According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, there are 110.2 million television households in the United States. Cable companies (large and small) account for 65.4 million households. The two largest satellite providers (DIRECTV and Dish Network) account for another 25.7 million households. Other television households options include over-the-air television households, c-band satellite households (large dishes), private condo/apartment master antenna systems (known as SMATV), and other telecommunication company's video offerings (most notably AT&T's uVerse and Verizon's FIOS).
The biggest cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner get the majority of the media attention, but did you know that there are over 7,900 individual cable systems that service those 65.4 million cable customers? Companies like Comcast are known as Multiple System Operators or MSOs, because they hold multiple local cable system franchise rights.
The 15 largest MSOs by subscribers are as follows (source: NCTA website from Kagan Research):
- Comcast Cable Communications (21,449,000 subscribers)
- Time Warner Cable (10, 957,000 subscribers)
- Cox Communications (6,300,400 subscribers)
- Charter Communications (5,884,500 subscribers)
- Adelphia Communications (4,885,700 subscribers)
- Cablevision Systems Corporation (3,027,000 subscribers)
- Bright House (2,240,000 subscribers)
- Mediacom Communications (1,423,000 subscribers)
- Insight Communications (1,281,600 subscribers)
- CableOne (640,600 subscribers)
- Cebridge Connection (448,300 subscribers)
- RCN Corporation (370,000 subscribers)
- WideOpenWest (357,000 subscribers)
- Bresnan Communications (290,000 subscribers)
- Service Electric (284,400 subscribers)
It should be noted that Adelphia (#5) is in the process of being sold off in pieces due to their bankruptcy proceedings to Time Warner and Comcast. Also, Cebridge (#11) has moved ahead of CableOne with their announced (but not yet completed) acquisitions of several Cox and Charter systems.
