UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D. C. 20549

FORM 10-K

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016

OR

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from                             to

Commission File Number 001-36713

LIBERTY BROADBAND CORPORATION

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

 

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (720) 875-5700

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:  None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.  Yes ☒   No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.  Yes  ☐  No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports) and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes ☒   No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).  Yes ☒    No ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer" and "smaller reporting company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐    No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of Liberty Broadband Corporation computed by reference to the last sales price of such stock, as of the closing of trading on the last trading day prior to June 30, 2016, was $10.2 billion.

The number of outstanding shares of Liberty Broadband Corporation common stock as of January 31, 2017 was:

 

 

Documents Incorporated by Reference

The Registrant's definitive proxy statement for its 2017 Annual Meeting of Stockholders is hereby incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

 

 

LIBERTY BROADBAND

CORPORATION

2016 ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10‑K

 

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

PART I.

Item 1.  Business.

Spin-Off of Liberty Broadband from Liberty Media Corporation

During May 2014, the board of directors of Liberty Media Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Liberty”) authorized management to pursue a plan to spin-off to its stockholders common stock of a wholly-owned subsidiary, Liberty Broadband Corporation (“Liberty Broadband”), and to distribute subscription rights to acquire shares of Liberty Broadband’s common stock (the “Broadband Spin-Off”). At the time of the Broadband Spin-Off, Liberty Broadband was comprised of, (i) Liberty’s former interest in Charter Communications, Inc. (“Legacy Charter”), (ii) Liberty’s former wholly-owned subsidiary TruePosition, Inc. (“TruePosition”), (iii) Liberty’s former minority equity investment in Time Warner Cable, Inc. (“Time Warner Cable”, “TWC”, “Legacy Time Warner” or “Legacy TWC”), (iv) certain deferred tax liabilities, as well as liabilities related to the Time Warner Cable written call options and (v) initial indebtedness, pursuant to margin loans entered into prior to the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off. The Broadband Spin-Off was accounted for at historical cost due to the pro rata nature of the distribution to holders of Liberty common stock.

In the Broadband Spin-Off, record holders of Liberty’s Series A, Series B and Series C common stock received one-fourth of a share of the corresponding series of Liberty Broadband common stock for each share of Liberty common stock held by them, with cash paid in lieu of fractional shares. In addition, following the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off, on December 10, 2014, stockholders received a subscription right to acquire one share of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock for every five shares of Liberty Broadband common stock they held at a per share subscription price of $40.36, which was a 20% discount to the 20-trading day volume weighted average trading price of the Liberty Broadband Series C common stock following the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off. The rights offering was fully subscribed on January 9, 2015, with 17,277,224 shares of Series C common stock issued to those rightsholders exercising basic and, as applicable, oversubscription privileges. The subscription rights were issued to raise capital for general corporate purposes of Liberty Broadband. The Broadband Spin-Off and rights offering were intended to be tax-free to stockholders of Liberty and Liberty Broadband, respectively. During September 2015, Liberty entered into a closing agreement with the IRS which provided that the Broadband Spin-Off qualified for tax-free treatment.

Following the Broadband Spin-Off, Liberty and Liberty Broadband operate as separate, publicly traded companies, and neither has any stock ownership, beneficial or otherwise, in the other. In connection with the Broadband Spin-Off, Liberty and Liberty Broadband entered into certain agreements in order to govern certain of the ongoing relationships between the two companies after the Broadband Spin-Off and to provide for an orderly transition. These agreements include a reorganization agreement, a services agreement, a facilities sharing agreement and a tax sharing agreement.

The reorganization agreement provides for, among other things, the principal corporate transactions (including the internal restructuring) required to effect the Broadband Spin-Off, certain conditions to the Broadband Spin-Off and provisions governing the relationship between Liberty Broadband and Liberty with respect to and resulting from the Broadband Spin-Off. The tax sharing agreement provides for the allocation and indemnification of tax liabilities and benefits between Liberty and Liberty Broadband and other agreements related to tax matters. Pursuant to the tax sharing agreement, Liberty Broadband has agreed to indemnify Liberty, subject to certain limited exceptions, for losses and taxes resulting from the Broadband Spin-Off to the extent such losses or taxes result primarily from, individually or in the aggregate, the breach of certain restrictive covenants made by Liberty Broadband (applicable to actions or failures to act by Liberty Broadband and its subsidiaries following the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off). Pursuant to the services agreement, Liberty provides Liberty Broadband with general and administrative services including legal, tax, accounting, treasury and investor relations support. Under the facilities sharing agreement, Liberty Broadband shares office space with Liberty and related amenities at Liberty’s corporate headquarters. Liberty Broadband will reimburse Liberty for direct, out-of-pocket expenses incurred by Liberty in providing these services and for costs that will be negotiated semi-annually.

Charter’s Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction

On May 18, 2016, Time Warner Cable merged with Legacy Charter (the “Time Warner Cable Merger”). In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger, Legacy Charter underwent a corporate reorganization, resulting in CCH I, LLC, a former subsidiary of Legacy Charter (“Charter”), becoming the new publicly traded parent company. Also on May 18, 2016, the previously announced acquisition of Bright House Networks, LLC (“Bright House” or “Legacy Bright House”) from

Advance/Newhouse Partnership (“A/N”) by Charter (the “Bright House Transaction”) was completed. In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction, Liberty Broadband entered into certain agreements with Legacy Charter, Charter, Liberty Interactive Corporation (“Liberty Interactive”) and Time Warner Cable. In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction (collectively, the “Transactions”), Liberty Broadband exchanged its shares of Time Warner Cable for shares of Charter and purchased additional shares of Charter. As a result, and pursuant to proxy agreements entered into with Liberty Interactive and A/N, Liberty Broadband controls 25.01% of the aggregate voting power of Charter.

 

* * * * *

Certain statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding our business, product and marketing strategies; new service offerings; the recoverability of our goodwill and other long-lived assets; the performance of our equity affiliate; our projected sources and uses of cash; and the anticipated non-material impact of certain contingent liabilities related to legal and tax proceedings and other matters arising in the ordinary course of business. In particular, statements under Item 1. "Business," Item 1A. "Risk-Factors," Item 2. "Properties," Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and Item 7A. "Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk" contain forward-looking statements.  Forward-looking statements inherently involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these statements. Where, in any forward-looking statement, we express an expectation or belief as to future results or events, such expectation or belief is expressed in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis, but such statements necessarily involve risks and uncertainties and there can be no assurance that the expectation or belief will result or be achieved or accomplished. The following include some but not all of the factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated:

These forward-looking statements and such risks, uncertainties and other factors speak only as of the date of this Annual Report, and we expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein, to reflect any change in our expectations with regard thereto, or any other change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.  When considering such forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the factors described in Item 1A, "Risk Factors" and other cautionary statements contained in this Annual Report.  Such risk factors and statements describe circumstances which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

This Annual Report includes information concerning Charter, a public company that files reports and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) in accordance with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”).  Information in this Annual Report concerning Charter has been derived from the reports and other information filed by them with the SEC.  If you would like further information about Charter, the reports and other information it files with the SEC can be accessed on the Internet website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov.  Those reports and other information are not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report.

(b)Financial Information About Operating Segments

Through our ownership of interests in subsidiaries and other companies, we are primarily engaged in the cable, broadband, and mobile location technology industries.  Each of these businesses is separately managed.

We identify our reportable segments as (A) those consolidated subsidiaries that represent 10% or more of our annual consolidated revenue, Adjusted OIBDA or total assets and (B) those equity method affiliates whose share of earnings represent 10% or more of our annual pre-tax earnings.  Financial information related to our operating segments can be found in note 15 to our consolidated financial statements found in Part II of this report.

(c)Narrative Description of Business

Charter Communications, Inc.

Introduction

Charter is the second largest cable operator in the United States and a leading broadband communications services company providing video, Internet and voice services to approximately 26.2 million residential and business customers at December 31, 2016. In addition, Charter sells video and online advertising inventory to local, regional and national advertising customers; and fiber-delivered communications and managed information technology (“IT”) solutions to larger enterprise customers.

 

Charter also owns and operates regional sports networks and local sports, news and lifestyle channels and sells security and home management services to the residential marketplace. Charter’s core strategy is to deliver high quality products at competitive prices, combined with outstanding service. This strategy, combined with simple, easy to understand pricing and packaging, is central to Charter’s goal of growing its customer base while also selling more individual services to each customer. Charter expects to execute this strategy by managing its operations in a consumer friendly, efficient and cost effective manner. Charter's operating strategy includes insourcing much of its customer care and field operations workforce which results in higher quality service transactions. While an insourced operating model can increase field operations and customer care costs associated with each service transaction, the higher quality nature of each service transaction significantly reduces the volume of service transactions per customer, more than offsetting the higher investment made in each service transaction. As Charter reduces the number of service transactions and recurring costs per customer relationship, Charter effectively passes those savings on to customers in the form of products and prices, that the company believes, are more cost effective than what its competitors offer. The combination of offering competitively priced products and high quality service, allows Charter to increase the number of customer relationships over a fixed network and products sold per relationship, while at the same time reducing the number of service transactions per relationship, improving customer satisfaction and reducing churn, which results in lower costs to acquire and serve customers. Ultimately, this operating strategy enables Charter to offer high quality, competitively priced services profitably, while continuing to invest in new products and services.

 

Time Warner Cable Merger

 

On May 18, 2016, the previously announced Time Warner Cable Merger was completed, which resulted in Legacy Charter and TWC becoming wholly owned subsidiaries of Charter, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Legacy Charter at the time. As a result of the Time Warner Cable Merger, Charter became the new public parent company that holds the operations of the combined companies and was renamed Charter Communications, Inc. Pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement, upon consummation of the Time Warner Cable Merger, 285 million outstanding shares of TWC common stock were converted into 143 million shares of Charter Class A common stock valued at approximately $32 billion as of the date of acquisition. In addition, TWC shareholders (excluding Liberty Broadband and Liberty Interactive) received approximately $28 billion in cash. As of May 18, 2016, the total value of the Time Warner Cable Merger was approximately $85 billion, including cash, equity and TWC assumed debt. The purchase price also includes an estimated pre-combination vesting period fair value of $514 million for equity awards converted into Charter awards upon closing of the Time Warner Cable Merger and $69 million of cash paid to former TWC employees and non-employee directors who held equity awards, whether vested or not vested.  

Bright House Transaction

Also, on May 18, 2016, Charter and A/N completed the previously announced Bright House Transaction, pursuant to a definitive Contribution Agreement. Pursuant to the Bright House Transaction, Charter became the owner of the membership interests in Bright House and the other assets primarily related to Bright House (other than certain excluded assets and liabilities and non-operating cash). As of the date of acquisition, the purchase price totaled approximately $12.2 billion consisting of (a) $2 billion in cash, (b) 25 million convertible preferred units of Charter Communications Holdings, LLC (“Charter Holdings”) with a face amount of $2.5 billion that pay a 6% annual preferential dividend, (c) approximately 31.0 million common units of Charter Holdings that are exchangeable into Charter Class A common stock on a one-for-one basis and (d) one share of Charter Class B common stock.

Liberty Broadband Transactions

In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger, Charter and Liberty Broadband completed their previously announced transactions pursuant to their investment agreement, in which Liberty Broadband purchased for cash approximately 22.0 million shares of Charter Class A common stock valued at $4.3 billion at the closing of the Time Warner Cable Merger to partially finance the cash portion of the Time Warner Cable Merger consideration. In connection with the Bright House Transaction, Liberty Broadband purchased approximately 3.7 million shares of Charter Class A common stock valued at $700 million at the closing of the Bright House Transaction. See note 6 to the accompanying consolidated financial statements for more information on the Transactions.

Products and Services

Charter offers its customers subscription-based video services, including video on demand (“VOD”), high definition (“HD”) television, and digital video recorder (“DVR”) service, Internet services and voice services. As of December 31, 2016, 70% of Charter’s footprint was all-digital, enabling Charter to offer more HD channels, faster Internet speeds and better video picture quality and the company intends to transition the remaining portions of its Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House footprints. Charter’s video, Internet, and voice services are offered to residential and commercial customers on a subscription basis, with prices and related charges based on the types of service selected, whether the services are sold as a “bundle” or on an individual basis, and the equipment necessary to receive Charter’s services. Bundled services are available to approximately 99% of Charter’s passings, and approximately 61% of Charter’s customers subscribe to a bundle of services.

All customer statistics as of December 31, 2016 include the operations of Legacy TWC, Legacy Bright House and Legacy Charter, each of which is based on individual legacy company reporting methodology. These methodologies differ and their differences may be material and statistical reporting will be conformed over time to a single reporting methodology. The following table from Charter’s Form 10-K summarizes Charter’s customer statistics for video, Internet and voice as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 (in thousands except per customer data and footnotes).

 

 

After giving effect to the Transactions, as of December 31, 2015 residential and small and medium business customer relationships would have been 23,795,000 and 1,256,000, respectively, residential video, Internet and voice PSUs would have been 17,062,000, 19,911,000 and 9,959,000, respectively and small and medium business PSUs would have been 361,000, 1,078,000 and 667,000, respectively; Enterprise PSUs would have been 81,000.

 

 

Residential Services

Video Services

Charter’s video customers receive a package of basic programming which, in their all-digital markets, includes a digital set-top box that provides an interactive electronic programming guide with parental controls, access to pay-per-view services, including VOD (available to nearly all of their passings), digital music channels and the option to view certain video services on third party devices. Customers have the option to purchase additional tiers of services including premium channels which provide original programming, commercial-free movies, sports, and other special event entertainment programming. Substantially all of Charter’s video programming is available in HD.

 

In most areas, Charter offers VOD service which allows customers to select from approximately 30,000 titles at any time. VOD includes standard definition, HD and three dimensional content. VOD programming options may be accessed for free if the content is associated with a customer’s linear subscription, or for a fee on a transactional basis. VOD services are also offered on a subscription basis included in a digital tier premium channel subscription or for a monthly fee. Pay-per-view channels allow customers to pay on a per-event basis to view a single showing of a one-time special sporting event, music concert, or similar event on a commercial-free basis.

 

Charter’s goal is to provide its video customers with the programming they want, when they want it, on any device. DVR service enables customers to digitally record programming and to pause and rewind live programming. Customers can also use the Charter TV applications available on portable devices, streaming devices and on Charter’s websites to watch up to 300 channels of cable TV, view VOD programming, remotely control digital set-top boxes while in the home and to program DVRs remotely. Charter intends to consolidate the various legacy entity TV applications into a single Spectrum TV Application in 2017. Customers also have access to programmer authenticated applications and websites such as HBO Go®, Fox Now®, Discovery Go® and WatchESPN®.

 

In certain markets, Charter has launched Spectrum Guide®, a network or “cloud-based” user interface that runs on traditional set-top boxes, with a look and feel that is similar to that of the Spectrum TV App. Spectrum Guide® is designed to enable Charter’s customers to enjoy a state-of-the-art video experience on set-top boxes, regardless of the age of the set-top box. The guide enables customers to find video content more easily across cable TV channels and VOD options. Charter plans to continue to deploy across its footprint and enhance this technology in 2017 and beyond.

Internet Services

Approximately 99% of Charter’s estimated passings are enabled for DOCSIS 3.0 wideband technology, allowing Charter to offer residential customers multiple tiers of Internet services with currently marketed download speeds of up to 300 megabits per second (“Mbps”). In nearly every market where Charter has launched Spectrum pricing and packaging (“SPP”), its entry level Internet download speed offering is 60 or 100 Mbps which, among other things, allows several people within a single household to stream HD video content online while simultaneously using Internet service for non-video purposes. As Charter rolls out SPP in Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House markets, it will bring base speed offerings to a standard minimum of 60 or 100 Mbps at uniform pricing without any usage-based pricing data caps, modem fees or early termination fees. Finally, Charter offers a security suite with their Internet services which, upon installation by customers, provides protection against computer viruses and spyware and includes parental control features.

Charter offers an in-home Wi-Fi product that permits customers to lease high performance wireless routers to maximize their in-home wireless Internet experience. Additionally, they offer an out-of-home Wi-Fi service in most of their footprint to Internet customers at designated “hot spots.” In 2017, Charter expects to expand Wi-Fi accessibility to its customers both inside and outside of its legacy entity footprints.

Voice Services

Charter provides voice communications services using voice over Internet protocol (“VoIP”) technology to transmit digital voice signals over its network. Charter’s voice services include unlimited local and long distance calling to the United

States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding and other features and offers international calling either by the minute, or through packages of minutes per month. For customers that subscribe to both voice and video offerings, caller ID on TV is also available in most areas.

Other Residential Services

Charter is continually engaging in product research and development and other opportunities to expand its services including the activation of its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (“MVNO”) agreement with Verizon which would enable Charter to offer mobile services. The activation of Charter’s MVNO with Verizon does not, however, represent an obligation for Charter to offer mobile services.

Commercial Services

Charter offers scalable broadband communications solutions for businesses and carrier organizations of all sizes, selling Internet access, data networking, fiber connectivity to cellular towers and office buildings, video entertainment services and business telephone services.

Small and Medium Business

As Spectrum Business, Charter offers video, Internet and voice services to small and medium businesses over its coaxial network that are similar to those that Charter provides to its residential customers. Spectrum Business includes a full range of video programming and music services and Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps downstream, 300 Mbps in certain markets, and up to 20 Mbps upstream in its DOCSIS 3.0 markets. Spectrum Business also includes a set of business services including web hosting, e-mail and security, and multi-line telephone services with more than 30 business features including web-based service management.

Enterprise Solutions 

As Spectrum Enterprise, Charter offers fiber-delivered communications and managed IT solutions to larger businesses, as well as high-capacity last-mile data connectivity services to wireless and wireline carriers, Internet Service Providers and other competitive carriers on a wholesale basis. More specifically, Spectrum Enterprise’s portfolio includes fiber Internet access with symmetrical speeds up to 10 gigabits per second (“Gbps”), voice trunking services such as Primary Rate Interface (“PRI”) and Session Initiation Protocol (“SIP”) Trunks, Ethernet services that privately and securely connect geographically dispersed client locations with speeds up to 10 Gbps, and video solutions designed to meet the needs of the hospitality, education, and health care clients. Charter’s managed IT portfolio includes Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Cloud Desktop as a Service, and managed hosting, application, and messaging solutions, along with other related IT and professional services. The Transactions have provided Charter with a larger footprint which allows Charter to more effectively serve business customers with multiple sites across given geographic regions. These customers can benefit from obtaining these advanced services from a single provider simplifying procurement and potentially reducing their costs.

Advertising Services

Charter’s advertising sales division, Spectrum Reach®, offers local, regional and national businesses with the opportunity to advertise in individual and multiple markets on cable television networks. Charter receives revenues from the sale of local advertising on digital advertising networks and satellite-delivered networks such as MTV®, CNN® and ESPN®. In any particular market, Charter typically inserts local advertising on over 50 channels. Since completion of the Transactions, Charter’s larger footprint has increased opportunities for advertising customers to address broader regional audiences from a single provider and thus reach more customers with a single transaction. Charter’s increased size provides scale to invest in new technology to create more targeted and interactive advertising capabilities.

 

Available advertising time is generally sold by Charter’s advertising sales force. In some markets, Charter has formed advertising interconnects or entered into representation agreements with other video distributors, including, among others, Verizon Communications Inc.’s (“Verizon”) fiber optic service (“FiOS”) and AT&T Inc.’s (“AT&T”) U-verse, under which Charter sells advertising on behalf of those operators. In some markets, Charter enters into representation agreements under which

another operator in the area will sell advertising on its behalf. These arrangements enable Charter and its partners to deliver linear commercials across wider geographic areas, replicating the reach of local broadcast television stations to the extent possible. In addition, Charter, together with Comcast Corporation (“Comcast”) and Cox Communications, Inc., owns National Cable Communications LLC, which, on behalf of a number of video operators, sells advertising time to national and regional advertisers.

 

Charter also sells the advertising inventory of its owned and operated local sports, news and lifestyle channels, and advertising inventory on its regional sports networks that carry Los Angeles Lakers’ basketball games and other sports programming and on SportsNet LA, a regional sports network that carries Los Angeles Dodgers’ baseball games and other sports programing. Charter has deployed advanced advertising products such as interactivity, household addressability, dynamic ad insertion into VOD and data infused advertising campaigns within various parts of its footprint. These new products will be distributed across more of Charter’s footprint in 2017.

 

Other Services

 

Regional Sports and News Networks

 

Charter has an agreement with the Los Angeles Lakers for rights to distribute all locally available pre-season, regular season and post-season Los Angeles Lakers’ games through 2033. Charter broadcasts those games on its regional sports network, Spectrum SportsNet. As of December 31, 2016, Spectrum SportsNet was distributed to approximately 4.7 million multichannel video customers via the majority of major multichannel video distributors in Charter’s Southern California, Las Vegas, Nevada and Hawaii regions.

 

Charter also manages 36 local news channels, including Spectrum News NY1, a 24-hour news channel focused on New York City, 20 local sports channels and three local lifestyle community channels, and it owns 26.8% of Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, LLC (doing business as SportsNet New York), a New York City-based regional sports network that carries New York Mets’ baseball games as well as other regional sports programming.

