Thomas Rutledge on operational efficiency
From Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) Q1 2020 Earnings Conference Call · · AlphaStreet
“We took years of secular change and compressed it into a very short period of time. We're not going to go back to the original trend line; we may have just moved way up the trend line. Customer self-service is now over 90 percent, up from 55 percent at the beginning of the quarter, and that is a big change in the business going forward.”
On , Thomas Rutledge, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Charter Communications, spoke about operational efficiency during Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) Q1 2020 Earnings Conference Call on AlphaStreet.
About Thomas Rutledge
During Charter Communications' first quarter 2020 earnings call on April 30, 2020, Thomas Rutledge discussed the company's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that in mid-March, Charter pledged to offer free Spectrum Internet for 60 days to households with students or educators without a subscription, later extending the offer through June 30. Rutledge attributed the performance of Charter's network to significant investments and a pro-investment regulatory climate, and he praised the FCC's decision to free up 1,200 megahertz of six gigahertz spectrum for Wi-Fi as a "transformational step." Rutledge also addressed the impact of sports programming on content costs, stating that sports is the "major driver" and makes the product "difficult to sell" due to consumer costs. He expressed a desire to pass sports programming costs back to customers if events are not paid for or do not occur, but noted that contractual bundling limits control. He added that revenue growth would be lower than anticipated, but operating cost improvements and capital expenditure delays would support cash flow growth.