MONTEREY,CALIF.: Comcast has nearly half of the cable subscribers in the top 40 U.S. TV markets, according to SNL Kagan. The estimates are from the company’s latest geographic analysis of cable television subscription. A summary of cable coverage in the top 40, which includes markets from New York to Birmingham, Ala., is as follows:
MSO – Subscribers -- % Market Share
Comcast -------- 20,112,000 ---- 49.7%
Time Warner --- 7,835,000 ----- 19.4%
Cablevision ----- 3,112,000 ------ 7.7%
Charter ----------- 2,793,000 ----- 6.9%
Brighthouse ----- 2,208,000 ----- 5.5%
Other ------------- 2,027,000 ------ 5.0%
Cox --------------- 2,003,000 ------ 4.9%
Insight -------------- 201,000 ------ 0.5%
Mediacom --------- 176,000 ------ 0.4%
Total ------------ 40,467,000 -----100.0%
“Over the past several years, the cable TV market has been relatively inactive, with only 500,000 basic cable subs traded in 2007-2008 versus 9.4 million in 2005-2006,” said Robin Flynn, senior analyst at SNL Kagan. “However, we have seen several private equity-backed transactions in smaller markets, as well as strong market activity among small MSOs aimed at improving system clustering and efficiencies.”
