Cable Bankruptcy: Who's Next?
The chart shows how much debt-per-subscriber each major cable company is carrying. When Adelphia filed for bankruptcy it was carrying $2,799 in debt for each of its 5,304,576 subscribers. Charter Communications is now carrying more than $2,500 per subscriber and Cablevision is not far behind. Put another way, Charter Communications now has 92 percent the debt per subscriber rate that Adelphia had when it filed for bankruptcy and Cablevision has 84 percent. More bad news for the industry: on Oct. 29, Moody’s Investment Services lowered its ratings on Charter's debt, citing concerns over the company’s poor operating performance.