 

American Media Productions, LLC ("American Media Productions"), an unaffiliated third party, owns SportsNet LA, a regional sports network carrying the Los Angeles Dodgers’ baseball games and other sports programming. In accordance with agreements with American Media Productions, Charter acts as the network’s exclusive affiliate and advertising sales representative and has certain branding and programming rights with respect to the network. In addition, Charter provides certain production and technical services to American Media Productions. The affiliate, advertising, production and programming agreements continue through 2038. Charter continues to seek distribution agreements for the carriage of SportsNet LA by other major distributors.

 

Security and Home Management

 

Charter also provides security and home management services to its residential customers in certain markets. Charter’s broadband cable system connects the customer’s in-home system to Charter’s emergency response center. In addition to providing traditional security, fire and medical emergency monitoring and dispatch, the service allows customers to remotely arm or disarm their security system, monitor their home via indoor and outdoor cameras, and remotely operate key home functions, including setting and controlling lights, thermostats and door locks.

Pricing of Charter’s Products and Services

Charter’s revenues are principally derived from the monthly fees customers pay for the services Charter provides. Charter typically charges a one-time installation fee which is sometimes waived or discounted in certain sales channels during certain promotional periods.

 

Charter’s SPP offers a standardized price for each tier of service, bundle of services, and add-on service, regardless of market and emphasizes triple play bundles of video, Internet and voice services. Charter’s most popular and competitive services are combined in core packages at what it believes are attractive prices. Charter began launching SPP in the Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House footprints in the third quarter of 2016, and expects to offer SPP in all markets by the middle of 2017. Charter believes its approach:

 

Charter’s Network Technology and Customer Premise Equipment

Charter’s network includes three key components: a national backbone, regional/metro networks and the “last-mile” network. Both its national backbone and regional/metro network components utilize a redundant IP ring/mesh architecture. The national backbone component provides connectivity from the regional demarcation points to nationally centralized content, connectivity and services. The regional/metro network components provide connectivity between the regional demarcation points and headends within a specific geographic area and enable the delivery of content and services between these network components.

 

Charter’s last-mile network utilizes a hybrid fiber coaxial cable (“HFC”) architecture, which combines the use of fiber optic cable with coaxial cable. In most systems, Charter delivers its signals via fiber optic cable from the headend to a group of nodes, and uses coaxial cable to deliver the signal from individual nodes to the homes served by that node. For Charter’s fiber Internet, Ethernet, carrier wholesale, SIP and PRI Spectrum Enterprise customers, fiber optic cable is extended from the individual nodes to the customer’s site. For certain new build and MDU sites, Charter increasingly brings fiber all the way to the customer site. Charter’s design standard is six strands of fiber to each node, with two strands activated and four strands reserved for spares and future services. This design standard allows these strands to be utilized for additional residential traffic capacity, and enterprise customer needs as they arise.

 

Charter believes that this hybrid network design provides high capacity and signal quality. The design also provides two-way signal capabilities for the support of interactive services.

 

HFC architecture benefits include:

 

 

Approximately 98% of estimated passings are served by systems that have bandwidth of 750 megahertz or greater as of December 31, 2016. This bandwidth capacity enables Charter to offer HD television, DOCSIS-based Internet services and voice services.

 

An all-digital platform enables Charter to offer a larger selection of HD channels, faster Internet speeds and better picture quality while providing greater plant security and enabling lower installation and disconnect service truck rolls. Charter is currently all-digital in 70% of its footprint and intends to transition the remaining portions of its Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House footprints.

 

Charter has been introducing its new set-top box, WorldBox, to consumers in certain markets. The WorldBox design has opened the set-top box market to new vendors and reduced Charter’s set-top box costs. The WorldBox also includes more advanced features and functionality than older set-top boxes, including faster processing times, IP capabilities with increased speeds, additional simultaneous recordings, increased DVR storage capacity, and a greater degree of flexibility for consumers to take Charter-provisioned set-top boxes with them, if and when, they move residences. Charter has also been introducing its new cloud-based user interface, Spectrum Guide®, to its video customers in certain markets. Spectrum Guide® improves video

content search and discovery, and fully enables Charter’s on-demand offering. In addition, Spectrum Guide® can function on nearly all of Legacy Charter’s deployed set-tops, reducing costs and customer disruption to swap equipment for new functionality.

Management, Customer Care and Marketing

Charter’s operations are centralized, with senior executives located at several key corporate offices, responsible for coordinating and overseeing operations including establishing company-wide strategies, policies and procedures. Sales and marketing, network operations, field operations, customer operations, engineering, advertising sales, human resources, legal, government relations, information technology and finance are all directed at the corporate level. Regional and local field operations are responsible for on-site service transactions with customers and maintaining and constructing that portion of Charter’s network which is located outdoors. In 2017, Charter’s field operations group will focus on standardizing practices, processes, procedures and metrics, including those used to assure the quality of work performed when servicing customers.

 

Charter continues to focus on improving the customer experience through enhanced product offerings, reliability of services, and delivery of quality customer service. As part of Charter’s operating strategy, Charter is committed to investments and hiring plans that will insource most of its customer service workload over the next few years. Charter intends to bring the Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House customer operations workload, much of which are outsourced offshore, back to the United States. Most of these repatriated jobs will be fully insourced and will increase Charter’s full time labor force. Charter is currently constructing a new call center in McAllen, Texas which will solely serve customers who prefer to engage with us in Spanish, resulting in the creation of new jobs. This new facility will be operational and taking calls in 2017.

 

Legacy Charter’s in-house domestic call centers currently handle approximately 90% of calls centrally to ensure a consistent, high quality customer experience. On a consolidated basis, in-house domestic call centers handle just over 60% of Charter’s customer service calls. Over a multi-year period, however, Charter plans to migrate Legacy TWC and Legacy Bright House customer service centers to Legacy Charter’s model of using segmented, virtualized, U.S.-based in-house call centers. Segmented, virtualized call centers allow calls to be routed to agents across Charter’s footprint based on call type, enabling agents to be experts in addressing specific customer needs, thus creating a better customer experience. Legacy Charter’s inbound sales, billing, service and retention call centers are also virtualized and segmented by call-type. A new call center agent desktop interface tool already used at Legacy Charter is being developed for the acquired systems. This new desktop interface tool and will enable virtualization of all call centers, regardless of the legacy billing platform, to better serve its customers.

 

Charter also provides customers with the opportunity to interact with the company through a variety of forums in addition to telephonic communications, including through its customer website, mobile device applications, online chat, and via social media. Charter’s customer websites and mobile applications enable customers to pay their bills, manage their accounts, order new services and utilize self-service help and support.

 

Charter sells its residential and commercial services using a national brand platform known as Spectrum®, Spectrum Business® and Spectrum Enterprise®. These brands reflect Charter’s comprehensive approach to industry-leading products, driven by speed, performance and innovation. Charter’s marketing strategy emphasizes the sale of its bundled services through targeted direct response marketing programs to existing and potential customers and increases awareness and the value of the Spectrum brand. Charter’s marketing organization creates and executes marketing programs intended to grow customer relationships, increase services per relationship, retain existing customers and cross-sell additional products to current customers. Charter monitors the effectiveness of its marketing efforts, customer perception, competition, pricing, and service preferences, among other factors, in order to increase its responsiveness to customers and to improve sales and customer retention. Charter’s marketing organization also manages and directs several sales channels including direct sales, on-line, outbound telemarketing and stores.

Programming

Charter believes that offering a wide variety of video programming choices influences a customer’s decision to subscribe and retain its cable video services. Charter obtains basic and premium programming, usually pursuant to written contracts, from a number of suppliers although media consolidation has resulted in fewer suppliers and additional selling power on the part of programmer suppliers. Charter’s programming contracts generally continue for a fixed period of time, usually for multiple years, and are subject to negotiated renewal.

 

Programming is usually made available to Charter for a license fee, which is generally paid based on the number of customers to whom they make that programming available. Programming license fees may include “volume” discounts and financial incentives to support the launch of a channel and/or ongoing marketing support, as well as discounts for channel placement or service penetration. For home shopping channels, Charter typically receives a percentage of the revenue attributable to its customers’ purchases. Charter also offers VOD and pay per view channels of movies and events that are subject to a revenue split with the content provider.

 

Charter’s programming costs have increased in excess of customary inflationary and cost-of-living type increases. Charter expects programming costs to continue to increase due to a variety of factors including, annual increases pursuant to Charter’s programming contracts, contract renewals with programmers and the carriage of incremental programming, including new services and VOD programming. Increases in the cost of sports programming and the amounts paid for broadcast station retransmission consent have been the largest contributors to the growth in Charter’s programming costs over the last few years. Additionally, the demands of large media companies who link carriage of their most popular networks to carriage and cost increases of their less popular networks, has limited Charter’s flexibility in creating more tailored and cost-sensitive programming packages for consumers. Finally, programmers have experienced declines in demand for advertising as advertisers shift more of their marketing spend online. Charter believes that this is resulting in programmers demanding higher programming fees, as they seek to recover revenue they are losing to online advertising.

 

Federal law allows commercial television broadcast stations to make an election between “must-carry” rights and an alternative “retransmission-consent” regime. When a station opts for the retransmission-consent regime, Charter is not allowed to carry the station’s signal without that station’s permission. Continuing demands by owners of broadcast stations for cash payments at substantial increases over amounts paid in prior years in exchange for retransmission consent will increase Charter’s programming costs or require Charter to cease carriage of popular programming, potentially leading to a loss of customers in affected markets.

 

Over the past several years, increases in Charter’s video service rates have not fully offset increasing programming costs, and with the impact of increasing competition and other marketplace factors, Charter does not expect them to do so in the foreseeable future. Although Charter passes along a portion of amounts paid for retransmission consent to the majority of its customers, Charter’s inability to fully pass programming cost increases on to its video customers has had, and is expected in the future to have, an adverse impact on Charter’s cash flow and operating margins associated with its video product. In order to mitigate reductions of Charter’s operating margins due to rapidly increasing programming costs, Charter continues to review its pricing and programming packaging strategies.

 

Charter has programming contracts that have expired and others that will expire at or before the end of 2017. Charter will seek to renegotiate the terms of these agreements. There can be no assurance that these agreements will be renewed on favorable or comparable terms. To the extent that Charter is unable to reach agreements with certain programmers on terms that Charter believes are reasonable, Charter has been, and may in the future be, forced to remove such programming channels from its line-up, which may result in a loss of customers.

 

Markets

 

Charter operates in geographically diverse areas which are organized in regional clusters. These markets are managed centrally on a consolidated level. Charter’s 11 regions and the customer relationships within each region as of December 31, 2016 are as follows (in thousands):

 

Ownership Interests

We own an approximate 20% ownership interest in Charter, based on shares of Charter’s Class A common stock issued and outstanding as of December 28, 2016, and, pursuant to proxy agreements entered into with Liberty Interactive and A/N, control 25.01% of the aggregate voting power of Charter. Upon the closing of the Time Warner Cable Merger, the Second Amended and Restated Stockholders Agreement, dated as of May 23, 2015, by and among Legacy Charter, Charter, Liberty Broadband and A/N, as amended (the “Stockholders Agreement”), became fully effective.  Under the Stockholders Agreement, we have the right to designate three directors to the Charter board of directors, subject to certain exclusions and requirements. Charter has agreed to cause the appointment of at least one of our designees to serve on the nominating and corporate governance, finance, audit and compensation and benefits committees of the board, provided they meet the independence and other qualifications for membership on those committees.

Skyhook

Skyhook Holding, Inc. (formerly known as TruePosition, Inc.) was originally incorporated on November 24, 1992 to provide technology for locating wireless phones and other mobile devices. Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s location offering was a passive network overlay system using its patented U-TDOA technology (“U-TDOA service”) and was used primarily to provide E-9-1-1 services domestically and to enhance services in support of commercial applications, national security and law enforcement worldwide. In February 2014, Skyhook Holding, Inc. acquired Skyhook Wireless, Inc., which operates a global location network containing billions of geolocated Wi-Fi access points (“Wi-Fi location software solution”) and cell towers that serve as the reference infrastructure for providing location services.  Skyhook Wireless, Inc.’s Wi-Fi location software solution determines the location of a wireless device by matching received Wi-Fi or cellular signals to the known locations of access points and cell towers contained in a proprietary database maintained by Skyhook Wireless, Inc. These Wi-Fi location software solutions are used primarily by mobile device makers, wireless carriers, and asset tracking platforms to understand the precise geographic location and movement of a mobile device.  In addition to Wi-Fi location software solutions, Skyhook (as defined below) also provides location-based context services that provide not just the precise latitude and longitude of a given mobile device, but also the real world context of that location. For example, Skyhook can provide customers with an understanding of the type of location (e.g., a fast-food restaurant or an airport), the ability to provide notifications and triggers upon the entry or exit of a device from a pre-defined location, and insights based on historical device locations. These location-based context solutions provide a way for application developers, enterprises, and advertisers to understand consumers’ mobile behavior and to improve their user experience, while also providing companies with the ability to reach and measure their audiences in new and relevant ways.

In 2015, one of Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s customers, a wireless carrier utilizing the legacy U-TDOA service which accounted for approximately 80% - 90% of consolidated revenue at the time, gave notice that it planned to discontinue use of the U-TDOA service and did not intend to renew its contract, which expired on December 31, 2015. The loss of this customer had a material adverse effect on Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s business. As a result of the loss of this wireless carrier customer, further changes in the regulatory environment and a shift in the overall market for the legacy U-TDOA service, Skyhook Holding, Inc. ceased making further investment in its U-TDOA products. In 2016, Skyhook Holding, Inc. and Skyhook Wireless, Inc. combined operations in order to focus on the development and sale of the suite of location and context products, and are referred to collectively herein as “Skyhook.” 

For both its location and context solutions, Skyhook earns revenue from device makers, application providers, enterprises and advertising companies through the integration of Skyhook’s software and technology, the provision of location services and via the sale of data. Skyhook also earns revenue through entering into licensing agreements with companies to utilize its intellectual property. Although the revenue generated from license agreements has thus far been one-time in nature, Skyhook anticipates a recurring revenue stream from its licensing activities in future periods.    

Regulatory Matters

Charter

The following summary addresses the key regulatory and legislative developments affecting the cable industry and Charter’s three primary services for both residential and commercial customers: video, Internet, and voice services. Cable system operations are extensively regulated by the federal government (primarily the FCC), certain state governments, and many local governments. A failure to comply with these regulations could subject Charter to substantial penalties. Charter’s business can be dramatically impacted by changes to the existing regulatory framework, whether triggered by legislative, administrative, or judicial rulings. Congress and the FCC have frequently revisited the subject of communications regulation and they are likely to do so again in the future. Charter could be materially disadvantaged in the future if it is subject to new regulations or regulatory actions that do not equally impact its key competitors. Charter cannot provide assurance that the already extensive regulation of its business will not be expanded in the future. In addition, Charter is already subject to Charter-specific conditions regarding certain business practices as a result of the FCC’s approval of the Transactions.

Video Service

Must Carry/Retransmission Consent

There are two alternative legal methods for carriage of local broadcast television stations on cable systems. Federal “must carry” regulations require cable systems to carry local broadcast television stations upon the request of the local broadcaster. Alternatively, federal law includes “retransmission consent” regulations, by which popular commercial television stations can prohibit cable carriage unless the cable operator first negotiates for “retransmission consent,” which may be conditioned on significant payments or other concessions. Popular stations invoking “retransmission consent” have been demanding substantial compensation increases in their recent negotiations with cable operators, thereby significantly increasing Charter’s operating costs.

Cable Equipment

In 1996, Congress enacted a statute requiring the FCC to adopt regulations designed to assure the development of an independent retail market for “navigation devices,” such as cable set-top boxes. As a result, the FCC required cable operators to make a separate offering of security modules (i.e., a “CableCARD”) that can be used with retail navigation devices. Some of the FCC’s rules requiring support for CableCARDs were vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (“D.C. Circuit”) in 2013, and another of these rules was repealed by Congress in 2014, but the basic obligation to provide separable security for retail devices remains in place. In 2016, the FCC proposed to replace its CableCARD regime with new rules that would have required Charter to make disaggregated “information flows” available to set-top boxes and apps supplied by third parties. That proposal has not been adopted, but various parties may continue to advocate alternative regulatory approaches to reduce consumer dependency on traditional operator-provided set-top boxes. It remains uncertain whether the FCC or Congress will change the legal requirements related to Charter’s set-top boxes and what the impact of any such changes might be.

Privacy and Information Security Regulation

The Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the “Communications Act”) limits Charter’s ability to collect, use, and disclose subscribers’ personally identifiable information for its video, voice, and Internet services, and imposes requirements to safeguard such information. Charter is subject to additional federal, state, and local laws and regulations that impose additional restrictions on the collection, use and disclosure of consumer, subscriber and employee information. Further, the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), and many states regulate and restrict the marketing practices of communications service providers, including telemarketing and online marketing efforts. On October 27, 2016, the FCC adopted privacy rules that contain new restrictions affecting the use of broadband and voice customer data, and various other federal agencies, including the FTC, continue to provide updated guidance on the use and protection of consumer data.

 

Charter’s operations are also subject to federal and state laws governing information security, including new data security requirements set forth in the FCC’s recently adopted privacy rules, which will become effective on March 2, 2017. In

the event of an information security breach, such rules may require consumer and government agency notification and may result in regulatory enforcement actions with the potential of monetary forfeitures. The FCC has used the existing authority under its privacy and security requirements for telecommunications services to bring enforcement actions against several companies for failing to protect customer data from unauthorized access by, and disclosure to, third parties, resulting in substantial monetary settlements. Similarly, the FTC and state attorneys general regularly bring enforcement actions against companies related to information security breaches and privacy violations. Several state legislatures are considering the adoption of new data security and cybersecurity legislation that could result in additional network and information security requirements for Charter’s business.

Various security standards provide guidance to telecommunications companies in order to help identify and mitigate cybersecurity risk. One such standard is the voluntary framework released by the National Institute for Standards and Technologies (“NIST”) in February 2014, in cooperation with other federal agencies and owners and operators of U.S. critical infrastructure. The NIST cybersecurity framework provides a prioritized and flexible model for organizations to identify and manage cyber risks inherent to their business. It was designed to supplement, not supersede, existing cybersecurity regulations and requirements. Several government agencies have encouraged compliance with the NIST cybersecurity framework, including the FCC, which is also considering expansion of its cybersecurity guidelines or the adoption of cybersecurity requirements. On January 10, 2017, NIST released a draft update to the cybersecurity framework. Charter cannot predict what proposals may be adopted or new legislation and regulations, if any, would affect its business.

MDUs / Inside Wiring

The FCC has adopted a series of regulations designed to spur competition to established cable operators in MDU complexes. These regulations allow Charter’s competitors to access certain existing cable wiring inside MDUs. The FCC also adopted regulations limiting the ability of established cable operators, like Charter, to enter into exclusive service contracts for MDU complexes. In their current form, the FCC regulations in this area favor Charter’s competitors.

Pole Attachments

The Communications Act requires most utilities owning utility poles to provide cable systems with access to poles and conduits and simultaneously subjects the rates charged for this access to either federal or state regulation. In 2011 and again in 2015, the FCC amended its existing pole attachment rules to promote broadband deployment. The 2011 order allows for new penalties in certain cases involving unauthorized attachments, but generally strengthens the cable industry’s ability to access investor-owned utility poles on reasonable rates, terms, and conditions. Additionally, the 2011 order reduces the federal rate formula previously applicable to “telecommunications” attachments to closely approximate the rate formula applicable to “cable” attachments. The 2015 order continues the reconciliation of rates, effectively closing the remaining “loophole” that potentially allowed for significantly higher rates for telecommunications than for “cable” attachments in certain scenarios. Neither the 2011 order nor the 2015 order directly affects the rate in states that self-regulate (rather than allow the FCC to regulate pole rates), but many of those states have substantially the same rate for cable and telecommunications attachments.

 

Although the 2011 and 2015 orders do not impact the status quo treatment of cable-provided VoIP service as an unclassified service eligible for the favorable cable rate, the issue has not been fully resolved by the FCC, and a potential change in classification in a pending proceeding could adversely impact Charter’s pole attachment rates in states or for periods of time in which the cable rate is or was lower than the telecommunications rate. Additionally, although the FCC’s 2015 reclassification of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service also set forth the FCC’s intention that pole rates not increase as a result, that reclassification ruling could adversely impact Charter’s pole attachment rates in states or for periods of time in which the cable rate is or was lower than the telecommunications rate.

Cable Rate Regulation

Federal law strictly limits the potential scope of cable rate regulation.  Pursuant to federal law, all video offerings are universally exempt from rate regulation, except for a cable system’s minimum level of video programming service, referred to as “basic service,” and associated equipment.  Rate regulation of basic service and associated equipment operates pursuant to a federal formula, with local governments, commonly referred to as local franchising authorities, primarily responsible for administering this regulation.  The majority of Charter’s local franchising authorities have never certified to regulate basic service cable rates.  In 2015, the FCC adopted an order reversing its historic approach to rate regulation certifications and requiring a local franchise authority interested in regulating cable rates to first make an affirmative showing that there is no “effective

competition” (as defined under federal law)  in the community.  Very few local franchise authorities have filed the necessary rate regulation certification, and the FCC’s 2015 order should make it more difficult for such entities to assert rate regulation in the future.

There have been calls to impose expanded rate regulation on the cable industry. Confronted with rapidly increasing cable programming costs, it is possible that Congress may adopt new constraints on the retail pricing or packaging of cable programming. Any such constraints could adversely affect Charter’s operations.

