Sad news, imo. Mike brought up in our nitely stream last night that Charter is undergoing serious bankruptcy. As of March 28th, 2009, Charter Communications is now in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Poor stocks in NasDaq, and horrible customer service have drove their customers away. As a result, revenue is falling sharply, and debt has consumed the corporation.
Here are a couple qoutes from the
Charter Communcications Wikipedia pageOn July 20, 2009, the sale to Apollo Management was rejected, and the pre-arranged plan was converted to a traditional Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, which means Charter will either have to sell a considerable amount of its assets or completely liquidate.
Comcast would be interested in the Northwest including all of Oregon (249,000 subs), Sierra Nevada including Reno/Tahoe and Redding (278,000 subs), Michigan (592,000 subs), and Louisiana/Tennessee (533,000 subs).
Charter has been criticized for poor customer support and frequent billing consistency issues, causing the Better Business Bureau to post a warning to consumers about the company:
"The Better Business Bureau has received numerous complaints regarding this cable, digital TV, and high speed internet access provider. Complainants primarily allege that the firm had improper billing practices, referred customer bills to collection agencies in error, provided poor customer service, used misleading advertising, provided defective internet or cable performance, used improper sales tactics or misrepresented the actual costs of installation and service, failed to properly install or maintain service, damaged customers' property, and failed to honor service appointments. "
Here is another interesting statistic, involving all legacy STARs (4000 and XL's)
Currently, there are 46 known 4000 units across the country.
5 are owned by CharterComcast also owns 5Time Warner only owns 1Currently, there are 51 known XL units across the country.
10 are owned by Charter7 are owned by ComcastTime Warner owns 6While these are not the best facts to prove my point, Charter does own the most legacy STARs of any cable company.
Charter is much quieter with advertising than Comcast is, and serves a lot of rural areas as well (northern Michigan).
One thing many are concerned about is Comcast and TW updating the STARs in many locations to the Intellistar. This is an issue that bears watching, as Chapter 7 appears imminent.
Now, here's where my personal connection comes into it.
I have recorded 2 Charter legacy STARs (hopefully soon to be 3), and only one Comcast one.
Here are all the Charter STARs I have recorded:
-Asheville, NC
-Morristown/Newport, TN
-Alpena, MI
-Houghton Lake, MI
-Petoskey, MI
and soon to have Mackinaw City, I hope
I am also looking at Kalamazoo, MI and Traverse City, MI.
I have recorded Comcast STARs in:
Lansing, MI
East Lansing, MI
Romulus, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
Bad Axe, MI
I have only managed to record Time Warner in Cincinnati, OH.
So, this appears to be mixed on my end. But I have started this thread to open discussion on the concept of Charter failing, and to update the issue as news occurs. Unfortunately, another Adelphia style transaction appears quite possible.
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). Has TWC gone digital for anyone else?
). My first one is a Christmas 2008 LF where the music switches from the Holiday list to the December daytime mid-LF, during the first text based screen.
