Cablefax The Magazine - July 2015 - 6

2015 Top Ops Awards
MSO OF THE YEAR
Charter
You might think Charter received our MSO of the Year honor because
of its proposed Time Warner Cable and Bright House deals. And
while those transactions are impressive, Charter got here by operational
expertise. It's a very different company than just a couple
years ago-digitizing its network, pumping up Internet speeds, adding
more HD channels than satellite and rolling out a cloud-based
guide. And the work is paying off, with Charter actually growing its
expanded video subscriber base last year.
For Charter to go from bankruptcy to where it is today-poised to become
the country's second largest cable operator-earns it the title of comeback
kid. " When I joined the company, I had a view that it was a diamond
in the rough, " says Tom Rutledge, who took over as CEO in February 2012.
There were a lot areas to tackle, but improving pricing and packages as
well as quality of service topped the list.
" One of the fi rst things we did was we walked out the entire 200,000
miles of Charter physical infrastructure and did an inventory of all the
plant. We created a series of projects and went back and did all the
deferred maintenance that had been missed during the long process
of restructuring, " Rutledge explains. From there, came Charter's alldigital
project, which tied in nicely to new packages and promotions.
Along the way came the addition of 7,000 new employees and construction
of brand new call centers as the MSO brought jobs back to the States.
" Everyone at Charter knows the customer service capability is the key
differentiator for us. We've been investing in people, training and improving
our quality and craftsmanship throughout the organization, " Rutledge says.
But while Charter may have been changing internally, it had to
convince customers who'd grown accustomed to substandard HD
offerings and slow Internet speeds that it really was a new MSO. " We
went from 50 channels of high defi nition to over 200. We took our
data speeds from 10 megabits to 60 megabits and in some cases 100
megabits, and we improved all the features on our voicemail product.
It's really about doing the work fi rst, " Rutledge says. To help crystallize
the change in direction, Charter rolled out its Spectrum brand.
" Our work to be the best is never over, but every once in a while
we take the time to look at how far we've come before we begin the
hard work of becoming even better. It starts with our entire management
team and the confi dence we have in all Charter employees, "
says Charter COO John Bickham.
Charter hasn't always followed the traditional path. When other MSOs
were ramping up social media
efforts, Charter
pulled back.
As Comcast
rolled out its X1
platform, Charter
focused on its
6
cablefaxmag.com
cloud-based video delivery system that works on legacy digital set-tops as
well as its new Worldboxes. Rutledge chalks up the different approaches
to different circumstances. " When I was looking at Charter and trying to
fi gure out how to make it more successful, we went to the fundamentals
of service-blocking and tackling, " he says, describing how maintenance
projects had to come fi rst. " It doesn't mean we don't think social media
isn't a great opportunity. But it wasn't our focus initially. "
As for Charter's cloud-based guide, it actually has a lot of similarities to
Comcast's X1. But it allows Charter to get to market more quickly than it
could otherwise. " We took a strategy that was right for Charter and consistent
with our all digital strategy of putting a 2-way box at every outlet.
[We're] having a guide that could be managed from the cloud and capable
of being received by every 2-way box we've ever deployed and every
modem and every device a consumer brings on their own, " Rutledge says.
" We were starting from a different place. "
Taking Time Warner Cable completely digital will be a priority if/when
the merger is approved. Given the playbook at Charter and his past at
Cablevision, Rutledge feels confi dent the company will fi t right into the
fold. While Charter will benefi t from increased scale, there's also some
hope that having another large MSO will be good for cable in general.
" It will be a place where content companies, technology vendors, etc.
can come experiment and develop product that may not be the same
products that exist in other parts of the industry, " Rutledge says. " That
ability to have more than one place to do that will allow more innovation
in the cable industry than would otherwise occur. "
- Amy Maclean
FAST FACTS
Fast Facts
uCharter's slowest broadband tier is 60 Mbps.
uThe MSO grew its expanded video sub base by
76,000 in 2014.
uNew Charter, featuring the combination of Time
Warner Cable and Bright House, plans to deploy more
than 300,000 out-of-home WiFi access points. It also
will build out one million line extensions and invest at
least $2.5 billion in commercial areas.
July 2015
Cablefax: The Magazine
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Cablefax The Magazine - July 2015

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