Access Channels

Local franchise agreements often require cable operators to set aside certain channels for public, educational, and governmental access programming. Federal law also requires cable systems to designate up to 15% of their channel capacity for commercial leased access by unaffiliated third parties, who may offer programming that Charter’s customers do not particularly desire. The FCC adopted revised rules in 2007 mandating a significant reduction in the rates that operators can charge commercial leased access users and imposing additional administrative requirements that would be burdensome on the cable industry. The effect of the FCC’s revised rules was stayed by a federal court, pending a cable industry appeal and an adverse finding by the Office of Management and Budget. Although commercial leased access activity historically has been relatively limited, increased activity in this area could further burden the channel capacity of Charter’s cable systems.

Other FCC Regulatory Matters

FCC regulations cover a variety of additional areas, including, among other things: (1) equal employment opportunity obligations; (2) customer service standards; (3) technical service standards; (4) mandatory blackouts of certain network and syndicated programming; (5) restrictions on political advertising; (6) restrictions on advertising in children's programming; (7) licensing of systems and facilities; (8) maintenance of public files; (9) emergency alert systems; and (10) disability access, including requirements governing video-description and closed-captioning.  Each of these regulations restricts Charter’s business practices to varying degrees and may impose additional costs on Charter’s operations.

It is possible that Congress or the FCC will expand or modify its regulation of cable systems in the future, and Charter cannot predict at this time how that might impact its business.

Copyright

Cable systems are subject to a federal copyright compulsory license covering carriage of television and radio broadcast signals. The possible modification or elimination of this compulsory copyright license is the subject of continuing legislative proposals and administrative review and could adversely affect Charter’s ability to obtain desired broadcast programming.

Copyright clearances for non-broadcast programming services are arranged through private negotiations. Cable operators also must obtain music rights for locally originated programming and advertising from the major music performing rights organizations. These licensing fees have been the source of litigation in the past, and Charter cannot predict with certainty whether license fee disputes may arise in the future.

Franchise Matters

Charter’s cable systems generally are operated pursuant to nonexclusive franchises, permits, and similar authorizations granted by a municipality or other state or local government entity in order to utilize and cross public rights-of-way. Cable franchises generally are granted for fixed terms and in many cases include monetary penalties for noncompliance and may be terminable if the franchisee fails to comply with material provisions. The specific terms and conditions of cable franchises vary significantly between jurisdictions. Cable franchises generally contain provisions governing cable operations, franchise fees, system construction, maintenance, technical performance, customer service standards, supporting and carrying public access channels, and changes in the ownership of the franchisee. A number of states subject cable systems to the jurisdiction of centralized state government agencies, such as public utility commissions. Although local franchising authorities have

considerable discretion in establishing franchise terms, certain federal protections benefit cable operators. For example, federal law caps local franchise fees.

 

The traditional cable franchising regime has undergone significant change as a result of various federal and state actions. The FCC has adopted rules that streamline entry for new competitors (particularly those affiliated with telephone companies) and reduce certain franchising burdens for these new entrants. The FCC adopted more modest relief for existing cable operators.

 

At the same time, a substantial number of states have adopted new franchising laws. Again, these laws were principally designed to streamline entry for new competitors, and they often provide advantages for these new entrants that are not immediately available to existing cable operators. In many instances, these franchising regimes do not apply to established cable operators until the existing franchise expires or a competitor directly enters the franchise territory. The exact nature of these state franchising laws, and their varying application to new and existing video providers, will impact Charter’s franchising obligations and competitive position.

Internet Service

FCC regulations adopted in 2015 subject broadband Internet access services to certain regulations intended to ensure that end users can send and receive lawful Internet content without discrimination by Internet service providers such as Charter. Under these rules, providers of broadband Internet access service are not permitted to block access to, or restrict data rates for downloading, lawful content or ban the attachment of non-harmful devices to Charter’s services except to the extent required by reasonable network management practices. Internet service providers are also not permitted to give special priority to the transmission of content from their affiliates or accept payment from third parties to give special priority to their content. Furthermore, Internet service providers are subject to a general obligation not to take actions that unreasonably interfere with the ability of end users (such as Charter’s subscribers) and edge providers (such as web sites) to exchange data with each other. The FCC has also stated that it will investigate problems that may arise regarding interconnection of the networks of retail broadband Internet access providers with “upstream” providers of Internet connectivity. In addition, the FCC rules require that Charter meet certain “transparency” obligations, i.e., that Charter disclose material technical and other terms and conditions applicable to its Internet service. These FCC regulations were upheld by the D.C. Circuit in June 2016, but remain subject to additional appeals. Congress or the FCC may modify or repeal the existing regulations.

 

In addition to the regulatory obligations noted above, providers of broadband Internet access service are obligated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (“CALEA”) to configure their networks in a manner that facilitates the ability of law enforcement, with proper legal authorization, to obtain information about their customers, including the content of their Internet communications. The FCC and Congress also are considering subjecting Internet access services to the Universal Service funding requirements. These funding requirements could impose significant new costs on Charter’s Internet service. Also, the FCC and some state regulatory commissions direct certain subsidies to telephone companies deploying broadband to areas deemed to be “unserved” or “underserved.” Charter has opposed such subsidies when directed to areas that Charter serves. State and local governmental organizations have also adopted Internet-related regulations. These various governmental jurisdictions are also considering additional regulations in these and other areas, such as privacy, pricing, service and product quality, and taxation.

 

Aside from the FCC’s generally applicable regulations, Charter has made certain commitments to comply with the FCC’s order in connection with the FCC’s approval of the Transactions (discussed above) (“FCC Order”), as well as a consent decree with the Department of Justice (“DOJ Consent Decree”) and approvals from state utility commissions and local franchise authorities. Among other things, (i) Charter is not permitted to charge usage-based prices or impose data caps and is prohibited from charging interconnection fees for qualifying parties; (ii) Charter is prohibited from entering into or enforcing any agreement with a programmer that forbids, limits or creates incentives to limit the programmer’s provision of content to online video distributors ("OVDs") and cannot retaliate against programmers for licensing to OVDs; (iii) Charter cannot avail itself of other distributors’ most favored nation provisions if they are inconsistent with this prohibition; (iv) Charter must undertake a number of actions designed to promote diversity; (v) Charter must appoint an independent compliance monitor and comply with a broad array of reporting requirements; and (vi) Charter must satisfy various other conditions relating to its high-speed Internet services, including building out an additional two million locations with access to a high-speed connection of at least 60 megabits per second with at least one million of those connections in competition with another high-speed broadband provider in the market served, and implementing a reduced price high-speed internet program for low income families. These and other conditions and commitments relating to the Transactions are of varying duration, ranging from three to seven years.

The FCC is considering whether online video distributors (“OVDs”) that offer programming to customers with a broadband Internet connection should be classified as multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”), and thereby subject to the program access protections available to MVPDs, as well as some of the regulatory requirements applicable to MVPDs. The outcome of this proceeding, which could impact how OVDs compete in the future with traditional cable service is uncertain.

Voice Service

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 created a more favorable regulatory environment for Charter to provide telecommunications and/or competitive voice services than had previously existed. In particular, it established requirements ensuring that competitive telephone companies could interconnect their networks with those providers of traditional telecommunications services to open the market to competition. The FCC has subsequently ruled that competitive telephone companies that support VoIP services, such as those Charter offers its customers, are entitled to interconnection with incumbent providers of traditional telecommunications services, which ensures that Charter’s VoIP services can compete in the market. Since that time, the FCC has initiated a proceeding to determine whether such interconnection rights should extend to traditional and competitive networks utilizing IP technology, and how to encourage the transition to IP networks throughout the industry. New rules or obligations arising from these proceedings may affect Charter’s ability to compete in the provision of voice services.

 

The FCC has collected extensive data from providers of point to point transport (“special access”) services, such as Charter, and the FCC may use that data to evaluate whether the market for such services is competitive, or whether the market should be subject to further regulation, which may increase Charter’s costs or constrain Charter’s ability to compete in this market. On April 28, 2016, the FCC released a further notice of proposed rulemaking regarding special access services.

 

Further regulatory changes are being considered that could impact Charter’s voice business and that of its primary telecommunications competitors. The FCC and state regulatory authorities are considering, for example, whether certain common carrier regulations traditionally applied to incumbent local exchange carriers should be modified or reduced, and the extent to which common carrier requirements should be extended to VoIP providers. The FCC has already determined that certain providers of voice services using Internet Protocol technology must comply with requirements relating to 9-1-1 emergency services (“E-9-1-1”), the CALEA (the statute governing law enforcement access to and surveillance of communications), Universal Service Fund contributions, customer privacy and Customer Proprietary Network Information issues, number portability, network outage reporting, rural call completion, disability access, regulatory fees, and discontinuance of service. In 2014, the FCC adopted an order imposing limited back-up power obligations on providers of facilities-based fixed, residential voice services that are not otherwise line-powered, including Charter’s VoIP services. This order became effective in February 2016 and requires Charter to disclose certain information to customers and to make back-up power available at the point of sale. In 2007, a federal appeals court affirmed the FCC’s decision concerning federal regulation of certain VoIP services, but declined to specifically find that VoIP service provided by cable companies, such as Charter provides, should be regulated only at the federal level. As a result, some states have begun proceedings to subject cable VoIP services to state level regulation, and at least one state has asserted jurisdiction over Charter’s VoIP services. Charter has filed a legal challenge to that state’s assertion of jurisdiction, which is now pending before a federal district court in Minnesota. Although Charter has registered with, or obtained certificates or authorizations from the FCC and the state regulatory authorities in those states in which Charter offers competitive voice services in order to ensure the continuity of its services and to maintain needed network interconnection arrangements, it is unclear whether and how these and other ongoing regulatory matters ultimately will be resolved.

 

Transaction-Related Commitments

 

In connection with approval of the Transactions, federal and state regulators imposed a number of post-merger conditions on Charter including but not limited to the following.

 

FCC Conditions

 

 

The FCC conditions also contain a number of compliance reporting requirements.

 

DOJ Conditions

 

The DOJ Consent Decree prohibits Charter from entering into or enforcing any agreement with a video programmer that forbids, limits or creates incentives to limit the video programmer’s provision of content to OVDs. Charter will not be able to avail itself of other distributors’ most favored nation provisions if they are inconsistent with this prohibition. The Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) conditions are effective for seven years, although Charter may petition the DOJ to eliminate the conditions after five years.

 

State Conditions

 

Certain state regulators, including California, New York, Hawaii and New Jersey also imposed conditions in connection with the approval of the Transactions. These conditions include requirements related to:

 

Skyhook

Skyhook’s Wi-Fi location solution can be used to help carriers and emergency personnel offer E-9-1-1 services domestically. The FCC’s wireless E-9-1-1 rules apply to all wireless licensees, broadband personal communications services licensees, and certain specialized mobile radio licensees. Such carriers must provide a 9-1-1 call center, called a local public safety answering point (“PSAP”) under FCC rules, with the telephone number of the originator of a wireless 9-1-1 call and the location of the cell site or base station transmitting the call. In addition, upon a valid request by a PSAP, such carriers must provide more precise information to the PSAP, such as the latitude and longitude of the caller.

The E-9-1-1 location accuracy requirements originally adopted by the FCC in 1996 applied only to 9-1-1 calls originating outdoors.  Recognizing the increased use of wireless phones indoors, in 2015, the FCC adopted indoor location accuracy rules in its Fourth Report and Order in its E-9-1-1 location accuracy proceeding to assist first responders.  Under the new rules, all wireless providers generally must provide horizontal location information with 50 meter accuracy for 40 percent of all wireless 9-1-1 calls within two years of the effective date of the Fourth Report and Order (April 30, 2015), and for 80 percent of all wireless calls, within six years of the effective date.  Wireless providers also must meet specific requirements for the provision of vertical location information for wireless 9-1-1 calls within three-to-eight years of the effective date.  Smaller wireless providers may have additional time to comply with certain of the horizontal and vertical benchmarks.

Various U.S. and foreign regulatory requirements apply, or may apply in the future, to the global positioning technologies and services offered by Skyhook. Skyhook’s use of personal information must comply with all applicable consumer and data protection laws in the United States, Europe and other jurisdictions in which the company operates. Legislatures and regulatory agencies in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere continue to implement additional consumer and data protection requirements.

Competition

Charter

Charter faces intense competition for residential customers, both from existing competitors, and, as a result of the rapid development of new technologies, services and products, from new entrants.

Video competition

Charter’s residential video service faces competition from direct broadcast satellite (“DBS”) services, which have a national footprint and compete in all of Charter’s operating areas. DBS providers offer satellite-delivered pre-packaged programming services that can be received by relatively small and inexpensive receiving dishes. They offer aggressive promotional pricing, exclusive programming (e.g., NFL Sunday Ticket) and video services that are comparable in many respects to Charter’s residential video service. Charter’s residential video service also faces competition from phone companies with fiber-based networks, primarily AT&T U-verse, Frontier Communications Corporation (“Frontier”) FiOs and Verizon FiOs, which offer wireline video services in approximately 23%, 8% and 4%, respectively, of Charter’s operating areas. In July 2015, AT&T acquired DIRECTV Group Inc. (“DIRECTV”), the nation’s largest DBS provider, with the combined company able to offer bundles of video, Internet, wireline phone service and wireless service.

As a condition to the FCC approval of the transaction, AT&T is required to deploy fiber to the home (“FTTH”) to 12.5 million locations within four years from the close of its transaction. AT&T also announced the acquisition of Time Warner Inc. in October 2016 which is subject to regulatory approval. If approved, it is not yet clear how AT&T will use the various programming and studio assets to benefit its own video on its various platforms or potential program access conditions as part of such regulatory approval.

Charter’s residential video service also faces growing competition from a number of other sources, including companies that deliver linear network programming, movies and television shows on demand and other video content over broadband Internet connections to televisions, computers, tablets and mobile devices. These newer categories of competitors include virtual multichannel video programming distributors such as AT&T’s “DirecTV NOW,” DISH Network Corporation’s “Sling TV,” and Sony Corporation’s “Playstation Vue,” and direct to consumer products offered by programmers that have not traditionally sold programming directly to consumers, such as HBO’s “HBO Now,” CBS’s “CBS All Access” and Showtime’s “Showtime Anytime.” Other online video business models have also developed, including, (i) subscription video on demand services such as Netflix, Amazon.com Inc.’s (“Amazon”) “Prime,” and “Hulu Plus,” (ii) ad-supported free online video products, including Google Inc.’s (“Google”), “YouTube” and “Hulu,” some of which offer programming for free to consumers that Charter currently purchases for a fee, (iii) pay-per-view products, such as Apple’s “iTunes” and Amazon’s, “Amazon Instant,” and (iv) additional ad-supported free offerings from wireless providers such as Verizon’s “go90” and T-Mobile’s “Binge On” that exempt certain video content traffic from counting towards monthly data caps. Charter has viewed online video services as complementary to its own video offering, and has developed a cloud-based guide that is capable of incorporating video from many online video services currently offered in the marketplace. As the proliferation of online video services grows, however, services such as DirecTV Now and potential forthcoming services such as Hulu Live, and new direct to consumer offerings, could negatively impact the growth of Charter’s video business.

 

Internet competition

 

Charter’s residential Internet service faces competition from the phone companies’ DSL, FTTH and wireless broadband offerings as well as from a variety of companies that offer other forms of online services, including wireless and satellite-based broadband services. Verizon’s FiOS and Frontier in certain markets acquired from Verizon, are Charter’s primary fiber-to-the-home competitor, although AT&T has also begun fiber-to-the home builds as well, including the required buildout per the FCC condition as a result of AT&T’s acquisition of DIRECTV noted above. Given the FTTH deployments of Charter’s competitors,

launches of broadband services offering 1 Gbps speed are becoming more common. Several competitors, including AT&T and Google, deliver 1 Gbps broadband speed in at least a portion of their footprints which overlap Charter’s footprint. DSL service is often offered at prices lower than Charter’s Internet services, although typically at speeds lower than the speeds Charter offers. Various wireless phone companies are now offering third and fourth generation (3G and 4G) wireless Internet services with fifth generation (5G) and faster services on the horizon, some of which offer unlimited data packages to customers. In addition, a growing number of commercial areas, such as retail malls, restaurants and airports, offer Wi-Fi Internet service. Numerous local governments are also considering or actively pursuing publicly subsidized Wi-Fi Internet access networks. These options offer alternatives to cable-based Internet access.

 

Voice competition

 

Charter’s residential voice service competes with wireless and wireline phone providers, as well as other forms of communication, such as text messaging on cellular phones, instant messaging, social networking services, video conferencing and email. Charter also competes with “over-the-top” phone providers, such as Vonage, Skype, magicJack, Google Voice and Ooma, Inc., as well as companies that sell phone cards at a cost per minute for both national and international service. The increase in the number of different technologies capable of carrying voice services and the number of alternative communication options available to customers as well as the replacement of wireline services by wireless have intensified the competitive environment in which Charter operates its residential voice service.

 

Regional Competitors

 

In some of Charter’s operating areas, other competitors have built networks that offer video, Internet and voice services that compete with our services. For example, in Kansas City and Austin, Texas, Charter’s residential video, Internet and voice services compete with Google Fiber services. In addition to Google Fiber, Cincinnati Bell Inc., Hawaiian Telcom, RCN Telecom Services, LLC and WideOpenWest Finance, LLC, each compete with Charter in parts of its operating area.

 

Additional competition

 

In addition to multi-channel video providers, cable systems compete with other sources of news, information and entertainment, including over-the-air television broadcast reception, live events, movie theaters and the Internet. Competition is also posed by satellite master antenna television systems, or SMATV systems, serving MDUs, such as condominiums, apartment complexes, and private residential communities.

 

Business Services

 

Charter faces intense competition as to each of its business services offerings. Charter’s small and medium business video, Internet, networking and voice services face competition from a variety of providers as described above. Charter’s enterprise solutions also face competition from the competitors described above as well as other telecommunications carriers, such as metro and regional fiber-based carriers. Charter also competes with cloud, hosting and related service providers and application-service providers.

 

Advertising

 

Charter faces intense competition for advertising revenue across many different platforms and from a wide range of local and national competitors. Advertising competition has increased and will likely continue to increase as new formats seek to attract the same advertisers. Charter competes for advertising revenue against, among others, local broadcast stations, national cable and broadcast networks, radio stations, print media and online advertising companies and content providers.

 

Security and Home Management

 

Charter’s IntelligentHome service faces competition from traditional security companies, such as The ADT Corporation, service providers such as Verizon and AT&T, as well as new entrants, such as Vivint, Inc., Alarm.com, Inc. and NEST Labs, Inc. (which Google acquired in 2014).

 

Skyhook

Skyhook’s Wi-Fi location software solutions compete against (1) other satellite and terrestrial based location technology offerings, such as GPS; (2) other providers of Wi-Fi and cell-based positioning, such as Google and HERE, a former subsidiary of Nokia; and (3) other commercial enterprises’ in-house developed location solutions. There are also a number of new location technologies in development which may further increase competition to be a location solution for new devices and which may require Skyhook to meet more stringent accuracy standards. In addition, Skyhook’s context services compete against other geofencing and location data offerings from other niche location companies, such as Factual and Foursquare.

Skyhook owns significant intellectual property (IP) around the world that relates to its location products and services and provides possible competitive advantages. Skyhook’s IP portfolio includes patents, patent applications, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, and other intellectual property rights. Skyhook believes that it has a defensible and useful IP portfolio and it actively seeks to protect and license its global IP rights as well as to deter unauthorized use of its IP and other assets. For example, in 2015, Skyhook entered into a settlement agreement and license that resolved a lawsuit that Skyhook had brought against Google, in connection with claims that Google had infringed eight Skyhook patents. Additionally, in 2016 Skyhook entered into a license agreement to grant to the licensee a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide license to patents and patent applications owned by Skyhook. Skyhook has successfully worked with customers to enter into license agreements but cannot provide assurance that current patents will be enforceable or infringed, that they will deter unauthorized use, that Skyhook’s attempts to secure IP licenses will be successful, or that its additional patent applications will ever be allowed or granted.

Seasonality and Cyclicality

Charter

Charter’s business is subject to seasonal and cyclical variations. Its results are impacted by the seasonal nature of customers receiving cable services in college and vacation markets. Charter’s revenue is subject to cyclical advertising patterns and changes in viewership levels. Its advertising revenue is generally higher in the second and fourth calendar quarters of each year, due in part to increases in consumer advertising in the spring and in the period leading up to and including the holiday season. U.S. advertising revenue is also cyclical, benefiting in even-numbered years from advertising related to candidates running for political office and issue oriented advertising. Charter’s capital expenditures and trade working capital are also subject to significant seasonality based on the timing of subscriber growth, network programs, specific projects and construction.

Employees

Liberty Broadband

Liberty Broadband currently does not have any corporate employees. Liberty provides Liberty Broadband with certain transitional services pursuant to a services agreement, and certain of Liberty’s corporate employees and executive officers serve as corporate employees and executive officers of Liberty Broadband.

Charter

As of December 31, 2016, Charter had approximately 91,500 active full-time equivalent employees. At December 31, 2016, approximately 2,500 of its employees were represented by collective bargaining agreements. Charter believes it has good relations with its employees including those represented by collective bargaining agreements.

Skyhook

As of December 31, 2016, Skyhook had approximately 71 full and part-time employees. None of these employees is represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Liberty Broadband believes that these employee relations are good.

(d)Financial Information About Geographic Areas

For financial information related to the geographic areas in which we do business, see note 15 to our consolidated financial statements found in Part II of this report.

