Midco Strives to Deliver Something to Everyone
By Amy Maclean
Even before COVID amplified the need for more broadband bandwidth, Midco saw where things were headed and began planning. The Midwestern operator launched its Fiber Forward initiative in 2021, committing $500 million to introduce multi-gig symmetrical speeds across its markets with an aim to advance its network in anticipation of evolving consumer requirements.
“We’re in our fourth year of doing all of our plant extensions in our greenfield new markets with fiber to the premise. It’s kind of like we’re capping HFC and upgrading HFC, and anything new is fiber to the prem. We anticipate by the end of ’28 that 25% of our passings will be fiber to the prem,” says Midco CEO Pat McAdaragh.
Pushing forward with the latest technologies is in Midco’s DNA. It was started in 1931 as the Welworth Theater Company where it pioneered drive-in movies in the upper Midwest. In 1969, Pierre, South Dakota, became one of the first state capitals in the U.S. to have cable TV thanks to Midco. It went on to become the first in South Dakota to offer quality, low-cost long-distance service in 1982. Now Midco is on a mission to expand its fiber network by 22,000 miles to deliver state-of-the-art service to its customers.
And it approaches it all with a company culture that recognizes people are the heart of everything Midco does. “The expectation of creating a respectful and helpful service-oriented culture, which starts right at the top with our leadership group and our ownership, really creates the culture that helps us drive great results. And also we have pretty high retention rates,” notes Chief Human Resources Officer Ann McGlennen.
Midco has revamped its onboarding experience, with a heavy emphasis on the first 90 days, to get new employees off to a strong start. It also provides ongoing leadership training and skill development. Earlier this year, Midco was recognized by The WICT Network as a “Platinum PAR Operator,” a designation received by only two other cable operators that have consistently ranked among the top workplaces for women in the organization’s benchmarking tool.
When Chief Operations Officer Ben Dold joined the company 13 years ago, he recognized immediately it was something different. “From getting the interview with Pat to meeting the team, I could tell that it was a company that was going places and had a bright future ahead of it. And it had a culture that I could really thrive within,” says Dold, who joined as a marketing analyst and was promoted to COO in January 2023. One of the first projects he worked on was Midco’s acquisition of 33,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin subs from US Cable, which provided a strong foundation for all the growth ahead.
Right now, Midco’s existing HFC plant is at over 50% mid-split upgrades. In May, it introduced “Beyond Gig” plans offering 2 GB download speeds and 400 Mbps or 350 Mbps upload speeds. It’s also in the process of rolling out high-splits that should bring speeds of 5 gigs down/1.5 gigs up. Along the way, the company’s laying the groundwork for DOCSIS 4.0 once the technology is ready for deployment. “We’ll have everything in there and the investment made, and then it’ll just be, ‘OK, now do we convert to 4.0 or not?’” McAdaragh explains. “It will be driven partially by what it’s looking like on churn and competitive variables. Because if it’s a large dollar ticket at that time, and you’re already serving these high-end customers with PON or DOCSIS 3.1+ and you’re not having any pushback, that might have a five-year life there.”
Mobile isn’t part of Midco’s product set yet, but it’s on the roadmap. “We’re still in the early phases. We have no agreements with anyone at this stage, no choices made, just an internal thumbs up vote of confidence that we’re going to go forth,” says McAdaragh. “I believe we’ll have a product in market the last quarter of ’25 or first quarter of ’26. Nobody’s put a sheet in front of me and a timeline that says we can do it, but they’ve been charged to figure that out.”
As Midco upgrades its network, it is expanding its footprint into new communities, such as Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and Jamestown, North Dakota. “Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is our epicenter, and we just kind of keep growing out from there. If there are holes in our five-state region and we’re already close, then it’s just natural. It’s almost like a plant extension,” McAdaragh says.
