WHISTLING ITS WAY TO KALAMAZOO
March 7: Pays $172.5 million in stock for Cablevision Systems Corp.'s 48,500 subs in Kalamazoo, Mich.
BOOTY FROM BRESNAN CAPTURED
Feb.14: Completes $3.1 billion June deal for Bresnan Communications Co., which has about 690,000 subs mostly in four states. Bresnan is part-owned by AT & T.
SET-TOPS BY THE MILLION
Dec. 15, 1999: Commits to buying 1 million set-top boxes from General Instrument Corp. for $300 million.
SWAP INCLUDES HOMETOWN SUBS
Dec. 1, 1999: Continues consolidating via swap with AT & T involving about 1.3 million subs. Charter picks up systems serving 704,000 customers in St. Louis and in three other states; AT & T gets systems serving 632,000 customers in six states plus cash.
GONE PUBLIC
Nov. 9, 1999: Begins public trading with a $3.7 billion stock sale. Founder Paul Allen maintains majority control.
INTERMEDIA-RY
Oct. 1, 1999: In three-way deal, Charter and AT & T complete $2.4 billion purchase of InterMedia Partners. Charter to exchange 400,000 subs in four states for 140,000 subs in three states plus cash to InterMedia. AT & T then collects the systems that InterMedia got from Charter, as well as InterMedia's 300,000-sub Nashville system, in exchange for the value of AT & T's partnership interest in InterMedia.
TELCO VENTURE PLANNED
June 14, 1999: Announces plans to offer local telephone service over its cable wires, probably in joint venture with AT & T. Charter on Dec. 14 said its test partner would be High Speed Access Corp.
$6 BILLION FOR 2 COMPANIES
May 26, 1999: Spends more than $6 billion on two cable companies: Falcon Cable holdings for about $5.2 billion in cash, stock and debt, adding about 1 million subs in 23 states; Fanch for $2.4 billion. Fanch has about 537,000 subs mostly in Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. About 46% of Falcon's shares are owned by AT & T.
4. Cox
Cox Enterprise
1400 Lake Hearn Drive NE
Atlanta, Ga. 30319
(404) 843-5000
Top executive: James Robbins,
president and CEO
Ownership: publicly traded; controlled by Cox Enterprises Inc., Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers
Homes passed: 9,500,000
Basic subscribers: 6,100,000
Basic penetration: 64% penetration
Digital-ready homes: 5,200,000
Digital subs: 450,000
Digital penetration: 8.7%
High-speed Internet-ready homes: 5,000,000
High-speed Internet subs: 260,000
Internet penetration: 5.2%
Major clusters: San Diego-Orange County, Calif.; Phoenix; Las Vegas; New Orleans; Hampton Roads and Fairfax County, Va.; Providence, R.I: and Oklahoma City