(e)Available Information

All of our filings with the SEC including our Form 10-Ks, Form 10-Qs and Form 8-Ks, as well as amendments to such filings are available on our Internet website free of charge generally within 24 hours after we file such material with the SEC.  Our website address is www.libertybroadband.com.

Our corporate governance guidelines, code of business conduct and ethics, compensation committee charter, nominating and corporate governance committee charter, and audit committee charter are available on our website.  In addition, we will provide a copy of any of these documents, free of charge, to any shareholder who calls or submits a request in writing to Investor Relations, Liberty Broadband Corporation, 12300 Liberty Boulevard, Englewood, Colorado 80112, Tel. No. (877) 772-1518.

The information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference herein. 

Item 1A. Risk Factors

The risks described below and elsewhere in this annual report are not the only ones that relate to our businesses or our capitalization.  The risks described below are considered to be the most material.  However, there may be other unknown or unpredictable economic, business, competitive, regulatory or other factors that also could have material adverse effects on our businesses.  Past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results or trends in future periods.  If any of the events described below were to occur, our businesses, prospects, financial condition, results of operations and/or cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Factors Relating to Our Corporate History and Structure

We are a holding company, and we could be unable to obtain cash in amounts sufficient to service our financial obligations or meet our other commitments.

Our ability to meet our current and future financial obligations, including to make debt service obligations under the Margin Loan Agreements (defined below), and other contractual commitments depends upon our ability to access cash. We are a holding company, and our sources of cash include our available cash balances, net cash from the operating activities of our wholly-owned subsidiary Skyhook, any dividends and interest we may receive from our investments, available funds under the 2016 Margin Loan Agreements (defined below) (which was $100 million as of December 31, 2016) and proceeds from any asset sales we may undertake in the future. In addition, the ability of our only operating subsidiary to pay dividends or to make other payments or advances to us depends on its operating results and any statutory, regulatory or contractual restrictions to which it may be or may become subject.

We do not have access to the cash that Charter generates from its operating activities.

Charter generated approximately $8,041 million, $2,359 million and $2,359 million of cash from its operations during the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively. Charter uses the cash it generates from its operations primarily to fund its business operations and to service its debt and other financial obligations. We do not have access to the cash that Charter generates unless Charter declares a dividend on its capital stock payable in cash, repurchases any or all of its outstanding shares of capital stock for cash (subject to any contractual restrictions on our ability to participate in any such repurchase) or otherwise distributes or makes payments to its stockholders, including us. Historically, Charter has not paid any dividends on its capital stock or, with limited exceptions, otherwise distributed cash to its stockholders and instead has used all of its available cash in the expansion of its business and to service its debt obligations. Covenants in Charter’s existing debt instruments also restrict the payment of dividends and cash distributions to stockholders. We expect that Charter will continue to apply its available cash to the expansion of its business.

Our company may have future capital needs and may not be able to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms.

In connection with the Broadband Spin-Off, we had outstanding borrowings of $400 million at December 31, 2016 under two margin loan agreements (the “2014 Margin Loan Agreements”) entered into by our wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Broadband (“BroadbandSPV”).  We also had outstanding borrowings of $200 million at December 31, 2016 under two margin loan agreements (the “2016 Margin Loan Agreements,” and together with the 2014 Margin Loan Agreements, the “Margin Loan Agreements”) entered into by a wholly-owned special purpose subsidiary of Liberty Broadband (“Cheetah 5”). The obligations under the Margin Loan Agreements are guaranteed solely by our company and are secured by a portion of our ownership interest in Charter. Such equity interests are held through BroadbandSPV and Cheetah 5. The terms of the Margin Loan Agreements limit our company’s ability to secure additional financing on favorable terms, and our cash flow from operations may be insufficient to satisfy our financial obligations under indebtedness outstanding from time to time. Our ability to secure additional financing and satisfy our financial obligations will depend upon the operating performance of our subsidiary, Skyhook, the value of our investment in Charter, prevailing general economic and credit market conditions, including interest rate levels and the availability of credit generally, and financial, business and other factors, many of which are beyond our control. There can be no assurance that sufficient financing will be available on desirable terms or at all. If financing is not available when needed or is not available on favorable terms, we may be unable to take advantage of business or market opportunities as they arise, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

We have significant indebtedness, which could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

As discussed above, we entered into the 2014 Margin Loan Agreements as the guarantor, with BroadbandSPV as the borrower, pursuant to which BroadbandSPV had outstanding borrowings of $400 million at December 31, 2016.  In addition, in connection with the Transactions, we entered into the 2016 Margin Loan Agreements as the guarantor, with Cheetah 5 as the borrower, pursuant to which Cheetah 5 had outstanding borrowings of $200 million, at December 31, 2016. As a result of this significant indebtedness, our company may:

In addition, it is possible that we may need to incur additional indebtedness in the future. If new debt is added to the current debt levels, the risks described above could intensify. For additional limitations on our company’s ability to potentially service our direct debt obligations, see “We are a holding company, and we could be unable to obtain cash in amounts sufficient to service our financial obligations or meet our other commitments” and “We do not have access to the cash that Charter generates from its operating activities” above.

The agreements that govern our current and future indebtedness may contain various affirmative and restrictive covenants that will limit our discretion in the operation of our business.

As discussed above, we entered into the 2014 Margin Loan Agreements as the guarantor, with BroadbandSPV as the borrower, pursuant to which BroadbandSPV had outstanding borrowings of $400 million at December 31, 2016.  In addition, in connection with the Transactions, we entered into the 2016 Margin Loan Agreements as the guarantor, with Cheetah 5 as the borrower, pursuant to which Cheetah 5 had outstanding borrowings of $200 million, with $100 million remaining available to be drawn until March 21, 2017, at December 31, 2016. The Margin Loan Agreements contain various covenants, including those that limit our ability to, among other things, incur indebtedness by having BroadbandSPV and Cheetah 5 enter into financing arrangements with respect to the portion of stock of Charter pledged to secure the loans under the Margin Loan Agreements, and cause BroadbandSPV and Cheetah 5 to enter into unrelated businesses or otherwise conduct business other than owning common stock of Charter and other assets as permitted under the Margin Loan Agreement documents. We may also enter into certain other indebtedness arrangements in the future. The instruments governing such indebtedness, often contain covenants that, among other things, place certain limitations on our ability to incur more debt, exceed specified leverage ratios, pay dividends, make distributions, make investments, repurchase stock, create liens, enter into transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate, and transfer or sell assets. Any failure to comply with such covenants could result in an event of default, which, if not cured or waived, could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

We rely on Charter to provide us with the financial information that we use in accounting for our ownership interest in Charter as well as information regarding Charter that we include in our public filings.

We account for our approximately 20% ownership interest in Charter using the equity method of accounting and, accordingly, in our financial statements we record our share of Charter’s net income or loss. Within the meaning of U.S. accounting rules, we rely on Charter to provide us with financial information prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, which we use in the application of the equity method. We also rely on Charter to provide us with the information regarding their company that we include in our public filings. In addition, we cannot change the way in which Charter reports its financial results or require Charter to change its internal controls over financial reporting. No assurance can be given that Charter will provide us with the information necessary to enable us to complete our public filings on a timely basis or at all. Furthermore, any material misstatements or omissions in the information Charter provides to us or publicly files could have a material adverse effect on our financial statements and filing status under federal securities laws.

We may become subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940.

We do not believe we are currently subject to regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940, because our investment in Charter enables us to exercise significant influence over Charter. We have substantial involvement in the management and affairs of Charter, including through our board nominees. We nominated three of Charter’s thirteen current directors. In connection with the Bright House Transaction, on May 23, 2015, we entered into the Stockholders Agreement, which continues to provide us with board nomination rights. If, however, our investment in Charter were deemed to become passive (such as in the event that our equity interest were significantly diluted and our nominees ceased to serve as directors of Charter), we could become subject to regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940. In such event, we would be required to register as an investment company, which could result in significant registration and compliance costs, could require changes to our corporate governance structure and financial reporting and could restrict our activities going forward. Our restated certificate of incorporation includes a provision that would enable us, at the option of our board of directors, to automatically convert each outstanding share of our Series B common stock into one share of our Series A common stock at such time as we have outstanding less than 20% of the total number of shares of our Series B common stock issued in the Broadband Spin-Off. In addition, if we were to become inadvertently subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940, any violation of this act could subject us to material adverse consequences, including potentially significant regulatory penalties and the possibility that our contracts would be deemed unenforceable.

Our company has overlapping directors and officers with Liberty, Liberty Interactive, Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. and Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc., which may lead to conflicting interests.

As a result of the Broadband Spin-Off, the September 2011 separation of Starz from Liberty, the January 2013 spin-off of Liberty from Starz, and Liberty Interactive’s 2014 spin-off of Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. (“TripCo”) and 2016 split-off of Liberty Expedia Holdings, Inc. (“ExpediaCo”), most of the executive officers of Broadband also serve as executive officers of Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo and ExpediaCo and there are overlapping directors. With the exception of Liberty Interactive’s ownership of shares of our non-voting Series C common stock, none of these companies has any ownership interest in any of the others. Our executive officers and members of our company’s board of directors have fiduciary duties to our stockholders. Likewise, any such persons who serve in similar capacities at Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo, ExpediaCo or any other public company have fiduciary duties to that company’s stockholders. For example, there may be the potential for a conflict of interest when our company, Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo or ExpediaCo pursues acquisitions and other business opportunities that may be suitable for each of them. Therefore, such persons may have conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest with respect to matters involving or affecting more than one of the companies to which they owe fiduciary duties. Our company has renounced its rights to certain business opportunities and our restated certificate of incorporation will provide that no director or officer of our company will breach their fiduciary duty and therefore be liable to our company or its stockholders by reason of the fact that any such individual directs a corporate opportunity to another person or entity (including Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo and ExpediaCo) instead of our company, or does not refer or communicate information regarding such corporate opportunity to our company, unless (x) such opportunity was expressly offered to such person solely in his or her capacity as a director or officer of our company or as a director or officer of any of our subsidiaries, and (y) such opportunity relates to a line of business in which our company or any of its subsidiaries is then directly engaged. In addition, any potential conflict that qualifies as a “related party transaction” (as defined in Item 404 of Regulation S-K) is subject to review by an independent committee of the applicable issuer’s board of directors in accordance with its corporate governance guidelines. Any other potential conflicts that arise will be addressed on a case-by-case basis, keeping in mind the applicable fiduciary duties owed by the executive officers and directors of each issuer. From time to time, we may enter into transactions with Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo or ExpediaCo and/or their respective subsidiaries or other affiliates. There can be no assurance that the terms of any such transactions will be as favorable to our company, Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo or ExpediaCo or any of their respective subsidiaries or affiliates as would be the case where there is no overlapping officer or director.

Our inter-company agreements were negotiated while we were a subsidiary of Liberty.

We entered into a number of inter-company agreements covering matters such as tax sharing and our responsibility for certain liabilities previously undertaken by Liberty for certain of our businesses. In addition, we entered into a services agreement with Liberty pursuant to which it will provide to us certain management, administrative, financial, treasury, accounting, tax, legal and other services, for which we will reimburse them on a fixed fee basis. The terms of all of these agreements were established while we were a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty, and hence may not be the result of arms’ length negotiations. We believe that the terms of these inter-company agreements are commercially reasonable and fair to all parties under the circumstances;

however, conflicts could arise in the interpretation or any extension or renegotiation of the foregoing agreements after the Broadband Spin-Off.

Factors Relating to Charter

The following risks relate specifically to our equity affiliate Charter. If any of these risks were realized, they could have a material adverse effect on the value of our equity interests in Charter, which could negatively impact our stock price and our financial prospects.

If Charter is not able to successfully integrate its business with that of Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House within the anticipated time frame, or at all, the anticipated cost savings and other benefits of the Transactions may not be realized fully, or at all, or may take longer to realize than expected. In such circumstance, Charter may not perform as expected and the value of Charter’s Class A common stock may be adversely affected.

Until the closing of the Transactions, Legacy Charter, Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House operated independently, and there can be no assurances that their businesses can be integrated successfully. Charter now has significantly more systems, assets, investments, businesses, customers and employees than each company did prior to the Transactions. It is possible that the integration process could result in the loss of key Charter employees, the loss of customers, the disruption of Charter’s ongoing businesses or in unexpected integration issues, higher than expected integration costs and an overall post-completion integration process that takes longer than originally anticipated. The process of integrating Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House with the Legacy Charter operations will require significant capital expenditures and the expansion of certain operations and operating and financial systems. Management will be required to devote a significant amount of time and attention to the integration process and there is a significant degree of difficulty and management involvement inherent in that process. These difficulties include:

 

 

Even if the new businesses are successfully integrated, it may not be possible to realize the benefits that are expected to result from the Transactions, or realize these benefits within the time frame that is expected. For example, the elimination of duplicative costs may not be possible or may take longer than anticipated, or the benefits from the Transactions may be offset by costs incurred or delays in integrating the businesses and increased operating costs. If the combined company fails to realize the anticipated benefits from the transactions, its liquidity, results of operations, financial condition and/or share price may be

adversely affected. In addition, at times, the attention of certain members of Charter’s management and resources may be focused on the integration of the businesses and diverted from day-to-day business operations, which may disrupt the business of the combined company. 


If the operating results of Legacy Time Warner Cable and/or Legacy Bright House are less than Charter’s expectations, or an increase in the capital expenditures to upgrade and maintain those assets as well as to keep pace with technological developments is greater than expected, Charter may not achieve the expected level of financial results from the Transactions.

Charter will derive a portion of its continuing revenues and earnings per share from the operation of Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House. Therefore, any negative impact on these companies or the operating results derived from such companies could harm the combined company’s operating results.

The businesses of Charter, Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House are characterized by rapid technological change and the introduction of new products and services. Charter intends to make investments in the combined business and transition toward only using two-way all-digital set-top boxes. The increase in capital expenditures necessary for the transition toward two-way set-top boxes in the business may negatively impact the expected financial results from the Transactions. The combined company may not be able to fund the capital expenditures necessary to keep pace with technological developments, execute the plans to do so, or anticipate the demand of its customers for products and services requiring new technology or bandwidth. Charter’s inability to maintain, expand and upgrade its existing or combined businesses could materially adversely affect its financial condition and results of operations.

The Transactions were accounted for as an acquisition by Charter in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Under the acquisition method of accounting, the assets and liabilities of Legacy Time Warner Cable and Legacy Bright House have been recorded, as of the date of completion of the Transactions, at their respective fair values and added to Charter’s assets and liabilities.

The excess of the purchase price over those fair values has been recorded as goodwill. To the extent the value of goodwill or intangibles becomes impaired, Charter may be required to incur material charges relating to such impairment. Such a potential impairment charge could have a material impact on Charter’s operating results.

As a result of the closing of the Transactions, Charter’s businesses are subject to the conditions set forth in the FCC Order and the DOJ Consent Decree and those imposed by state utility commissions and local franchise authorities, and there can be no assurance that these conditions will not have an adverse effect on Charter’s businesses and results of operations.

In connection with the Transactions, the FCC Order, the DOJ Consent Decree, and the approvals from state utility commissions and local franchise authorities incorporated numerous commitments and voluntary conditions made by the parties and imposed numerous conditions on Charter’s businesses relating to the operation of its business and other matters. Among other things, (i) Charter is not permitted to charge usage-based prices or impose data caps and is prohibited from charging interconnection fees for qualifying parties; (ii) Charter is prohibited from entering into or enforcing any agreement with a programmer that forbids, limits or creates incentives to limit the programmer’s provision of content to OVDs and cannot retaliate against programmers for licensing to OVDs; (iii) Charter cannot avail itself of other distributors’ most favored nation provisions if they are inconsistent with this prohibition; (iv) Charter must undertake a number of actions designed to promote diversity; (v) Charter must appoint an independent compliance monitor and comply with a broad array of reporting requirements; and (vi) Charter must satisfy various other conditions relating to its high-speed Internet services, including building out an additional two million locations with access to a high-speed connection of at least 60 megabits per second with at least one million of those connections in competition with another high-speed broadband provider in the market served, and implementing a reduced price high-speed internet program for low income families. These and other conditions and commitments relating to the Transactions are of varying duration, ranging from three to seven years. In light of the breadth and duration of the conditions and potential changes in market conditions during the time the conditions and commitments are in effect, there can be no assurance that Charter’s compliance, and ability to comply, with the conditions will not have a material adverse effect on its business or results of operations.

Charter has a significant amount of debt and may incur significant additional debt, including secured debt, in the future, which could adversely affect its financial health and ability to react to changes in its business.

Charter has a significant amount of debt and may (subject to applicable restrictions in each of its debt instruments) incur additional debt in the future. As of December 31, 2016, Charter’s total principal amount of debt was approximately $60.0 billion.

As a result of this significant indebtedness, Charter may:

If current debt amounts increase, Charter’s business results are lower than expected, or credit rating agencies downgrade Charter’s debt limiting its access to investment grade markets, the related risks that Charter faces will intensify.

The agreements and instruments governing Charter’s debt contain restrictions and limitations that could significantly affect Charter’s ability to operate its business, as well as significantly affect its liquidity.

Charter’s credit facilities and the indentures governing its debt contain a number of significant covenants that could adversely affect Charter’s ability to operate its business, liquidity and results of operations. These covenants restrict, among other things, Charter and its subsidiaries’ ability to:

Additionally, the Charter Communications Operating, LLC (“Charter Operating”) credit facilities require Charter Operating to comply with a maximum total leverage covenant and a maximum first lien leverage covenant. The breach of any covenants or obligations in Charter’s indentures or credit facilities, not otherwise waived or amended, could result in a default under the applicable debt obligations and could trigger acceleration of those obligations, which in turn could trigger cross defaults under other agreements governing Charter’s long-term indebtedness. In addition, the secured lenders under Charter’s notes and the Charter Operating credit facilities could foreclose on their collateral, which includes equity interests in Charter’s subsidiaries, and exercise other rights of secured creditors.

Charter depends on generating sufficient cash flow to fund its debt obligations, capital expenditures, and ongoing operations.

Charter is dependent on its cash on hand and cash flow from operations to fund its debt obligations, capital expenditures and ongoing operations.

Charter’s ability to service its debt and to fund its planned capital expenditures and ongoing operations will depend on its ability to continue to generate cash flow and its access (by dividend or otherwise) to additional liquidity sources at the applicable obligor. Charter’s ability to continue to generate cash flow is dependent on many factors, including:

Some of these factors are beyond Charter’s control. If it is unable to generate sufficient cash flow or it is unable to access additional liquidity sources, Charter may not be able to service and repay its debt, operate its business, respond to competitive challenges, or fund its other liquidity and capital needs.

Restrictions in Charter’s subsidiaries’ debt instruments and under applicable law limit their ability to provide funds to Charter and its subsidiaries that are debt issuers.

Charter’s primary assets are its equity interests in its subsidiaries. Charter’s operating subsidiaries are separate and distinct legal entities and are not obligated to make funds available to their debt issuer holding companies for payments on Charter’s notes or other obligations in the form of loans, distributions, or otherwise. Charter Operating’s ability to make distributions to Charter, CCO Holdings, LLC (“CCO Holdings”), its other primary debt issuers other than Time Warner Cable, LLC (“TWC, LLC”) and Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC (“TWCE”), to service debt obligations is subject to its compliance with the terms of its credit facilities, and restrictions under applicable law. TWC, LLC’s and TWCE’s ability to make distributions to Charter, CCO Holdings or Charter Operating to service debt obligations is subject to restrictions under applicable law. Under the Delaware Limited Liability Company Act (the “DLLCA”), Charter’s subsidiaries may only make distributions if the relevant entity has “surplus” as defined in the DLLCA. Under fraudulent transfer laws, Charter’s subsidiaries may not pay dividends if the relevant entity is insolvent or is rendered insolvent thereby. The measures of insolvency for purposes of these fraudulent transfer laws vary depending upon the law applied in any proceeding to determine whether a fraudulent transfer has occurred. Generally, however, an entity would be considered insolvent if:

While Charter believes that its relevant subsidiaries currently have surplus and are not insolvent, these subsidiaries may become insolvent in the future. Charter’s direct or indirect subsidiaries include the borrowers and guarantors under the Charter Operating credit facilities and notes, under the CCO Holdings notes and under the TWC, LLC and TWCE notes. As of December 31, 2016, Charter’s total principal amount of debt was approximately $60.0 billion.

In the event of bankruptcy, liquidation, or dissolution of one or more of its subsidiaries, that subsidiary’s assets would first be applied to satisfy its own obligations, and following such payments, such subsidiary may not have sufficient assets remaining to make payments to its parent company as an equity holder or otherwise. In that event, the lenders under Charter Operating's credit facilities and notes and any other indebtedness of Charter’s subsidiaries whose interests are secured by substantially all of Charter’s operating assets, and all holders of other debt of Charter Operating, CCO Holdings, TWC, LLC and TWCE will have the right to be paid in full before Charter from any of its subsidiaries' assets.

Some of Charter’s outstanding debt is subject to change of control provisions. It may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to fulfill its obligations under its indebtedness following a change of control, which would place Charter in default under the applicable debt instruments.

