year but entirely the result of programs like the Federal Communications Commission Keep America Connected pledge and others, where providers agreed not to disconnect customers for non-payment.

Charter said that 149,000 video customers signed up in Q2 as part of the FCC Keep America Connected pledge and 12,000 joined through its Remote Education Offer. The company said nearly 50% of REO customers chose to subscribe to other services like video, voice and mobile and were billed for those products. The REO program expired on June 30, and Charter said 90% of cumulative connects through that program have retained service through July 27.

On a conference call with analysts, Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said regardless of how those customers came to the company, they are acting like any other subscriber that joined via a traditional promotion.

“From a profile perspective they look just like our regular customer base and they are just like our regular customer base,” Rutledge said. “They very much are behaving like all customers we create. We look at that offer in many ways as a conventional offer with a broadband benefit, but it brought in real customers that subscribe and act like existing customers.”

However, he didn’t expect to see continued video growth, adding that it was a combination of the pandemic which kept people stuck in their homes and in front of their TV sets, and the programs.

“The secular trends for video haven’t changed,” Rutledge said.

Despite subscriber gains, Charter said video revenue was down 0.4% for the period to $4.4 billion, which the company said was due to a higher mix of lower-priced video packages and the waiver overdue customer balances.

The FCC program also was a big factor in broadband gains. Charter said it added about 825,000 residential and business broadband subscribers in the quarter, but added that about 600,000 residences and 100,000 businesses applied for the FCC program, and at its peak, 208,000 residences and 14,000 businesses would have been disconnected for non-payment. About 30% of those Keep America Connected customers’ bills were current and more than 60% were making partial or full payments. Charter said that to help those customers with overdue balances, it waived $76 million residential, $6 million business and $3 million of mobile receivables in the quarter.

Charter also said it added 325,000 wireless customers in the period, ending the quarter with 1.7 million Spectrum Mobile subscribers.

The subscriber growth helped fuel a 3.1% lift in total revenue to $11.7 billion. Adjusted EBITDA rose 7.3% to $4.5 billion.

Altice USA added more broadband customers in the second quarter than ever, spurred by stay at home orders throughout its service territory as the pandemic rages on, and prompting the company to reinstate guidance for the rest of the year.

Altice USA said it added 70,000 broadband customers in the period, more than five times the 13,000 it added in the prior year. Including complimentary Altice Advantage Internet customer net additions, residential broadband customers rose by 79,000 in the quarter. That growth fell to 53,000 additions when adjusted for customers receiving broadband via programs like the FCC Keep America Connected Pledge and a New Jersey order prohibiting companies from disconnecting broadband service for non-payment. But even with the lower number, Altice had its best broadband quarter ever.

At the same time, video subscribers fell by about 35,000 in the period, up from a loss of 21,000 customers in the same period last year.

Like its other cable peers, Altice USA attributed the broadband gains to the pandemic. The company added that internet usage in its service territories rose by 59% in the quarter, while video streaming was up 46% year-over-year. 

Total revenue was up 1% to $2.47 billion and EBITDA grew 2.5% to $1.1 billion.

“Our core cable business performed extremely well, and we remain committed to serving our broader community with the connectivity and news they need during this unprecedented time,” Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said in a press release. “For the second consecutive quarter, we delivered best-ever customer net additions, driven by organic broadband growth, and increased revenue, net income and Adjusted EBITDA year-over-year. We saw resilience in our Business Services segment, where we grew revenue more than two percent, and began to see a recovery in our News and Advertising business as we exited the quarter. While the pandemic continues to pose some uncertainty in the back half of the year, we are encouraged by the strength and resilience of our business, and by the opportunity set presented.”

As a result, Altice USA has decided to reinstate guidance for the full year -- it withdrew guidance in Q1 because of the pandemic. Now the company said it projects revenue and EBITDA growth for the full year, capital expenditures of $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion in share repurchases. The company has set a year-end leverage target of 4.5 times to 5 times net debt/adjusted EBITDA.