Bear Stearns

Executives from Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cablevision faced the same question Wed at the Bear Stearns media conference: after a banner ’06 for cable, where’s the future growth? CVC COO Tom Rutledge said that in addition to commercial services, advertising has much potential. "What is the mass media form in New York? It’s Cablevision," he said. "We think there is opportunity to create new [ad] inventory and new commerce engines on the video screen." But Rutledge still believes an upside exists in traditional services, even with digital penetration at 78%. CVC’s 4.6mln homes passed represent $10bln in rev potential, of which only $4bln has been mined to date, he said. "The opportunity to convert the DSL universe is still in front of us," he said. Time Warner Cable CFO John Martin stuck to the MSO’s focus on expansion and upgrades in acquired systems (Cfax, 3/1) while also citing VoIP growth and customer care marketing as key initiatives. On the commercial voice side, TWC expects to complete deployment throughout its legacy footprint by the end of the year and aggressively suit customers in ’08, said Martin. He said the big growth driver for residential phone services will be differentiation and segmentation in the legacy markets while an ’07 roll out completion in acquired markets will yield 2mln phone additions in these areas. Charter’s eye is largely trained on residential VoIP expansion, too, even if its 7% phone penetration is higher than both Comcast’s and TWC’s, said COO Michael Lovett. "We don’t see penetration levels and pass rates waning as the market matures," he said. Meanwhile, Charter CEO Neil Smit said commercial market expansion is possible despite the $300mln in segment rev Charter pulled down last year.