Charter may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to fulfill its obligations under its notes and its credit facilities following a change of control. Under the indentures governing the CCO Holdings’ notes, upon the occurrence of specified change of control events, the debt issuer is required to offer to repurchase all of its outstanding notes. However, Charter may not have sufficient access to funds at the time of the change of control event to make the required repurchase of the applicable notes and Charter Operating is limited in its ability to make distributions or other payments to any debt issuer to fund any required repurchase. In addition, a change of control under the Charter Operating credit facilities would result in a default under those credit facilities, which would trigger a default under the indentures governing the CCO Holdings’ notes, the Charter Operating notes and the TWC, LLC and TWCE notes. Because such credit facilities and notes are obligations of Charter Operating and its subsidiaries, the credit facilities would have to be repaid before Charter Operating’s assets could be available to CCO Holdings to repurchase their notes. Any failure to make or complete a change of control offer would place CCO Holdings in default under its notes. The failure of Charter’s subsidiaries to make a change of control offer or repay the amounts accelerated under their notes and credit facilities would place them in default under such agreements.

Charter operates in a very competitive business environment, which affects its ability to attract and retain customers and can adversely affect its business, operations and financial results.

The industry in which Charter operates is highly competitive and has become more so in recent years. In some instances, Charter competes against companies with fewer regulatory burdens, better access to financing, greater personnel resources, greater resources for marketing, greater and more favorable brand name recognition, and long-established relationships with regulatory authorities and customers. Increasing consolidation in the cable industry and the repeal of certain ownership rules have provided additional benefits to certain of Charter’s competitors, either through access to financing, resources, or efficiencies of scale.

Charter’s residential video service faces competition from a number of sources, including direct broadcast satellite services, as well as other companies that deliver movies, television shows and other video programming over broadband Internet connections to TVs, computers, tablets and mobile devices. Charter’s residential Internet service faces competition from the phone companies’ DSL, FTTH and wireless broadband offerings as well as from a variety of companies that offer other forms of online services, including wireless and satellite-based broadband services. Charter’s residential voice service competes with wireless and wireline phone providers, as well as other forms of communication, such as text messaging on cellular phones, instant messaging, social networking services, video conferencing and email. Competition from these companies, including intensive marketing efforts with aggressive pricing, exclusive programming and increased HD broadcasting may have an adverse impact on Charter’s ability to attract and retain customers.

Overbuilds could also adversely affect Charter’s growth, financial condition, and results of operations, by creating or increasing competition. Charter is aware of traditional overbuild situations impacting certain of its markets, however, Charter is unable to predict the extent to which additional overbuild situations may occur.

Charter’s services may not allow it to compete effectively. Competition may reduce its expected growth of future cash flows which may contribute to future impairments of Charter’s franchises and goodwill and Charter’s ability to meet cash flow requirements, including debt service requirements.

Charter faces risks relating to competition for the leisure time and discretionary spending of audiences, which has intensified in part due to advances in technology and changes in consumer expectations and behavior.

In addition to the various competitive factors discussed above, Charter is subject to risks relating to increasing competition for the leisure time, shifting consumer needs and discretionary spending of consumers. Charter competes with all other sources of entertainment, news and information delivery, as well as a broad range of communications products and services. Technological advancements, such as new video formats and Internet streaming and downloading of programming that can be viewed on televisions, computers, smartphones and tablets, many of which have been beneficial to Charter, have nonetheless increased the number of entertainment and information delivery choices available to consumers and intensified the challenges posed by audience fragmentation.

Newer products and services, particularly alternative methods for the distribution, sale and viewing of content will likely continue to be developed, further increasing the number of competitors that Charter faces. The increasing number of choices available to audiences, including low-cost or free choices, could negatively impact not only consumer demand for Charter’s products and services, but also advertisers’ willingness to purchase advertising from Charter. Charter competes for the sale of advertising revenue with television networks and stations, as well as other advertising platforms, such as radio, print and, increasingly, online media. Charter’s failure to effectively anticipate or adapt to new technologies and changes in consumer expectations and behavior could significantly adversely affect its competitive position and its business and results of operations.

 Charter’s exposure to the economic conditions of its current and potential customers, vendors and third parties could adversely affect its cash flow, results of operations and financial condition.

Charter is exposed to risks associated with the economic conditions of its current and potential customers, the potential financial instability of its customers and their financial ability to purchase its products. If there were a general economic downturn, Charter may experience increased cancellations by its customers or unfavorable changes in the mix of products purchased, including an increase in the number of homes that replace their video service with Internet-delivered and/or over-air content, which would negatively impact Charter’s ability to attract customers, increase rates and maintain or increase revenue. In addition, providing video services is an established and highly penetrated business. Charter’s ability to gain new video subscribers is dependent to a large extent on growth in occupied housing in its service areas, which is influenced by both national and local economic conditions. Weak economic conditions may also have a negative impact on Charter’s advertising revenue. These events have adversely affected Charter in the past, and may adversely affect its cash flow, results of operations and financial condition if a downturn were to occur.

In addition, Charter is susceptible to risks associated with the potential financial instability of the vendors and third parties on which Charter relies to provide products and services or to which it outsources certain functions. The same economic conditions that may affect Charter’s customers, as well as volatility and disruption in the capital and credit markets, also could adversely affect vendors and third parties and lead to significant increases in prices, reduction in output or the bankruptcy of Charter’s vendors or third parties upon which Charter relies. Any interruption in the services provided by Charter’s vendors or by third parties could adversely affect Charter’s cash flow, results of operation and financial condition.

Charter faces risks inherent in its commercial business.

Charter may encounter unforeseen difficulties as it increases the scale of its service offerings to businesses. Charter sells Internet access, data networking and fiber connectivity to cellular towers and office buildings, video and business voice services to businesses and has increased its focus on growing this business. In order to grow its commercial business, Charter expects to continue to invest in technology, equipment and personnel focused on the commercial business. Commercial business customers often require service level agreements and generally have heightened customer expectations for reliability of services. If Charter’s efforts to build the infrastructure to scale the commercial business are not successful, the growth of its commercial services business would be limited. Charter depends on interconnection and related services provided by certain third parties for the growth of its commercial business. As a result, its ability to implement changes as the services grow may be limited. If Charter

is unable to meet these service level requirements or expectations, its commercial business could be adversely affected. Finally, Charter expects advances in communications technology, as well as changes in the marketplace and the regulatory and legislative environment. Consequently, Charter is unable to predict the effect that ongoing or future developments in these areas might have on its voice and commercial businesses and operations.

Programming costs are rising at a much faster rate than wages or inflation, and Charter may not have the ability to reduce or moderate the growth rates of, or pass on to its customers, its increasing programming costs, which would adversely affect its cash flow and operating margins.

Video programming has been, and is expected to continue to be, Charter’s largest operating expense item. In recent years, the cable industry has experienced a rapid escalation in the cost of programming. Charter expects programming costs to continue to increase because of a variety of factors including amounts paid for broadcast station retransmission consent, annual increases imposed by programmers and carriage of incremental programming, including new services and VOD programming. The inability to fully pass programming cost increases on to its customers has had, and is expected in the future to have, an adverse impact on Charter’s cash flow and operating margins associated with the video product. Charter has programming contracts that have expired and others that will expire at or before the end of 2017. There can be no assurance that these agreements will be renewed on favorable or comparable terms. Three programmers have filed lawsuits against Charter regarding which legacy programming arrangements apply after the closing of the Transactions, and there can be no assurance that other programmers will not bring similar suits in the future. In addition, a number of programmers have begun to sell their services through alternative distribution channels which may cause those programmers to seek even higher programming fees from Charter as this may degrade security of their product, increase their operating costs or reduce their advertising revenue. To the extent that Charter is unable to reach agreement with certain programmers on terms that it believes are reasonable, Charter has been, and may be in the future, forced to remove such programming channels from its line-up, which may result in a loss of customers. Charter’s failure to carry programming that is attractive to its subscribers could adversely impact Charter’s customer levels, operations and financial results. In addition, if Charter’s Internet customers are unable to access desirable content online because content providers block or limit access by its subscribers as a class, its ability to gain and retain customers, especially Internet customers, may be negatively impacted.

Increased demands by owners of some broadcast stations for carriage of other services or payments to those broadcasters for retransmission consent are likely to further increase Charter’s programming costs. Federal law allows commercial television broadcast stations to make an election between “must-carry” rights and an alternative “retransmission-consent” regime. When a station opts for the retransmission-consent regime, Charter is not allowed to carry the station’s signal without the station’s permission. In some cases, Charter carries stations under short-term arrangements while it attempts to negotiate new long-term retransmission agreements. If negotiations with these programmers prove unsuccessful, they could require Charter to cease carrying their signals, possibly for an indefinite period. Any loss of stations could make its video service less attractive to customers, which could result in less subscription and advertising revenue. In retransmission-consent negotiations, broadcasters often condition consent with respect to one station on carriage of one or more other stations or programming services in which they or their affiliates have an interest. Carriage of these other services, as well as increased fees for retransmission rights, may increase Charter’s programming expenses and diminish the amount of capacity it has available to introduce new services, which could have an adverse effect on its business and financial results.

Charter’s inability to respond to technological developments and meet customer demand for new products and services could limit its ability to compete effectively.

Charter operates in a highly competitive, consumer-driven and rapidly changing environment. Its success is, to a large extent, dependent on its ability to acquire, develop, adopt, upgrade and exploit new and existing technologies to address consumers’ changing demands and distinguish its services from those of its competitors. Charter may not be able to accurately predict technological trends or the success of new products and services. If Charter chooses technologies or equipment that are less effective, cost-efficient or attractive to customers than those chosen by its competitors, if Charter offer services that fail to appeal to consumers, are not available at competitive prices or that do not function as expected, or Charter is not able to fund the expenditures necessary to keep pace with technological developments, its competitive position could deteriorate, and its business and financial results could suffer.

The ability of some of Charter’s competitors to introduce new technologies, products and services more quickly than Charter does may adversely affect its competitive position. Furthermore, advances in technology, decreases in the cost of existing technologies or changes in competitors’ product and service offerings may require Charter in the future to make additional research and development expenditures or to offer at no additional charge or at a lower price certain products and services that Charter currently offers to customers separately or at a premium. In addition, the uncertainty of Charter’s ability, and the costs, to obtain intellectual property rights from third parties could impact its ability to respond to technological advances in a timely and effective manner.

The implementation of Charter’s network-based user interface, Spectrum Guide, may ultimately be unsuccessful or more expensive than anticipated. Charter’s inability to maintain and expand its upgraded systems and provide advanced services such as a state of the art user interface in a timely manner, or to anticipate the demands of the marketplace, could materially adversely affect Charter’s ability to attract and retain customers. Consequently, its growth, financial condition and results of operations could suffer materially.

Charter depends on third party service providers, suppliers and licensors; thus, if it is unable to procure the necessary services, equipment, software or licenses on reasonable terms and on a timely basis, its ability to offer services could be impaired, and Charter’s growth, operations, business, financial results and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

Charter depends on a limited number of third party service providers, suppliers and licensors to supply some of the services, hardware, software and operational support necessary to provide some of its services. Some of Charter’s hardware, software and operational support vendors, and service providers represent its sole source of supply or have, either through contract or as a result of intellectual property rights, a position of some exclusivity. If any of these parties breaches or terminates its agreement with Charter or otherwise fails to perform its obligations in a timely manner, demand exceeds these vendors’ capacity, they experience operating or financial difficulties, they significantly increase the amount Charter pay for necessary products or services, or they cease production of any necessary product due to lack of demand, profitability or a change in ownership or are otherwise unable to provide the equipment or services Charter needs in a timely manner, at its specifications and at reasonable prices, its ability to provide some services might be materially adversely affected, or the need to procure or develop alternative sources of the affected materials or services might delay Charter’s ability to serve its customers. In addition, the existence of only a limited number of vendors of key technologies can lead to less product innovation and higher costs. These events could materially and adversely affect Charter’s ability to retain and attract customers and its operations, business, financial results and financial condition.

Charter’s cable systems have historically been restricted to using one of two proprietary conditional access security systems, which Charter believes has limited the number of manufacturers producing set-top boxes for such systems. As an alternative, Charter has developed a new conditional access security system which can be downloaded into set-top boxes with features Charter specifies that could be provided by a variety of manufacturers. Charter refers to its specified set-top box as the Worldbox. Additionally, Charter is developing technology to allow its two current proprietary conditional access security systems to be software downloadable into its Worldbox. In order to realize the broadest benefits of Charter’s Worldbox technology, Charter must now complete the support for the downloadable proprietary conditional access security systems within the Worldbox. Charter cannot provide assurances that this implementation will ultimately be successful or completed in the expected timeframe or at the expected budget.

Charter’s business may be adversely affected if Charter cannot continue to license or enforce the intellectual property rights on which its business depends.

Charter relies on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws and licenses and other agreements with its employees, customers, suppliers and other parties to establish and maintain Charter’s intellectual property rights in technology and the products and services used in its operations. Also, because of the rapid pace of technological change, Charter both develops its own technologies, products and services and relies on technologies developed or licensed by third parties. However, any of Charter’s intellectual property rights could be challenged or invalidated, or such intellectual property rights may not be sufficient to permit Charter to take advantage of current industry trends or otherwise to provide competitive advantages, which could result in costly redesign efforts, discontinuance of certain product or service offerings or other competitive harm. Charter may not be able to obtain or continue to obtain licenses from these third parties on reasonable terms, if at all. In addition, claims of intellectual property infringement could require Charter to enter into royalty or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms, incur substantial monetary liability or be enjoined preliminarily or permanently from further use of the intellectual property in question, which could require Charter to change its business practices or offerings and limit its ability to compete effectively. Even unsuccessful claims can be time-consuming and costly to defend and may divert management’s attention and resources away from Charter’s business. In recent years, the number of intellectual property infringement claims has been increasing in the communications and entertainment industries, and, with increasing frequency, Charter is party to litigation alleging that certain of its services or technologies infringe the intellectual property rights of others.

Various events could disrupt Charter’s networks, information systems or properties and could impair its operating activities and negatively impact Charter’s reputation and financial results.

Network and information systems technologies are critical to Charter’s operating activities, both for its internal uses, such as network management and supplying services to Charter’s customers, including customer service operations and programming delivery. Network or information system shutdowns or other service disruptions caused by events such as computer hacking, dissemination of computer viruses, worms and other destructive or disruptive software, “cyber attacks,” process breakdowns, denial of service attacks and other malicious activity pose increasing risks. Both unsuccessful and successful “cyber attacks” on companies have continued to increase in frequency, scope and potential harm in recent years. While Charter develops and maintains systems seeking to prevent systems-related events and security breaches from occurring, the development and maintenance of these systems is costly and requires ongoing monitoring and updating as techniques used in such attacks become more sophisticated and change frequently. Charter, and the third parties on which Charter relies, may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. While from time to time attempts have been made to access Charter’s network, these attempts have not as yet resulted in any material release of information, degradation or disruption to its network and information systems.

Charter’s network and information systems are also vulnerable to damage or interruption from power outages, telecommunications failures, accidents, natural disasters (including extreme weather arising from short-term or any long-term changes in weather patterns), terrorist attacks and similar events. Further, the impacts associated with extreme weather or long-term changes in weather patterns, such as rising sea levels or increased and intensified storm activity, may cause increased business interruptions or may require the relocation of some of Charter’s facilities. Charter’s system redundancy may be ineffective or inadequate, and Charter’s disaster recovery planning may not be sufficient for all eventualities.

Any of these events, if directed at, or experienced by, Charter or technologies upon which Charter depends, could have adverse consequences on Charter’s network, customers and business, including degradation of service, service disruption, excessive call volume to call centers, and damage to Charter’s or its customers' equipment and data. Large expenditures may be necessary to repair or replace damaged property, networks or information systems or to protect them from similar events in the future. Moreover, the amount and scope of insurance that Charter maintains against losses resulting from any such events or security breaches may not be sufficient to cover Charter’s losses or otherwise adequately compensate Charter for any disruptions to its business that may result. Any such significant service disruption could result in damage to Charter’s reputation and credibility, customer dissatisfaction and ultimately a loss of customers or revenue. Any significant loss of customers or revenue, or significant increase in costs of serving those customers, could adversely affect Charter’s growth, financial condition and results of operations.

Furthermore, Charter’s operating activities could be subject to risks caused by misappropriation, misuse, leakage, falsification or accidental release or loss of information maintained in its information technology systems and networks and those of its third-party vendors, including customer, personnel and vendor data. Charter provides certain confidential, proprietary and personal information to third parties in connection with its business, and there is a risk that this information may be compromised.

As a result of the increasing awareness concerning the importance of safeguarding personal information, the potential misuse of such information and legislation that has been adopted or is being considered regarding the protection, privacy and security of personal information, information-related risks are increasing, particularly for businesses like Charter’s that process, store and transmit large amount of data, including personal information for Charter’s customers. Charter could be exposed to significant costs if such risks were to materialize, and such events could damage Charter’s reputation, credibility and business and have a negative impact on its revenue. Charter could be subject to regulatory actions and claims made by consumers in private litigations involving privacy issues related to consumer data collection and use practices. Charter also could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to remedy any such security breach.

The risk described above may be increased during the period in which Charter integrates its people, processes and systems as a result of the Transactions.

For tax purposes, Charter could experience a deemed ownership change in the future that could limit its ability to use its tax loss carryforwards.

Charter had approximately $11.2 billion of federal tax net operating loss carryforwards resulting in a gross deferred tax asset of approximately $3.9 billion as of December 31, 2016. These losses resulted from the operations of Charter Communications Holdings Company, LLC (“Charter Holdco”) and its subsidiaries, and from loss carryforwards received as a result of the TWC Transaction. Federal tax net operating loss carryforwards expire in the years 2018 through 2035. In addition, Charter had state tax net operating loss carryforwards resulting in a gross deferred tax asset (net of federal tax benefit) of approximately $304 million as of December 31, 2016. State tax net operating loss carryforwards generally expire in the years 2017 through 2035.

In the past, Charter has experienced “ownership changes” as defined in Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”). In general, an “ownership change” occurs whenever the percentage of the stock of a corporation owned, directly or indirectly, by “5-percent stockholders” (within the meaning of Section 382 of the Code) increases by more than 50 percentage points over the lowest percentage of the stock of such corporation owned, directly or indirectly, by such “5-percent stockholders” at any time over the preceding three years. As a result, Charter is subject to an annual limitation on the use of its loss carryforwards which existed at November 30, 2009 for the first “ownership change,” those that existed at May 1, 2013 for the second “ownership change,” and those created at May 18, 2016 for the third "ownership change." The limitation on Charter’s ability to use its loss carryforwards, in conjunction with the loss carryforward expiration provisions, could reduce its ability to use a portion of its loss carryforwards to offset future taxable income, which could result in Charter being required to make material cash tax payments. Charter’s ability to make such income tax payments, if any, will depend at such time on its liquidity or its ability to raise additional capital, and/or on receipt of payments or distributions from Charter Holdco and its subsidiaries.

If Charter were to experience additional ownership changes in the future (as a result of purchases and sales of stock by its “5-percent stockholders,” new issuances or redemptions of its stock, certain acquisitions of its stock and issuances, redemptions, sales or other dispositions or acquisitions of interests in Charter’s “5-percent stockholders”), its ability to use its loss carryforwards could become subject to further limitations.

If Legacy Time Warner Cable’s Separation Transactions (as defined below), including the Distribution (as defined below), do not qualify as tax-free, either as a result of actions taken or not taken by Time Warner Cable or as a result of the failure of certain representations by Legacy Time Warner Cable to be true, Legacy Time Warner Cable has agreed to indemnify Time Warner Inc. for its taxes resulting from such disqualification, which would be significant.

As part of Legacy Time Warner Cable’s separation from Time Warner Inc. (“Time Warner”) in March 2009 (the “Separation”), Time Warner received a private letter ruling from the IRS and Time Warner and Time Warner Cable received opinions of tax counsel confirming that the transactions undertaken in connection with the Separation, including the transfer by a subsidiary of Time Warner of its 12.43% non-voting common stock interest in TW NY to Time Warner Cable in exchange for 80 million newly issued shares of Legacy Time Warner Cable’s Class A common stock, Legacy Time Warner Cable’s payment of a special cash dividend to holders of Legacy Time Warner Cable’s outstanding Class A and Class B common stock, the conversion of each share of Legacy Time Warner Cable’s outstanding Class A and Class B common stock into one share of Legacy Time Warner Cable common stock, and the pro-rata dividend of all shares of Legacy Time Warner Cable common stock held by Time Warner to holders of record of Time Warner’s common stock (the “Distribution” and, together with all of the transactions, the “Separation Transactions”), should generally qualify as tax-free to Time Warner and its stockholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The ruling and opinions rely on certain facts, assumptions, representations and undertakings from

Time Warner and Legacy Time Warner Cable regarding the past and future conduct of the companies’ businesses and other matters. If any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are incorrect or not otherwise satisfied, Time Warner and its stockholders may not be able to rely on the ruling or the opinions and could be subject to significant tax liabilities. Notwithstanding the private letter ruling and opinions, the IRS could determine on audit that the Separation Transactions should be treated as taxable transactions if it determines that any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are not correct or have been violated, or for other reasons, including as a result of significant changes in the stock ownership of Time Warner or Legacy Time Warner Cable after the Distribution.

Under the tax sharing agreement among Time Warner and Legacy Time Warner Cable, Legacy Time Warner Cable generally would be required to indemnify Time Warner against its taxes resulting from the failure of any of the Separation Transactions to qualify as tax-free as a result of (i) certain actions or failures to act by Legacy Time Warner Cable or (ii) the failure of certain representations made by Legacy Time Warner Cable to be true. In addition, even if Legacy Time Warner Cable bears no contractual responsibility for taxes related to a failure of the Separation Transactions to qualify for their intended tax treatment, Treasury regulation section 1.1502-6 imposes on Legacy Time Warner Cable several liability for all Time Warner federal income tax obligations relating to the period during which Legacy Time Warner Cable was a member of the Time Warner federal consolidated tax group, including the date of the Separation Transactions. Similar provisions may apply under foreign, state or local law. Absent Legacy Time Warner Cable causing the Separation Transactions to not qualify as tax-free, Time Warner has indemnified Legacy Time Warner Cable against such several liability arising from a failure of the Separation Transactions to qualify for their intended tax treatment.