Midco treats these new construction projects like it’s working in its own front yard. “Ideally, when we’re done constructing, you shouldn’t know we were there. That’s the goal. We don’t always get it right, but we do most of the time,” says Dold. “We believe if you have any issue, we’re going to take care of you quickly, and we’re going to get it right the first time.” The company works to make sure calls are answered quickly by someone that resides in the Midco footprint, and if a truck roll is needed, Midco’s goal is to have a tech there within 24 hours with an impressive 15-minute window of when you can expect them.
Midco’s underpinning philosophy of anticipating customers’ needs extends to its approach to WiFi. It’s not enough to get great speeds to the house if internet is not performing well on wireless. Last year, it launched the Midco Wi-Fi product initiative utilizing Plume pod technology that lets customers manage and control their in-home networks while allowing Midco to leverage comprehensive back-end support tools. Nearly 75% of new customers are adding Midco Wi-Fi when they sign up. It followed up in 3Q 2023 with the launch of Midco Business Wi-Fi Pro tailored for small- and medium-sized businesses. So far, about 50% of new hybrid fiber coax internet customers use a Wi-Fi Pro connection.
“We’ve really seen the benefit of pairing our Mido Wi-Fi with our IPTV solution Midco TV. We know that we can provide a great experience across both if those two products are present in the home or business,” says Dold.
So far, the company has converted over 40% of its QAM customers to IPTV, with a goal of being all IPTV by the end of 2026. “We’ve got our product team working on what the future of video looks like for us. It’s still unfolding for everyone,” says McAdaragh. “But it definitely seems like the broadband customers that are also video customers churn less, and they have good customer satisfaction on everything except one thing—and that’s price.” That price factor is something the industry is experimenting with. McAdaragh is among those watching Comcast’s newly introduced $15/month StreamSaver, which includes Netflix Standard with ads, Peacock Premium, and Apple TV+ for broadband subs. Another $15 includes FAST channels as well as more than 40 linear channels, such as Hallmark, AMC and TLC. For the record, Midco is a 50-50 partnership between Midcontinent Media and Comcast with Midco acting as the managing partner. Comcast does handle programming negotiations, which is why Midco customers lost Bally Sports Kansas City and Bally Sport North for three months when Comcast’s carriage deal with Diamond Sports expired in May.
Midco operates its own sports network, Midco Sports, which televises regional college competitions. Some operators have gotten out of the regional network business over the years given the economics, but Midco Sports has kept playing the game since its launch in 2010. It did reduce the number of full-time staffers earlier this year as it focuses more on its streaming content on online service Midco Sports Plus as well as university content on linear, but McAdaragh says the network is part of Midco’s contribution to the communities it serves. “If you’re just a cold-blooded financial analyst, you might not do it, but we believe we actually get paid for that over a longer period of time. If there’s no loyalty to you because you haven’t built any local capital or brand equity, customers flee more quickly,” he says. “The reason why we’ve kept the sports is because it energizes people toward us, and our team members toward us.”
The company has a long history of contributing to the areas it serves. In 1987, a 22-year-old McAdaragh was tasked with setting up the Midco Foundation. It serves as the charitable arm, using grants, in-kind donations, team member gift matching and local support to invest in charitable entities throughout the Midwest. Since its inception, the foundation has contributed more than $6 million to nonprofit organizations, local governments and schools in the more than 400 communities Midco serves. Grants have been awarded to community centers, PTAs, food pantries and other organizations, while Midco also sponsors more than 175 organizations, programs and events across its service area. That community focus was on full display when Augustana University, located in Midco’s hometown of Sioux Falls, raised enough money to launch the state’s only Division I hockey program. The operator supported the program and secured the naming rights for the Midco Arena, a 3,000-seat campus ice hockey arena that opened this past January. “It really helps elevate Sioux Falls. The games will be on throughout the country, so it’s good. Some people don’t even know where South Dakota is,” says McAdaragh. “It goes back to a more general philosophy of running a business that impacts a lot of people. I’m a firm believer that you can be best in every capacity—you can be best for customers, you can be best for your team members, you can be best for the com munities you’re involved in, best for your suppliers, your investors.”