Type | Public |
---|---|
NYSE: WOW Russell 2000 Component | |
Industry | Telecommunications |
Predecessor | Americast, Knology |
Founded | November 1996 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | |
Key people | Teresa Elder (President & CEO) John Rego (CFO) Bill Case (CIO) Henry Hryckiewicz (CTO) |
Products | Broadband Cable television IPTV Digital cable Digital telephone HDTV Internet Internet security VoIP phone |
Brands | WOW! |
Revenue | US$1,148.4 million(2020) [1] |
US$22.2 million(2020) [2] | |
US$14.4 million(2020) [2] | |
Total assets | US$2,487.0 million(2020) [1] |
Subsidiaries | Broadstripe |
Website | www |
WideOpenWest (doing business as WOW! [3] ) is the sixth largest cable operator in the United States with their network passing 3,248,600 homes and businesses. [4] [5] The company offers landline telephone, cable television, and broadband Internet services. [6] As of December 31, 2020, WOW! has about 850,600 subscribers. [7]
After a 2017 initial public offering, WideOpenWest is publicly traded with Avista Capital Partners and Crestview Partners retaining significant stakes. [8] As of August 6, 2019 Avista Capital Partners sold their shares in the company, leaving Crestview Partners WOW's largest shareholder holding a 37% stake in the company. [9]
WOW! was founded in November 1996 in Denver, Colorado. After building a network in April 2001, WOW! initially served about 200 people in the Denver area. In November 2001, WOW! purchased Americast, an overbuild system in the Midwest built and operated by Ameritech New Media for an undisclosed amount per subscriber, estimated to have been at a cost of $600 per sub.[ citation needed ] This purchase opened WOW! to over 310,000 new customers in metropolitan areas surrounding the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Denver, and Evansville. [10] WOW! no longer serves the Columbus, Cleveland, or Denver markets.
Avista Capital Partners completed its acquisition of cable operator WideOpenWest (“WOW!”) from Oak Hill Capital Partners and ABRY Partners. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. [11]
On August 23, 2011, Wave Broadband and WOW! announced that they entered into an agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets of Broadstripe LLC, a provider of residential and commercial bundled communications services. On January 14, WOW! completed the acquisition of Broadstripe's cable systems in Michigan.
In April 2012, WOW! purchased Knology, a broadband company, operating in 13 markets. With the merger the combined customer total will be over 800,000. [12]
In June 2014, WOW! sold its cable, Internet and phone systems in the South Dakota markets to Clarity Telecom. Part of the multimillion-dollar deal, worth $262 million, included the markets in Iowa and Minnesota previously served by Knology and PrairieWave Communications. [13] In March 2015 these markets would officially become known as Vast Broadband. [14]
In September 2016, WOW! purchased NuLink, a cable company serving Newnan, Georgia with approximately 34,000 customers at the time the deal closed. [15]
In October 2016, WOW! came to an agreement with Midco to sell its systems in Lawrence, Kansas. These systems currently pass approximately 67,000 homes and businesses in the area. [16]
On June 28, 2017, WOW! officially no longer serves the Lawrence, Kansas area. [17]
On March 6, 2018 WOW! announced that they had deployed DOCSIS 3.1 to 95% of their footprint, one of the first cable operators to reach that near-ubiquitous threshold. [18]
On June 30, 2021 WOW! stated that it is selling its Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, service areas to Atlantic Broadband for $1.13 billion and its Chicago, Evansville, Indiana, and Anne Arundel, Maryland to Astound Broadband for $661 million. [19]
On September 1, 2021 WOW! officially closed the deal with Atlantic Broadband meaning WOW! no longer serves Ohio [20]
State | Population Covered by WOW! [21] |
---|---|
Michigan | 1,872,510 |
Alabama | 624,373 |
Illinois | 1,604,922 |
South Carolina | 260,525 |
Florida | 804,094 |
Indiana | 317,809 |
Georgia | 474,460 |
Tennessee | 139,600 |
City | Homes passed [22] | Coaxial Miles | Fiber Miles | Total Network Miles |
---|---|---|---|---|
Detroit, MI | 706,366 | 6,286 | 2,155 | 8,441 |
Chicago, IL | 488,219 | 3,242 | 1,073 | 4,315 |
Pinellas, FL | 297,635 | 3,441 | 586 | 4,027 |
Huntsville, AL | 127,211 | 1,943 | 454 | 2,397 |
Baltimore, MD (Broadstripe) | 110,806 | 1,226 | 427 | 1,653 |
Montgomery, AL | 107,554 | 1,303 | 336 | 1,639 |
Evansville, IN | 105,939 | 1,323 | 459 | 1,782 |
Augusta, GA | 96,887 | 1,356 | 448 | 1,804 |
Charleston, SC | 93,599 | 1,209 | 563 | 1,772 |
Lansing, MI | 92,533 | 2,045 | 732 | 2,777 |
Columbus, GA | 86,131 | 1,033 | 300 | 1,333 |
Panama City, FL | 84,228 | 951 | 218 | 1,169 |
Knoxville, TN | 54,597 | 764 | 317 | 1,081 |
Newnan, GA | 43,440 | 838 | 352 | 1,190 |
Dothan, AL | 33,184 | 547 | 214 | 761 |
West Point, GA | 17,748 | 336 | 338 | 674 |
Auburn, AL | 15,251 | 188 | 202 | 390 |
Cox Communications, Inc. is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It is the third-largest cable television provider in the United States, serving approximately 6.5 million customers, including 2.9 million digital cable subscribers, 3.5 million Internet subscribers, and almost 3.2 million digital telephone subscribers, making it the seventh-largest telephone carrier in the country. Cox is headquartered at 6205 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd in Sandy Springs, Georgia, U.S., in the Atlanta metropolitan area. It is a privately-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises.
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Channel 6 - Lawrence, KS was a 24-hour local information channel based in Lawrence, Kansas which served Douglas County, Leavenworth County and Wyandotte County west of Interstate 435. Owned by Midco Communications, the channel was based at the company's corporate headquarters at New Hampshire and Seventh Streets in downtown Lawrence. Previously, the channel was called 6 News Lawrence. Newscasts ceased after Midco Communications bought the organization in July 2017.
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