If Charter is unable to retain key employees, its ability to manage its business could be adversely affected.

Charter’s operational results have depended, and its future results will depend, upon the retention and continued performance of its management team. Charter’s ability to retain and hire new key employees for management positions could be impacted adversely by the competitive environment for management talent in the broadband communications industry. The loss of the services of key members of management and the inability or delay in hiring new key employees could adversely affect Charter’s ability to manage its business and its future operational and financial results.

Charter’s inability to successfully acquire and integrate other businesses, assets, products or technologies could harm its operating results.

Charter continuously evaluates and pursues small and large acquisitions and strategic investments in businesses, products or technologies that it believes could complement or expand its business or otherwise offer growth or cost-saving opportunities. From time to time, Charter may enter into letters of intent with companies with which it is negotiating for potential acquisitions or investments, or as to which it is conducting due diligence. An investment in, or acquisition of, complementary businesses, products or technologies in the future could materially decrease the amount of Charter’s available cash or require it to seek additional equity or debt financing. Charter may not be successful in negotiating the terms of any potential acquisition, conducting thorough due diligence, financing the acquisition or effectively integrating the acquired business, product or technology into its existing business and operations. Charter’s due diligence may fail to identify all of the problems, liabilities or other shortcomings or challenges of an acquired business, product or technology, including issues related to intellectual property, product quality or product architecture, regulatory compliance practices, revenue recognition or other accounting practices, or employee or customer issues.

Additionally, in connection with any acquisitions Charter completes, including the recently completed Transactions, Charter may not achieve the growth, synergies or other financial and operating benefits Charter expected to achieve, and Charter may incur write-downs, impairment charges or unforeseen liabilities that could negatively affect its operating results or financial position or could otherwise harm its business. Even if Charter is able to integrate the business operations obtained in such transactions successfully, it is not possible to predict with certainty if or when these cost synergies, growth opportunities and benefits will occur, or the extent to which they actually will be achieved. For example, the benefits from such transactions may be offset by costs incurred in integrating new business operations or in obtaining or attempting to obtain regulatory approvals, or increased operating costs that may be experienced as a result of the transactions. Realization of any benefits and cost synergies could be affected by the factors described in other risk factors and a number of factors beyond Charter’s control, as applicable, including, without limitation, general economic conditions, increased operating costs, the response of competitors and vendors and regulatory developments. Further, contemplating or completing an acquisition and integrating an acquired business, product

or technology, individually or across multiple opportunities, could divert management and employee time and resources from other matters.

Charter’s business is subject to extensive governmental legislation and regulation, which could adversely affect its business.

Regulation of the cable industry has increased cable operators’ operational and administrative expenses and limited their revenue. Cable operators are subject to various laws and regulations including those covering the following:

Legislators and regulators at all levels of government frequently consider changing, and sometimes do change, existing statutes, rules, regulations, or interpretations thereof, or prescribe new ones. Any future legislative, judicial, regulatory or administrative actions may increase Charter’s costs or impose additional restrictions on Charter’s businesses. For example, with respect to Charter’s retail broadband Internet access service, the FCC has (1) reclassified the service as a Title II service, (2) applied certain existing Title II provisions and associated regulations to it, (3) forborne from applying a range of other existing Title II provisions and associated regulations, but to varying degrees indicated that this forbearance may be only temporary, and (4) issued new rules expanding disclosure requirements and prohibiting blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and unreasonable interference with the ability of end users and edge providers to reach each other. The order also subjected broadband providers’ Internet traffic exchange rates and practices to potential FCC oversight for the first time and created a mechanism for third parties to file complaints regarding these matters. These FCC actions were upheld on appeal in June 2016, although additional appeals remain pending. Congress or the FCC may modify or repeal these regulations.

As a result of the reclassification of broadband Internet access service as a Title II communications service, the FCC adopted new privacy and data security rules for common carriers, interconnected VoIP providers, and broadband service providers on October 27, 2016. The new rules replace the prior rules and extend broader privacy protections to broadband customers, as well as voice service customers. The new rules place heightened restrictions on the use of customer information that Internet service providers obtain from the provision of broadband Internet access service (including increased notice, consumer choice, and security), and are more restrictive than other existing privacy and security frameworks. The new rules are subject to additional regulatory approval and legal challenges.

Changes to existing statutes, rules, regulations, or interpretations thereof, or adoption of new ones, could have an adverse effect on Charter’s business.

There are ongoing efforts to amend or expand the federal, state, and local regulation of some of the services offered over Charter’s cable systems, which may compound the regulatory risks Charter already faces. For example, the FCC recently proposed new regulations that would affect Charter’s point to point transport service as well as other commercial data services (“business data services”). As a result, the FCC may price regulate business data services as common carriage services and adopt additional restrictions on contracting terms. The FCC also has considered adopting new navigation device rules, pursuant to Section 629 of the Communications Act, which directs the FCC to assure the availability of navigation devices (such as set-top boxes) from third party providers. In 2016, the FCC proposed new rules that would have required Charter to make disaggregated “information flows” available to set-top boxes and apps supplied by third parties. That proposal has not been adopted, but various parties may continue to advocate alternative regulatory approaches to reduce consumer dependency on traditional operator provided set-top boxes. The FCC also is considering the appropriate regulatory framework for VoIP service, including whether that service should be regulated under Title II.

Congress may consider legislation that could increase costs on the company, including (1) the adoption of new data security and cybersecurity legislation that could result in additional network and information security requirements for Charter’s business, (2) a change in corporate tax laws that could eliminate some of our current deductions, and (3) broadband subsidies to rural areas that could result in subsidized overbuilding of Charter’s more rural facilities.

If any of these pending laws and regulations are enacted, they could affect Charter’s operations and require significant expenditures. We cannot predict future developments in these areas, and we are already subject to Charter-specific conditions regarding certain Internet practices as a result of the FCC’s approval of the Transactions, but any changes to the regulatory framework for Charter’s Internet or VoIP services could have a negative impact on Charter’s business and results of operations.

It remains uncertain what rule changes, if any, will ultimately be adopted by Congress and the FCC and what operating or financial impact any such rules might have on Charter, including on its programming agreements, customer privacy and the user experience. In addition, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has been actively investigating certain industry practices of various companies and imposing forfeitures for alleged regulatory violations.

Charter’s cable system franchises are subject to non-renewal or termination. The failure to renew a franchise in one or more key markets could adversely affect its business.

Charter’s cable systems generally operate pursuant to franchises, permits, and similar authorizations issued by a state or local governmental authority controlling the public rights-of-way. Many franchises establish comprehensive facilities and service requirements, as well as specific customer service standards and monetary penalties for non-compliance. In many cases, franchises are terminable if the franchisee fails to comply with significant provisions set forth in the franchise agreement governing system operations. Franchises are generally granted for fixed terms and must be periodically renewed. Franchising authorities may resist granting a renewal if either past performance or the prospective operating proposal is considered inadequate. Franchise authorities often demand concessions or other commitments as a condition to renewal. In some instances, local franchises have not been renewed at expiration, and Charter has operated and is operating under either temporary operating agreements or without a franchise while negotiating renewal terms with the local franchising authorities.

There can be no assurance that Charter will be able to comply with all significant provisions of its franchise agreements and certain of its franchisers have from time to time alleged that Charter has not complied with these agreements. Additionally, although historically Charter has renewed its franchises without incurring significant costs, there can be no assurance that Charter will be able to renew, or to renew as favorably, its franchises in the future. A termination of or a sustained failure to renew a franchise in one or more key markets could adversely affect Charter’s business in the affected geographic area.

Charter’s cable system franchises are non-exclusive. Accordingly, local and state franchising authorities can grant additional franchises and create additional competition for Charter’s products, resulting in overbuilds, which could adversely affect results of operations.

Charter’s cable system franchises are non-exclusive. Consequently, local and state franchising authorities can grant additional franchises to competitors in the same geographic area or operate their own cable systems. In some cases, local government entities and municipal utilities may legally compete with Charter on more favorable terms. Potential competitors (like Google) have recently pursued and obtained local franchises that are more favorable than the incumbent operator’s franchise.

The FCC has adopted rules that streamline entry for new competitors (particularly those affiliated with telephone companies) and reduce franchising burdens for these new entrants. At the same time, a substantial number of states have adopted new franchising laws, principally designed to streamline entry for new competitors, and often provide advantages for these new entrants that are not immediately available to existing operators. Broadband delivery of video content is not necessarily subject to the same franchise obligations applicable to Charter’s traditional cable systems.

The FCC administers a program that collects Universal Service Fund contributions from telecommunications service providers and uses them to subsidize the provision of telecommunications services in high-cost areas and to low-income consumers and the provision of Internet and telecommunications services to schools, libraries and certain health care providers. A variety of regulatory changes may lead the FCC to expand the collection of Universal Service Fund contributions to encompass Internet service providers. The FCC has begun to redirect the expenditure of Universal Service Fund subsidies to broadband deployment in ways that could assist competitors.

Local franchise authorities have the ability to impose additional regulatory constraints on Charter’s business, which could further increase its expenses.

In addition to the franchise agreement, cable authorities in some jurisdictions have adopted cable regulatory ordinances that further regulate the operation of cable systems. This additional regulation increases the cost of operating Charter’s business. Local franchising authorities may impose new and more restrictive requirements. Local franchising authorities who are certified to regulate rates in the communities where they operate generally have the power to reduce rates and order refunds on the rates charged for basic service and equipment.

Tax legislation and administrative initiatives or challenges to Charter’s tax positions could adversely affect its results of operations and financial condition.

Charter operates cable systems in locations throughout the United States and, as a result, is subject to the tax laws and regulations of federal, state and local governments. From time to time, various legislative and/or administrative initiatives may be proposed that could adversely affect Charter’s tax positions. There can be no assurance that its effective tax rate or tax payments will not be adversely affected by these initiatives. Certain states and localities have imposed or are considering imposing new or additional taxes or fees on Charter’s services or changing the methodologies or base on which certain fees and taxes are computed. Potential changes include additional taxes or fees on Charter’s services which could impact its customers, combined reporting and other changes to general business taxes, central/unit-level assessment of property taxes and other matters that could increase Charter’s income, franchise, sales, use and/or property tax liabilities. In addition, federal, state and local tax laws and regulations are extremely complex and subject to varying interpretations. There can be no assurance that Charter’s tax positions will not be challenged by relevant tax authorities or that it would be successful in any such challenge.

Further regulation of the cable industry could impair Charter’s ability to raise rates to cover its increasing costs, resulting in increased losses.

Currently, rate regulation of cable systems is strictly limited to the basic service tier and associated equipment and installation activities, and the FCC revised its rules, in response to changed market conditions, to make it more difficult for local franchising authorities to assert rate regulation authority. However, the FCC and Congress continue to be concerned that cable rate increases are exceeding inflation. It is possible that either the FCC or Congress will further restrict the ability of cable system operators to implement rate increases for Charter’s video services or even for its Internet and voice services. Should this occur,

it would impede Charter’s ability to raise its rates. If Charter is unable to raise its rates in response to increasing costs, its financial results would be adversely impacted.

There has been legislative and regulatory interest in requiring companies that own multiple cable networks to make each of them available on a standalone, rather than a bundled basis to cable operators, and in requiring cable operators to offer historically bundled programming services on an à-la-carte basis to consumers. While any new regulation or legislation designed to enable cable operators to purchase programming on a stand-alone basis could be beneficial to Charter, any such new regulation or legislation that limits how Charter sells programming could adversely affect its business.

Changes in channel carriage regulations could impose significant additional costs on Charter.

Cable operators also face significant regulation of their video channel carriage. Charter can be required to devote substantial capacity to the carriage of programming that it might not carry voluntarily, including certain local broadcast signals; local public, educational and governmental access programming; and unaffiliated, commercial leased access programming (required channel capacity for use by persons unaffiliated with the cable operator who desire to distribute programming over a cable system). The FCC adopted revised commercial leased access rules which would dramatically reduce the rate Charter can charge for leasing this capacity and dramatically increase its administrative burdens, but these remain stayed while under appeal. Legislation has been introduced in Congress in the past that, if adopted, could impact Charter’s carriage of broadcast signals by eliminating the cable industry’s compulsory copyright license. The FCC also continues to consider changes to the rules affecting the relationship between programmers (including broadcasters) and multichannel video distributors, including potential loosening of media ownership rules. Future regulatory changes could disrupt existing programming commitments, interfere with Charter’s preferred use of limited channel capacity, increase its programming costs, and limit its ability to offer services that would maximize its revenue potential. It is possible that other legal restraints will be adopted limiting Charter’s discretion over programming decisions.

Charter’s voice service is subject to regulatory burdens which may increase, causing it to incur additional costs.

Charter offers voice communications services over its broadband network using VoIP services. The FCC has ruled that competitive telephone companies that support VoIP services, such as those Charter offers its customers, are entitled to interconnect with incumbent providers of traditional telecommunications services, which ensures that Charter’s VoIP services can compete in the market. The scope of these interconnection rights is being reviewed in a current FCC proceeding, which may affect Charter’s ability to compete in the provision of voice services or result in additional costs. The FCC has also declared that certain VoIP services are not subject to traditional state public utility regulation. The full extent of the FCC preemption of state and local regulation of VoIP services is not yet clear, and at least one state (Minnesota) has asserted jurisdiction over Charter’s VoIP services. Charter has filed a legal challenge to that jurisdictional assertion, which is now pending before a federal district court in Minnesota. Telecommunications companies generally are subject to other significant regulation which could also be extended to VoIP providers. The FCC has already extended certain traditional telecommunications carrier requirements to many VoIP providers such as Charter. If additional telecommunications regulations are applied to Charter’s VoIP service, it could cause Charter to incur additional costs.

Factors Relating to Skyhook

Skyhook faces competition from multiple sources.

Skyhook’s Wi-Fi location software solutions compete against (1) other satellite and terrestrial based location technology offerings, such as GPS, Observed Time Difference of Arrival and terrestrial beacons (2) other providers of Wi-Fi and cell-based positioning, such as Google and HERE, a former subsidiary of Nokia; and (3) other commercial enterprises’ in-house developed location solutions. There are also a number of new location technologies in development which may further increase competition to be a location solution for new devices and which may require Skyhook to meet more stringent accuracy standards. In addition, Skyhook’s context services compete against other geofencing and location data offerings from other niche location companies, such as Factual and Foursquare.

Certain of Skyhook’s competitors are substantially larger than Skyhook and have greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources. Thus, many of these large enterprises are in a better position to withstand any significant reduction in

spending by customers in its markets, and often have broader product lines and market focus, have greater brand recognition and may not be as susceptible to downturns in a single market. These competitors may also be able to bundle their products together (such as with mapping software) to meet the needs of a particular customer, may be able to respond more rapidly to new or emerging technologies or changes in customer requirements and may be capable of delivering more complete solutions than Skyhook is able to provide. If large enterprises that currently do not compete directly with Skyhook choose to enter its markets by acquisition or otherwise, competition would likely intensify. In addition, the growth of new location technologies currently in development may further increase competition to provide these new technologies. If Skyhook is not able to compete successfully for customers, its financial position may be materially adversely affected.

Skyhook is investing in a number of new markets, products and services, but those efforts are still in the early stages and there is no guarantee that such investments will be successful.

In addition to its traditional Wi-Fi location software service, Skyhook is also investing significant capital in the development, introduction and sale of its contextual products.  Investing in these new markets and technologies – many of which are early stage – necessarily involves significant risks and uncertainties, including the possibility that revenues from such investments will be insufficient to offset any new liabilities assumed and expenses, an inadequate return of capital on its investments, and the distraction of management and Skyhook from current operations.  Such risks and uncertainties could cause Skyhook to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of such investments and incur unanticipated liabilities.

Skyhook’s research, development and other investments in new technologies, products or services may not succeed due to, among other things: improvements in alternate technologies in ways that reduce the advantages it anticipates from its investments; competitors’ products or services being more cost effective, having more capabilities or fewer limitations or being brought to market faster than Skyhook’s new products and services; and competitors having longer operating histories in industry segments that are new to Skyhook. Skyhook may also underestimate the costs of or overestimate the future operating income and/or margins that could result from these investments, and these investments may not, or may take many years to, generate material returns. If Skyhook’s new technologies, products or services are not successful, or are not successful in the time frame Skyhook anticipates, Skyhook may incur significant costs and/or asset impairments, its business may not grow as anticipated, its revenues and/or margins may be negatively impacted and/or its reputation may be harmed.

The revenue of Skyhook depends on a limited number of customers, and the loss of its more significant customers could adversely affect its business.

Skyhook derives a significant amount of its revenue from a limited number of customers, and it is anticipated that these customers will continue to represent a significant portion of the revenue of Skyhook. Because Skyhook depends on a limited number of customers, the loss of any combination of these customers could have a material adverse effect on its operating results. Certain of these customers may fail to renew their contracts with Skyhook from time to time, creating additional risk with respect to the potential loss of revenue from these customers. The loss or reduction of business from any combination of these existing customers of Skyhook would materially adversely affect revenue, financial condition and results of operations of Skyhook.

The revenue of Skyhook depends on the performance of device manufacturers, application developers and other resellers of its technology.

Skyhook does not sell its Wi-Fi location software solution or context technology directly to end consumers. Instead, Skyhook provides location and context enablement services that integrate with devices, applications and advertising campaigns that are created or distributed by third parties. Accordingly, Skyhook’s future growth significantly depends on third parties successfully incorporating its technology, products and/or services into new device types used in industries beyond traditional cellular communications, such as industrial Internet of Things, connected home and wearable uses.  Skyhook also depends on its customers, resellers and licensees to develop products and services with value-added features to drive sales and demand. There can be no assurance that such efforts will be successful.

Skyhook reported a net operating loss for the year as a result of its investments in new products and markets, and there is no assurance it will be able to attain profitable operations.

Skyhook reported a net operating loss for the year due to, in part, higher operating expenses related to the aforementioned investments in new markets, products and services.  These new investments are intended to replace the revenue that Skyhook lost from the decline of its Uplink-Time Difference of Arrival business and the loss of another large Skyhook customer, as well as to further grow and diversify Skyhook’s revenue stream in a competitive technological environment.  There can be no assurance that these investments will drive the revenue growth that is necessary to replace contracts that were lost or that they will be sufficient to achieve profitability.

The underlying business and technology of Skyhook depends on the commercial deployment of wireless and other communications technologies and its ability to continue to drive customer demand for Skyhook products and services in a rapidly evolving and developing industry.

Skyhook develops, patents and commercializes products and services based on wireless and other communications technologies. Skyhook depends on third parties to deploy these wireless technologies and networks in order to operate and deploy Skyhook’s products and services. If third parties do not deploy wireless networks or other communication technologies used by Skyhook to operate its location services, or if new technologies or standards are introduced, it could have a material adverse effect on Skyhook’s results of operations and financial condition.

As a result of this possibility, Skyhook must stay abreast of rapidly evolving technological developments and offerings (such as the introduction of LoRa Wireless RF technology, a long range, low power consumption and data transmission protocol for Internet of Things devices) to remain competitive and increase the utility of their products and services, and it must be able to incorporate new technologies into its products and services in order to address the needs of its customers. The failure to successfully introduce new or enhanced products and services on a timely and cost-competitive basis that complies with evolving industry standards and regulations or the inability to continue to market existing products on a cost-competitive basis could also have a material adverse effect on Skyhook’s results of operations and financial condition.

In addition, in order to successfully develop and market certain of Skyhook’s products and services, Skyhook may be required to enter into technology development or licensing agreements with third parties. Skyhook cannot provide assurances that it will be able to timely enter into necessary technology development or licensing agreements on reasonable terms, or at all.

Actions taken by Skyhook to protect its intellectual property rights, such as through a licensing program or through litigation to enforce its intellectual property rights, could result in substantial costs, and Skyhook’s ability to compete could be harmed if it fails to take such actions or is unsuccessful in doing so.

Skyhook relies primarily on a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets, employee and third-party nondisclosure agreements, licensing arrangements and other methods to protect its intellectual property in the United States and internationally. Skyhook has numerous patents issued, allowed and pending in the United States and/or in foreign jurisdictions which primarily relate to products and the technology used in connection with the products and services it offers.  Skyhook cannot be certain that the steps it has taken, or may take in the future, will prevent the misappropriation or unauthorized use of its proprietary information and technologies, particularly in foreign countries where international treaties, organizations and foreign laws may not protect its proprietary intellectual property rights as fully or as readily as United States laws or where the enforcement of such laws may be lacking or ineffective. Any pending patent applications and any future applications may not be approved, and any issued patents may not provide Skyhook with competitive advantages, or such issued patents may be challenged, invalidated, infringed, circumvented or misappropriated by third parties.  

