What emerging industry trend are you most excited by? We are currently engaged in the largest network expansion since the 1980s. Bringing currently unserved homes and businesses access to our suite of connectivity services is having a real impact on people’s lives and is benefiting rural communities. Between RDOF and additional state broadband grants, Charter has committed to build approximately 1.75 million rural passings. We have already connected more than 420,000 subsidized rural passings. We plan to connect over 400,000 new rural passings in 2024 and expect our RDOF build to be completed by the end of 2026, two years ahead of schedule.
Do you personally still have a traditional cable video package? We are a children’s programming and sports family, and the best way to get access to all of that content is with a traditional TV package. We couple it with Xumo on every TV and get the best of both worlds, with access to the Spectrum TV App, paid direct-to-consumer content and a wide variety of AVOD content all via the voice remote.
Was Charter’s Disney deal precedent setting? Why or why not? For the good of the customer, I believe it is. We evolved the distribution model to provide greater value to our customers and to better align linear and DTC services. Our expectation is that our customers and Charter will not pay twice for content going forward. If there is a programmer making their content available in a direct-to-consumer service, and our customers are paying for that content in a linear service, we expect that service would be part of our bundle, just as Disney+ and ESPN+ are today. And when we couple that with the Xumo Stream box, with all the top apps and seamless cross platform voice search capabilities, we are delivering a simplified streaming experience and unmatched value to our customers.
