New York, NY – The nation's leading cable operators today announced new voluntary guidelines to provide investors with the best possible understanding of metrics that are important to company operations.
Chief Executive Officers of 11 publicly traded multiple system operators (MSOs) today pledged to support and adhere to the new guidelines.
Established with the support of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the new guidelines seek to provide more consistency in the reporting of operating statistics in capital expenditures and customer relationships.
The new guidelines:
- Identify six standard reporting categories for capital expenditures: customer premise equipment (CPE); commercial; scalable infrastructure; line extensions; upgrade/rebuild; and support capital.
- Establish a new definition of customer relationships: “The number of customers that receive at least one level of service, encompassing voice, video, and data services, without regard to which service(s) customers purchase.”
- Create a standard definition for revenue generating units (RGUs): “The sum total of all primary analog video, digital video, high-speed data, and telephony customers, not counting additional outlets.”
“In order to provide more consistency in the reporting of operating statistics in capital expenditures and customer relationships, we pledge to join our peer companies in adhering to standard reporting categories in these areas,” says the commitment made today by the MSOs. “We remain committed to providing all of our investors the clearest possible view into our business and financial operations.”
“We’ve voluntarily joined together to make our numbers more consistent on a company by company basis,” said Michael Willner, Chief Executive Officer of Insight Communications, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of NCTA. “This is a positive development for our industry and our investors, who we believe will gain a clearer picture of our companies through these actions.
"The new guidelines are designed as an enhancement to the financial reporting of the companies and will have no impact on continuing corporate adherence to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which is the responsibility of each publicly held company and its certified public accountants under federal law,” Willner added.
The publicly traded MSOs, which have pledged to implement the new reporting guidelines no later than the first quarter of 2003, include AT&T Broadband; Time Warner Cable; Comcast Cable Communications; Charter Communications; Cox Communications; Adelphia Communications; Cablevision Systems Corporation; Mediacom Communications; Insight Communications; CableOne; and General Communications, Inc. (GCI).