While Skyhook believes that it has a defensible and useful patent portfolio and it actively seeks to generate revenue through the licensing of its patents and other assets, it cannot assure you that its attempts to secure future patent licenses will be successful or that it will generate meaningful revenue from licensing. In addition, in connection with actively seeking to license and enforce its patents and other intellectual property, Skyhook has in the past been required and may be required in the future to initiate litigation in order to assert claims of infringement of its intellectual property, enforce patents issued or licensed to them, protect their trade secrets or know-how or to determine the scope and/or validity of a third party’s patent or other proprietary rights. Such litigation may involve significant costs and any such litigation could also result in rulings impacting the validity or

enforceability of Skyhook’s patents, which could result in new or increased competition that could have a material adverse effect on Skyhook’s results of operations and financial condition. There can be no assurances that Skyhook would be successful in any such litigation. 

Skyhook could face intellectual property lawsuits from competitors or non-practicing entities.

Other companies, including some of Skyhook’s largest competitors, hold intellectual property rights in its industry which could inhibit Skyhook’s ability to introduce new products and services unless it secures necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms. Furthermore, as the number of issued patents increases and as competition intensifies, the volume of intellectual property infringement claims and lawsuits may also increase. Skyhook may in the future become involved in lawsuits or other legal proceedings alleging patent infringement or other intellectual property rights violations by Skyhook or parties that it has agreed to indemnify for certain claims of infringement. Third parties may also claim that employees of Skyhook have misappropriated or divulged their former employers’ trade secrets or confidential information. Any such litigation, regardless of outcome, could subject Skyhook to significant costs or liabilities or require it to cease using proprietary third party technology and, consequently, could have a material adverse effect on its results of operations and financial condition. If infringement claims are made against Skyhook or its products are found to infringe a third parties’ patent or intellectual property, Skyhook or one of its indemnitees may have to seek a license to the third parties’ patent or other intellectual property rights. However, Skyhook may not be able to obtain licenses at all or on terms acceptable to it particularly from its competitors. If Skyhook or one of its indemnitees is unable to obtain a license from a third party for technology that Skyhook uses or that is used in one of its products, Skyhook could be subject to substantial liabilities or have to suspend or discontinue the manufacture and sale of one or more of its products. It may also have to make royalty or other payments, cross license technology or make payments pursuant to third party indemnitees.

Changes to the regulatory environment in which Skyhook’s customers operate may negatively impact their business.

In the U.S., the FCC regulates wireless carriers, wireless services and E-9-1-1 requirements. FCC regulatory actions affecting wireless carriers and services and E-9-1-1 requirements may adversely affect the wireless phone and device location technology and the positioning services offered by Skyhook. The E-9-1-1 location accuracy requirements originally adopted by the FCC in 1996 applied only to 9-1-1 calls originating outdoors. However, because of the increased use of wireless phones indoors, in 2015, the FCC adopted indoor location accuracy rules its Fourth Report and Order in its E-9-1-1 location accuracy proceeding. Under the FCC’s rules, all wireless providers generally must provide horizontal location information for 40% of all wireless 9-1-1 calls within 2 years of the effective date of the Fourth Report and Order (April 30, 2015), 50% within 3 years of the effective date, 70% within 5 years of the effective date and 80 % within 6 years of the effective date. Wireless providers also must meet specific requirements for the provision of vertical location information for wireless 9-1-1 calls within three-to-eight years of the effective date.  Smaller wireless providers may have additional time to comply with certain of the horizontal and vertical benchmarks.

Skyhook will be actively competing for carrier contracts required to comply with the regulations. Even if Skyhook is able to produce and provide products and services compliant with these regulations, until information regarding any compliant products and services offered by Skyhook’s competitors becomes available, much uncertainty exists as to whether Skyhook will be able to successfully compete for carrier contracts. In addition, due to the aforementioned regulatory changes, uncertainty exists as to the scope and size of revenue from such contracts.

Other U.S. regulatory agencies also may seek to regulate aspects of the services provided by Skyhook. Further, to the extent Skyhook operates abroad, it is subject to potential action by foreign regulatory agencies. Skyhook cannot anticipate how such additional regulation by the FCC, another U.S. Government agency, or any foreign regulator will affect its business.

The success of Skyhook depends on the integrity of its systems and infrastructures.

Skyhook relies on its enterprise resource planning systems to support such critical business operations as processing sales orders and invoicing, purchasing and supply chain management, human resources and financial reporting. Portions of Skyhook’s IT infrastructure may experience interruptions of service or produce errors in connection with systemic failures, systems integration or migration work that takes place from time to time. Skyhook may not be successful in implementing new systems and transitioning data, which could cause business disruptions and be more expensive, time consuming, disruptive and

resource-intensive. If Skyhook is unable to successfully implement major systems initiatives and maintain critical information systems, it could encounter difficulties that could have a material adverse impact on its business.

Furthermore, the businesses of Skyhook depend on delivering products and services to customers of consistently high quality and reliability. If the services offered by Skyhook were to fail or not to perform as expected, its services could be rendered ineffective, and any significant or systemic service failure could also result in a loss of customer confidence, as well as reputational damage, resulting in a material adverse impact on Skyhook’s business.

Privacy concerns relating to the technology of Skyhook could damage its reputation and deter current and potential users from using its products and applications.

Concerns about the practices of Skyhook with regard to the collection, use, disclosure, or security of location information or other privacy related matters, even if unfounded, could damage its reputations and operating results. While Skyhook strives to comply with all applicable data protection laws and regulations, as well as its own posted privacy policies, any failure or perceived failure to comply may result in proceedings or actions against Skyhook by government entities or others, or could cause it to lose users and customers, which could potentially have an adverse effect on Skyhook’s business.

Regulatory authorities around the world are considering a number of legislative and regulatory proposals concerning data protection. In addition, the interpretation and application of consumer and data protection laws in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere is often uncertain and in flux. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with the data practices of Skyhook. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, this could result in an order requiring changes in the data practices of Skyhook, which could have an adverse effect on the business and results of operations of Skyhook. Complying with these various laws could result in the incurrence of substantial costs or require changes to business practices in a manner adverse to the business of Skyhook.

Security breaches and other disruptions, including as a result of cyber attacks, could compromise the information collected and stored by Skyhook and expose it to liability, which would cause business and reputational damage.

In the ordinary course of business, Skyhook collects and stores sensitive data, including intellectual property, its proprietary business information and that of its customers and suppliers, and location information, in its facilities and on its networks. The secure processing, maintenance and transmission of this information is important to its operations. Despite security measures in place at Skyhook, its information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to attacks by hackers or breached due to employee error or other disruptions. Any such breach could compromise its networks and the information stored there could be accessed, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. Any such access, disclosure or other loss of information could result in legal claims or proceedings, disruption of operations, reputational damage, and cause a loss of confidence, which could adversely affect Skyhook’s business and revenue.

Factors Relating to our Common Stock and the Securities Market

We expect our stock price to continue to be directly affected by the results of operation of Charter and developments in its business.

The fair value of our investment in Charter, on an as-converted basis, was approximately $15.6 billion as of December 31, 2016, which represents all of our total market value. As a result, our stock price will continue to be directly affected by the results of operations of Charter and the developments in its business.

Although our Series B common stock is quoted on the OTC Markets, there is no meaningful trading market for the stock.

Our Series B common stock is not widely held, with approximately 96% of the outstanding shares beneficially owned by John C. Malone, the Chairman of the board and a director of our company. Although it is quoted on the OTC Markets, it is sparsely traded and does not have an active trading market. The OTC Markets tend to be highly illiquid, in part, because there is no national quotation system by which potential investors can track the market price of shares except through information received or generated by a limited number of broker-dealers that make markets in particular stocks. There is also a greater chance of market volatility for securities that trade on the OTC Markets as opposed to a national exchange or quotation system. This volatility is due to a variety of factors, including a lack of readily available price quotations, lower trading volume, absence of consistent administrative supervision of "bid" and "ask" quotations, and market conditions. Each share of the Series B common stock is convertible, at any time at the option of the holder, into one share of our Series A common stock, which is listed and traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "LBRDA."

It may be difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if doing so may be beneficial to our stockholders.

Certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company that a stockholder may consider favorable. These provisions include the following:

In addition, John C. Malone currently beneficially owns shares representing the power to direct approximately 47% of the aggregate voting power in our company, due to his beneficial ownership of approximately 96% of the outstanding shares of our Series B common stock as of January 31, 2017.

Holders of a single series of our common stock may not have any remedies if an action by our directors has an adverse effect on only that series of our common stock.

Principles of Delaware law and the provisions of our certificate of incorporation may protect decisions of our board of directors that have a disparate impact upon holders of any single series of our common stock. Under Delaware law, the board of directors has a duty to act with due care and in the best interests of all of our stockholders, including the holders of all series of our common stock. Principles of Delaware law established in cases involving differing treatment of multiple classes or series of stock provide that a board of directors owes an equal duty to all common stockholders regardless of class or series and does not have separate or additional duties to any group of stockholders. As a result, in some circumstances, our directors may be required to make a decision that is viewed as adverse to the holders of one series of our common stock. Under the principles of Delaware law and the business judgment rule, holders may not be able to successfully challenge decisions that they believe have a disparate impact upon the holders of one series of our stock if our board of directors is disinterested and independent with respect to the action taken, is adequately informed with respect to the action taken and acts in good faith and in the honest belief that the board is acting in the best interest of all of our stockholders.

Item 1B.  Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2.  Properties.

Liberty Broadband

In connection with the Broadband Spin-Off, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty entered into a facilities sharing agreement with Liberty Broadband, pursuant to which Liberty Broadband shares office facilities with Liberty, Liberty Interactive, TripCo and ExpediaCo located at 12300 Liberty Boulevard, Englewood, Colorado, 80112.

Charter

Charter’s principal physical assets consist of cable distribution plant and equipment, including signal receiving, encoding and decoding devices, headend reception facilities, distribution systems, and customer premise equipment for each of its cable systems.

Charter’s cable plant and related equipment are generally attached to utility poles under pole rental agreements with local public utilities and telephone companies, and in certain locations are buried in underground ducts or trenches. Charter owns or leases real property for signal reception sites, and owns its service vehicles.

Charter’s subsidiaries generally lease space for business offices. Charter’s headend and tower locations are located on owned or leased parcels of land, and Charter generally owns the towers on which its equipment is located. Charter leases space for its corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

The physical components of Charter’s cable systems require maintenance as well as periodic upgrades to support the new services and products Charter introduces. Charter believes that its properties are generally in good operating condition and are suitable for its business operations.

Skyhook

Skyhook maintains corporate offices in two locations:  Boston, Massachusetts and Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Skyhook leases a 37,088 square foot facility in Berwyn, which expires at the end of 2017 and a 7,900 square foot facility in Boston, which expires in January 2018.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings  

Charter - New York Litigation 

In connection with the formerly proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, eight putative class action complaints were filed on behalf of purported Time Warner Cable stockholders in the New York Supreme Court (the “NY Actions”) and the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware. These complaints named as defendants Time Warner Cable, Comcast Tango Acquisition Sub, Inc. and their respective officers and directors. The complaints generally alleged, among other things, that the members of the Time Warner Cable and Comcast boards of directors breached their fiduciary duties to their respective stockholders during merger negotiations by entering into the merger agreement and approving the merger, and that Time Warner Cable, Comcast and the holding company created to merge the companies aided and abetted such breaches of fiduciary duties. The complaints further alleged that the joint proxy statement/prospectus filed by Comcast with the SEC on March 20, 2014 was misleading or omitted certain material information. The complaints sought unspecified declatory and equitable relief, compensatory damages in an unspecified amount, injunctive relief and costs and fees. The parties entered into a settlement agreement, conditioned on the consummation of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. Now that the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger agreement has been terminated, this settlement agreement is no longer operative.

On June 29, 2015, the parties in the NY Actions filed a stipulation agreeing that plaintiffs could file a Second Consolidated Class Action Complaint (the “Second Amended Complaint”), and dismissing the actions with prejudice as to Comcast and Tango Acquisition Sub, Inc. After the court so ordered the stipulation, the plaintiffs in the NY Actions filed the Second Amended Complaint on July 1, 2015. The Second Amended Complaint named as defendants Time Warner Cable, the

members of the Time Warner Cable board of directors, Charter and the merger subsidiaries. The Second Amended Complaint generally alleged, among other things, that the members of the Time Warner Cable board of directors breached their fiduciary duties to Time Warner Cable stockholders during the Charter merger negotiations and by entering into the merger agreement and approving the mergers, and that Charter and its subsidiaries aided and abetted such breaches of fiduciary duties. The complaint sought, among other relief, an injunction against the stockholder vote on the mergers, compensatory damages in an unspecified amount, unspecified declatory and equitable relief and costs and attorneys’ fees.

On September 9, 2015, the parties entered into a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) to settle the action. Pursuant to the MOU, defendants issued certain supplemental disclosures relating to the mergers on a Form 8-K, and plaintiffs agreed to release with prejudice all claims that could have been asserted against defendants in connection with the mergers. The settlement is conditioned on, among other things, approval by the New York Supreme Court. That court gave preliminary approval to the settlement in October 2016. A hearing to consider final approval of this settlement is set for March 2017. In the event that the New York Supreme Court does not approve the settlement, the defendants intend to defend against any further litigation.

Charter and Liberty Broadband - Delaware Litigation 

On August 21, 2015, a purported stockholder of Legacy Charter filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery (the “Court”), on behalf of a putative class of Legacy Charter stockholders, challenging the Transactions. The lawsuit is captioned Sciabacucchi v. Liberty Broadband Corp., C.A. No. 11418-VCG (the “Delaware Action”), and names as defendants Liberty Broadband, Legacy Charter, the board of directors of Charter, and Charter. Plaintiff alleged that the Transactions improperly benefit Liberty Broadband at the expense of other Legacy Charter stockholders, and that Legacy Charter issued a false and misleading proxy statement in connection with the Transactions. Plaintiff requested, among other things, that the Court enjoin the September 21, 2015 special meeting of Legacy Charter stockholders at which Legacy Charter stockholders were asked to vote on the Transactions until the defendants disclosed certain information relating to Legacy Charter and the Transactions. The disclosures demanded by the plaintiff included (i) certain unlevered free cash flow projections for Legacy Charter and (ii) a Form of Proxy and Right of First Refusal Agreement by and among Liberty Broadband, A/N, Legacy Charter and Charter, which was referenced in the description of the Stockholders Agreement. On September 9, 2015, Legacy Charter issued supplemental disclosures containing unlevered free cash flow projections for Legacy Charter. In return, the plaintiff agreed its disclosure claims were moot and withdrew its application to enjoin the Legacy Charter stockholder vote on the Transactions. Charter and Liberty Broadband have filed, and the parties have fully briefed, motions to dismiss this litigation but the Court has not yet ruled upon it.  Charter and Liberty Broadband deny any liability, believe that they have a substantial defenses, and intend to vigorously defend this suit.

Other Charter Proceedings 

The California Attorney General and the Alameda County, California District Attorney are investigating whether certain of Legacy Charter’s waste disposal policies, procedures and practices are in violation of the California Business and Professions Code and the California Health and Safety Code. That investigation was commenced in January 2014. A similar investigation involving Legacy TWC was initiated in February 2012. Charter is cooperating with these investigations. While Charter is unable to predict the outcome of these investigations, it does not expect that the outcome will have a material effect on its operations, financial condition, or cash flows.

On December 19, 2011, Sprint Communications Company L.P. (“Sprint”) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas alleging that Legacy TWC infringes 12 U.S. patents purportedly relating to VoIP services. Over the course of the litigation Sprint dismissed its claims relating to five of the asserted patents, and shortly before trial Sprint dropped its claims with respect to two additional patents. A trial on the remaining five patents is scheduled to begin on February 13, 2017. The plaintiff is seeking monetary damages of approximately $150 million. The plaintiff is also claiming that TWC willfully infringed the patents, and may seek up to treble damages as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. Charter intends to vigorously defend against this lawsuit. However, no assurances can be made that such defenses would ultimately be successful. At this time, Charter does not expect that the outcome of this litigation will have a material adverse effect on its operations, financial condition or cash flows although the ultimate outcome of the litigation cannot be predicted.

On October 23, 2015, the New York Office of the Attorney General (the “NY AG”) began an investigation of Legacy TWC's advertised Internet speeds and other Internet product advertising. On February 1, 2017, the NY AG filed suit in the Supreme Court for the State of New York alleging that Legacy TWC’s advertising of Internet speeds was false and misleading.

The suit seeks restitution and injunctive relief. Charter denies that Legacy TWC engaged in any wrongdoing and, the Company intends to defend itself vigorously. However, no assurances can be made that such defenses would ultimately be successful. At this time, Charter does not expect that the outcome of this litigation will have a material adverse effect on its operations, financial condition or cash flows.

Charter is a defendant or co-defendant in several unrelated lawsuits involving alleged infringement of various patents relating to various aspects of its businesses. Other industry participants are also defendants in certain of these cases. In the event that a court ultimately determines that Charter infringes on any intellectual property rights, Charter may be subject to substantial damages and/or an injunction that could require Charter or its vendors to modify certain products and services it offers to its subscribers, as well as negotiate royalty or license agreements with respect to the patents at issue. While Charter believes the lawsuits are without merit and intends to defend the actions vigorously, no assurance can be given that any adverse outcome would not be material to Charter’s consolidated financial condition, results of operations, or liquidity.

Charter is also party to other lawsuits, claims and regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of conducting its business, including lawsuits claiming violation of anti-trust laws, wage and hour laws and breach of contract by vendors, including by three programmers. The ultimate outcome of these other legal matters pending against Charter or its subsidiaries cannot be predicted, and although such lawsuits and claims are not expected individually to have a material adverse effect on our or Charters’ consolidated financial condition, results of operations, or liquidity, such lawsuits could have in the aggregate a material adverse effect on ours or Charter’s consolidated financial condition, results of operations, or liquidity. Whether or not Charter ultimately prevails in any particular lawsuit or claim, litigation can be time consuming and costly and injure its reputation.

Skyhook 

In the normal course of business, Skyhook provides indemnification to certain customers against specified claims that might arise against those customers from the use of Skyhook’s products. During October 2015, Skyhook made a payment of $55 thousand to settle an indemnification claim. To date, Skyhook has not made any significant reimbursements to any of its customers for any losses related to these indemnification provisions. Although four such claims are currently pending, no legal proceedings have been instituted with respect to such claims. Skyhook is unable to estimate the maximum potential impact of these indemnification provisions on its future results of operations, although Skyhook’s liabilities in certain of those arrangements are customarily limited in various respects, including monetarily.

Item 4.  Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

 

 

PART II

Item 5.Market for Registrant's Common Equity and Related Stockholder Matters of Equity Securities.

Market Information

Each series of our common stock has been outstanding since November 2014.  Our Series A and Series C common stock trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbols “LBRDA” and “LBRDK,” respectively.  Our Series B common stock is eligible for quotation on the OTC Markets under the symbol “LBRDB”, but it is not actively traded.  The following table sets forth the quarterly range of high and low sales prices of shares of each series of our common stock for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015.  With respect to our Series B common stock, this information represents inter-dealer prices without dealer mark-ups, mark-downs or commissions, and may not be indicative of the value of the common stock or the existence of an active market.

 

Holders

As of January 31, 2017, there were 865, 67 and 1,109 holders of our Series A, Series B and Series C common stock, respectively.  The foregoing numbers of record holders do not include the number of stockholders whose shares are held nominally by banks, brokerage houses or other institutions, but include each such institution as one shareholder.

Dividends

We have not paid any cash dividends on our common stock, and we have no present intention of so doing.  Payment of cash dividends, if any, in the future will be determined by our board of directors in light of our earnings, financial condition and other relevant considerations.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans

Information required by this item is incorporated by reference to our definitive proxy statement for our 2017 Annual Meeting of stockholders.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer

There were no repurchases of Liberty Broadband Series A, B or C common stock during the period. During the three months ended December 31, 2016, 1,190 shares of Liberty Broadband Series A common stock and 2,376 shares of Liberty Broadband

Series C common stock were surrendered by certain of our officers and employees to pay withholding taxes and other deductions in connection with the vesting of their restricted stock.

 

Item 6.Selected Financial Data.

The following tables present selected historical information relating to our financial condition and results of operations for the past five years. The following data should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements.

 

Item 7.  Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis provides information concerning our results of operations and financial condition. This discussion should be read in conjunction with our accompanying consolidated financial statements and the notes thereto. Additionally, see note 3 in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for an overview of new accounting standards that we have adopted or that we plan to adopt that have had or may have an impact on our financial statements.

Overview

During May 2014, the board of directors of Liberty Media Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Liberty”) authorized management to pursue a plan to spin-off to its stockholders common stock of a wholly-owned subsidiary, Liberty Broadband Corporation (“Liberty Broadband”), and to distribute subscription rights to acquire shares of Liberty Broadband’s common stock (the “Broadband Spin-Off”). At the time of the Broadband Spin-Off, Liberty Broadband was comprised of, (i) Liberty’s former interest in Charter Communications, Inc. (“Legacy Charter”), (ii) Liberty’s former wholly-owned subsidiary TruePosition, Inc. (“TruePosition”), (iii) Liberty’s former minority equity investment in Time Warner Cable, Inc. (“Time Warner Cable”, “TWC”, “Legacy Time Warner” or “Legacy TWC”), (iv) certain deferred tax liabilities, as well as liabilities related to the Time Warner Cable written call options and (v) initial indebtedness, pursuant to margin loans entered into prior to the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off. The Broadband Spin-Off was accounted for at historical cost due to the pro rata nature of the distribution to holders of Liberty common stock.

In the Broadband Spin-Off, record holders of Liberty Series A, Series B and Series C common stock received one-fourth of a share of the corresponding series of Liberty Broadband common stock for each share of Liberty common stock held by them, with cash paid in lieu of fractional shares. In addition, following the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off, on December 10, 2014, stockholders received a subscription right to acquire one share of Series C Liberty Broadband common stock for every five shares of Liberty Broadband common stock they held at a per share subscription price of $40.36, which was a 20% discount to the 20-trading day volume weighted average trading price of the Series C Liberty Broadband common stock following the completion of the Broadband Spin-Off. The rights offering was fully subscribed on January 9, 2015, with 17,277,224 shares of Series C common stock issued to those rightsholders exercising basic and, as applicable, oversubscription privileges. The subscription rights were issued to raise capital for general corporate purposes of Liberty Broadband. The Broadband Spin-Off and rights offering were intended to be tax-free to stockholders of Liberty. During September 2015, Liberty entered into a closing agreement with the IRS which provided that the Broadband Spin-Off qualified for tax-free treatment.

On May 18, 2016, Time Warner Cable merged with Legacy Charter (the “Time Warner Cable Merger”). In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger, Legacy Charter underwent a corporate reorganization, resulting in CCH I, LLC, a former subsidiary of Legacy Charter (“Charter”), becoming the new publicly traded parent company. Also on May 18, 2016, the previously announced acquisition of Bright House Networks, LLC (“Bright House” or “Legacy Bright House”) from Advance/Newhouse Partnership (“A/N”) by Charter (the “Bright House Transaction”) was completed. In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction, Liberty Broadband entered into certain agreements with Legacy Charter, Charter, Liberty Interactive Corporation (“Liberty Interactive”) and Time Warner Cable. In connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction (collectively, the “Transactions”), Liberty Broadband exchanged its shares of Time Warner Cable for shares of Charter and purchased additional shares of Charter. As a result, and pursuant to proxy agreements entered into with Liberty Interactive and A/N, Liberty Broadband controls 25.01% of the aggregate voting power of Charter. In addition, in connection with the Time Warner Cable Merger, Liberty Broadband funded its purchase of shares of Charter Class A common stock using proceeds of $4.4 billion related to subscriptions for approximately 78.3 million newly issued shares of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock.

The financial information represents a combination of the historical financial information of Skyhook, Liberty Broadband’s interest in Charter, Liberty’s former minority equity investment in Time Warner Cable and certain deferred tax liabilities. This financial information refers to the combination of the aforementioned subsidiary, investments, and financial instruments, as “Liberty Broadband,” “the Company,” “us,” “we” and “our” here and in the notes to the consolidated financial statements.

Strategies and Challenges

Executive Summary

Skyhook Holding, Inc. (formerly known as TruePosition, Inc.) was originally incorporated on November 24, 1992 to provide technology for locating wireless phones and other mobile devices. Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s location offering was a passive network overlay system using its patented Uplink-Time Difference of Arrival (“U-TDOA”) technology (“U-TDOA service”) and was used primarily to provide E-9-1-1 services domestically and to enhance services in support of commercial applications, national security and law enforcement worldwide. In February 2014, Skyhook Holding, Inc. acquired Skyhook Wireless, Inc., which operates a global location network containing billions of geolocated Wi-Fi access points and cell towers that serve as the reference infrastructure for providing location services to wireless phones and other mobile devices (“Wi-Fi location software solution”).  Skyhook Wireless, Inc.’s Wi-Fi location software solution determines the location of a wireless device by matching received Wi-Fi or cellular signals to the known locations of access points and cell towers contained in a proprietary database maintained by Skyhook Wireless, Inc. These Wi-Fi location software solutions are used primarily by mobile device makers, wireless carriers, and asset tracking platforms to understand the precise geographic location and movement of a mobile device.  In addition to Wi-Fi location software solutions, Skyhook (as defined below) also provides location-based context services that provide not just the precise latitude and longitude of a given mobile device, but also the real world context of that location. For example, Skyhook can provide customers with an understanding of the type of location (e.g., a fast-food restaurant or an airport), the ability to provide notifications and triggers upon the entry or exit of a device from a pre-defined location, and insights based on historical device locations. These location-based context solutions provide a way for application developers, enterprises, and advertisers to understand consumers’ mobile behavior and to improve their user experience, while also providing companies with the ability to reach and measure their audiences in new and relevant ways.

In 2015, one of Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s customers, a wireless carrier utilizing the legacy U-TDOA service which accounted for approximately 80% - 90% of consolidated revenue at the time, gave notice that it planned to discontinue use of the U-TDOA service and did not intend to renew its contract, which expired on December 31, 2015. The loss of this customer had a material adverse effect on Skyhook Holding, Inc.’s business. As a result of the loss of this wireless carrier customer, changes in the regulatory environment and a shift in the overall market for the legacy U-TDOA service, Skyhook Holdings Inc. ceased making further investment in its U-TDOA products. In 2016, Skyhook Holding, Inc. and Skyhook Wireless, Inc. combined operations in order to focus on the development and sale of the suite of location and context products  and are referred to collectively herein as “Skyhook.”     

For both its location and context solutions, Skyhook earns revenue from device makers, application providers, enterprises and advertising companies through the integration of Skyhook’s technology, the provision of location services and via the sale of data. Skyhook also earns revenue through entering into licensing agreements with companies to utilize its software. Although the revenue generated from license agreements has thus far been one-time in nature, Skyhook anticipates a recurring revenue stream from its licensing agreements in future periods.

Charter is the second largest cable operator in the United States and a leading broadband communications services company providing video, Internet and voice services to approximately 26.2 million residential and business customers at December 31, 2016. In addition, Charter sells video and online advertising inventory to local, regional and national advertising customers and fiber-delivered communications and managed information technology (“IT”) solutions to large enterprise customers.  Liberty acquired its interest in Charter on May 1, 2013. At December 31, 2016, Liberty Broadband owned approximately 54.1 million shares of Charter Class A common stock, representing an approximate 20% ownership interest in the issued and outstanding shares. Upon the closing of the Time Warner Cable Merger, the Second Amended and Restated Stockholders Agreement, dated as of May 23, 2015, by and among Legacy Charter, Charter, Liberty Broadband and A/N, as amended (the “Stockholders Agreement”), became fully effective.  Under the Stockholders Agreement, we have the right to designate three directors to the Charter board of directors, subject to certain exclusions and requirements. Charter has agreed to cause the appointment of at least one of our designees to serve on the nominating and corporate governance, finance, audit and compensation and benefits committees of the board, provided they meet the independence and other qualifications for membership on those committees.

Key Drivers of Revenue

Skyhook earns revenue from device makers, application providers, enterprises and advertising companies through the integration of its software and technology, the provision of location services and through the sale of data.  In addition, Skyhook earns revenue from licensing its intellectual property to other enterprises. Prior to 2016, Skyhook also earned significant revenue from the sale of hardware and the licensing of associated software required to operate a passive network overlay system for generating location records for wireless devices using U-TDOA technology, and from professional and support services related thereto. These services were primarily sold to wireless carriers to provide E-9-1-1 services domestically and to enhance services in support of commercial applications, national security and law enforcement worldwide.

Charter’s revenue is derived principally from the monthly fees customers pay for the residential and commercial video, Internet and voice services provided. Charter also earns revenue from one-time installation fees and advertising sales. Charter expects to continue to grow revenue by increasing the number of products in the company’s current customer homes and obtaining new customers with an improved value offering. In addition, Charter expects to increase revenue by expanding the sales of services to its commercial customers.

Current Trends Affecting Our Business

Skyhook’s location determination services compete against (1) other satellite and terrestrial based location technology offerings, such as GPS, (2) other providers of Wi-Fi and cell-based positioning, such as Google, Inc. (“Google”) and HERE, a former subsidiary of Nokia; and (3) other commercial enterprises’ in-house developed location solutions. There are also a number of new location technologies in development which may further increase competition to be a location solution for new devices and which may require Skyhook to meet more stringent accuracy standards. In addition, Skyhook’s context services compete against other geofencing and location data offerings from other niche location companies, such as Factual and Foursquare.

Charter faces intense competition for residential customers, both from existing competitors and, as a result of the rapid development of new technologies, services and products, from new entrants. With respect to its residential business, Charter competes with other providers of video, high-speed Internet access, telephone services, and other sources of home entertainment. Specifically, newer categories of competitors include virtual multichannel video programming distributors such as AT&T’s “DirecTV NOW,” DISH Network Corporation’s “Sling TV,” and Sony Corporation’s “Playstation Vue.” In the broadband communications industry, Charter’s principal competitors for video services are DBS and telephone companies that offer video services. Charter’s principal competitors for high-speed Internet services are the broadband services provided by telephone companies, including both traditional DSL, fiber-to-the-node, and fiber-to-the-home offerings.  A growing number of commercial areas, such as retail malls, restaurants and airports, offer Wi-Fi Internet service.  Numerous local governments are also considering or actively pursuing publicly subsidized Wi-Fi Internet access networks.  These options offer alternatives to cable-based Internet access. Charter’s principal competitors for telephone services are established telephone companies, other telephone service providers, and other carriers, including VoIP providers. The increase in the number of different technologies capable of carrying voice services and the number of alternative communication options available to customers as well as the replacement of wireline services by wireless have intensified the competitive environment in which Charter operates its residential voice service.

Skyhook and Charter must stay abreast of rapidly evolving technological developments and offerings to remain competitive and increase the utility of their products and services. These companies must be able to incorporate new technologies into their products and services in order to address the needs of their customers.

Results of Operations—Consolidated

Consolidated operating results:

 

Revenue

Revenue decreased $60.6 million and increased $22.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. The decrease in revenue in 2016 was due to the loss of Skyhook’s largest legacy U-TDOA service customer whose contract expired on December 31, 2015. This customer accounted for approximately 85% and 83% of Skyhook’s revenue during 2015 and 2014, respectively. A significant decline in Skyhook’s operations is expected to continue unless Skyhook is able to generate sufficient new business to replace the financial impacts of the loss of this customer. The decrease in revenue in 2016 resulting from the lost customer was partially offset by a new license agreement entered into during 2016. On September 1, 2016, Skyhook entered into a confidential license agreement pursuant to which Skyhook agreed to grant to the licensee a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide license to patents and patent applications owned by the companies. In exchange for this right, the licensee agreed to pay a one-time lump sum payment of $17.5 million that was recognized as revenue in the third quarter of 2016. Apart from the one-time revenue received from the license agreement in 2016, and excluding $35.5 million of deferred revenue (discussed below) in 2015, revenue from Skyhook’s operations decreased by approximately $42.6 million during 2016.  

The increase in revenue during 2015 was primarily due to the recognition of $35.5 million of deferred revenue upon the expiration of the aforementioned contract with Skyhook’s largest legacy U-TDOA service customer on December 31, 2015, as all contractual obligations were satisfied at that time. Exclusive of the recognition of the deferred revenue associated with this contract during 2015, revenue decreased $13.4 million from the prior year, primarily as a result of reduced domestic software and maintenance license fees due to a reduction in the size of the deployed base of Skyhook’s legacy U-TDOA service. 

 Operating, research and development, and selling, general and administrative expenses

Operating, research and development, and selling, general and administrative expenses, decreased collectively by $17.5 million and $13.2 million for December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. The decrease in 2016 was due to headcount reductions and other cost containment measures taken by Skyhook in 2016 and 2015, upon combining the operations of its businesses, coupled with lower legal expenses, and lower corporate selling general and administrative expenses during the year. The decrease in 2015 was largely due to a full year implementation of cost reduction measures at Skyhook and lower legal expenses, partially offset by higher corporate selling, general and administrative costs during the current year.  Legal expenses decreased $3.8 million and $10.1 million in the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior years. The decrease in legal expenses during 2016 is a result of the settlement of Skyhook’s patent infringement lawsuit during the first quarter of 2015, lower costs to maintain the patent portfolio

and the resolution of various other legal matters, offset by legal costs associated with the license agreement entered into by Skyhook and corporate legal expenses related to the Time Warner Cable Merger. The decrease in legal expenses during 2015 is due to the settlement during the third quarter of 2014 of Skyhook's antitrust lawsuit arising from the standard setting processes for LTE wireless data communication technology as it pertains to location technology and the settlement of Skyhook’s patent infringement lawsuit against Google during the first quarter of 2015. Additionally, lobbying costs of $431 thousand and $3.3 million related to the indoor accuracy regulations previously discussed were incurred during each of the years ended December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, respectively. Lobbying costs decreased significantly after the first quarter of 2015 based upon rulemaking timelines, and no lobbying costs were incurred during 2016. Merger costs of $958 thousand related to the Skyhook acquisition were incurred in 2014. No merger costs were incurred during 2016 or 2015.

Stock-based compensation

Stock-based compensation expense decreased $667 thousand and increased $5.4 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the same periods in the prior year. The decrease in 2016 is due to a decrease in the number of vested outstanding awards under Skyhook’s long-term incentive plans as a result of headcount reductions coupled with a reduction in the fair value of the awards. This decrease was partially offset by an increase in stock-based compensation due to the vesting of options to purchase shares of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock granted during 2014, 2015 and 2016. The increase in stock-based compensation during 2015 was primarily due to the vesting of options to purchase shares of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock granted during December 2014 and an increase in the number of options to purchase shares of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock granted during 2015. Additionally, stock-based compensation increased in 2015 due to the issuance of new awards and additional vesting of the outstanding awards under the Skyhook’s long-term incentive plans, partially offset by cancelled awards.

Depreciation and amortization

Depreciation and amortization decreased $2.1 million and $3.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. The decrease in depreciation and amortization expense during the current year is due to a decrease in the general depreciable asset base as assets have become fully depreciated coupled with the write-off of fixed assets during the first quarter of 2015. The decrease in 2015 was due to lower amortization expense resulting from the impairment of Skyhook’s intangible assets during the fourth quarter of 2014 and write-off of fixed assets during the first quarter of 2015. The assets written off were comprised of assets related to the abandonment of a product development project related to the legacy U-TDOA service during the period.

Net gain on legal settlement

On September 10, 2010, Skyhook filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Google. In March 2013, Skyhook amended its lawsuit to add additional claims. The case had been scheduled to be tried before a jury commencing March 9, 2015, with Skyhook alleging at that time that Google infringed on eight Skyhook patents involving location technology and seeking an injunction and/or award of damages in an amount to be determined at trial. However, on March 5, 2015, the parties advised the District Court that the case had been settled and thereby dismissed the action without costs and without prejudice to the right, upon good cause shown within 45 days, to reopen the action if settlement was not consummated. On March 27, 2015, the parties consummated a final settlement agreement and on April 24, 2015, Google paid Skyhook settlement consideration of $90 million. In return for payment of the settlement consideration, Google received dismissal of the action with prejudice, a license to the existing Skyhook patents and patent applications (and their continuations, divisionals, continuations-in-part), a three-year covenant not to sue (subject to limited exceptions) and a mutual release of claims. As a result of the settlement, Skyhook realized a net gain, after legal fees, of approximately $60.5 million during the first quarter of 2015.

Impairment of intangible assets

During September 2015, Skyhook’s largest customer (AT&T) gave notice that it did not intend to renew its contract related to Skyhook’s legacy U-TDOA service, which expired on December 31, 2015. The Company believed that the receipt of the notification represented a significant change in circumstances since we last performed our annual goodwill impairment test. Accordingly, we performed a goodwill impairment test upon receipt of the notification. At that time, the estimated fair value of

the reporting unit was primarily determined based on the cash and cash equivalents held by the reporting unit, and when compared to its carrying value, it was concluded that a goodwill impairment did not exist. As previously discussed, the carrying value of Skyhook included a $35.5 million deferred revenue liability related to the contract with AT&T. Upon expiration of the contract on December 31, 2015, the deferred revenue was recognized, as all contractual obligations were satisfied at that time. The recognition of this deferred revenue liability increased the reporting unit carrying value. As a result, the Company determined the fair value of Skyhook. As the reporting unit’s carrying value now exceeded the fair value, we performed a Step 2 impairment test and recorded a $20.7 million impairment loss related to Skyhook’s goodwill during December 2015. See note 7 in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for additional discussion regarding this impairment loss.

In November 2014, Skyhook was notified that one of its significant customers was not expected to renew its contract related to its Wi-Fi location software solution for 2015. As a result, 30-40% of Skyhook’s Wi-Fi location software solution revenue was not expected to recur in 2015. Due to this anticipated decline in Skyhook’s operations, the Company determined the fair value of Skyhook and performed a Step 2 impairment test, which resulted in a $35.2 million impairment loss recorded to Skyhook’s goodwill and intangible assets during December 2014. See note 7 in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for additional discussion regarding this impairment loss.

Operating Income (Loss)

Operating income (loss) declined $80.1 million and improved $101.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods, due to the items discussed above.

Adjusted OIBDA

We define Adjusted OIBDA as revenue less operating expenses and selling, general and administrative expenses (excluding stock compensation). Our chief operating decision maker and management team use this measure of performance in conjunction with other measures to evaluate our businesses and make decisions about allocating resources among our businesses. We believe this is an important indicator of the operational strength and performance of our businesses, including each business’s ability to service debt and fund capital expenditures. In addition, this measure allows us to view operating results, perform analytical comparisons and benchmarking between businesses and identify strategies to improve performance. This measure of performance excludes such costs as depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation, separately reported litigation settlements and restructuring and impairment charges that are included in the measurement of operating income pursuant to GAAP. Accordingly, Adjusted OIBDA should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, operating income, net income, cash flow provided by operating activities and other measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. See note 15 to the accompanying consolidated financial statements for a reconciliation of Adjusted OIBDA to Operating income and Earnings (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes.

Adjusted OIBDA declined $43.1 million and improved $35.3 million in the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. Adjusted OIBDA for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 included $8.7 million, $11.9 million, and $1.5 million of corporate selling, general and administrative expenses, respectively.  The decrease in Adjusted OIBDA for the year ended December 31, 2016 is due to the $60.6 million decrease in revenue, discussed above, partially offset by a $3.8 million decline in legal expenses during the year (discussed above) and a $13.7 million improvement in operating, research and development, and selling, general and administrative expenses during the year (discussed above).  The increase in Adjusted OIBDA for the year ended December 31, 2015 is due to the $22.1 million increase in revenue, discussed above, along with a $10.1 million decline in legal expenses during the year (discussed above), and a $3.1 million improvement in operating expenses during the year. 

Other Income and Expense:

Components of Other Income (Expense) are presented in the table below.

Interest expense

Interest expense increased $7.5 million and $6.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The increase in the current year is attributable to additional amounts outstanding on the two margin loan agreements entered into by our wholly owned subsidiary (the “2016 Margin Loan Agreements”) during the current period as compared to the prior year.  The increase in 2015 is also due to additional amounts drawn on the two margin loan agreements entered into by a wholly owned special purpose subsidiary (the “2014 Margin Loan Agreements”).  See note 8 in the accompanying consolidated financial statements for additional information on the margin loan agreements.

Dividend and interest income

Dividend and interest income increased $1.2 million and decreased $1.6 million for each of the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. The increase in 2016 is the result of increased interest income due to a higher cash and short-term marketable securities balance during the first and second quarters of 2016, with an increase in interest rates during the entire year in 2016, partially offset by a loss of dividend income due to the Time Warner Cable Merger during May 2016.  The decrease in 2015 was due to contractual commitments on the Time Warner Cable shares. Although the 2015 quarterly Time Warner Cable dividend rate remained the same as 2014, a larger portion of the dividends were passed through to the counterparty in 2015, due to more written call option contracts on Time Warner Cable shares outstanding during 2015 than 2014 as well as the Time Warner Cable collar agreement that was outstanding for a portion of the current year.

Share of earnings (losses) of affiliates

Share of earnings (losses) from affiliates improved $762.5 million and $6.6 million during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior year periods. Share of earnings (losses) from affiliates is attributable to the Company’s ownership interest in Charter. In May 2013, the Company acquired its initial investment in Legacy Charter. Upon acquisition, the Company allocated the excess basis, between the book basis of Legacy Charter and fair value of the shares acquired, and ascribed remaining useful lives of 7 years and 13 years to property and equipment and customer relationships, respectively, and indefinite lives to franchise fees, trademarks and goodwill. Outstanding debt is amortized over the contractual period using the effective interest rate method. Amortization related to debt and intangible assets with identifiable useful lives is included in the Company’s share of earnings (losses) from affiliates line item in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations and aggregated $41.8 million, $51.6 million, and $81.2 million, net of related taxes, for the years ended December 31, 2016 2015, and 2014, respectively.

On May 18, 2016, the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction were completed. The Time Warner Cable Merger resulted in Legacy Charter and Time Warner Cable becoming wholly owned subsidiaries of Charter, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Legacy Charter at the time. As a result of the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction, Liberty Broadband exchanged its shares of Time Warner Cable for shares of Charter and purchased additional shares of Charter. As a result, and pursuant to proxy agreements entered into with Liberty Interactive and A/N, Liberty Broadband controls 25.01% of the aggregate voting power of Charter following the completion of the Transactions. The increase in share of

earnings from affiliates during 2016 is attributable to the earnings of Charter subsequent to the Time Warner Cable Merger and Bright House Transaction. See note 6 in the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements for additional discussion of the Company’s investment in Charter.

The following is a discussion of Charter’s stand alone results of operations. In order to provide a better understanding of Charter’s operations, we have included a summarized presentation of Charter’s results from operations. Charter is a separate publicly traded company and additional information about Charter can be obtained through its website and public filings. The amounts included in the table below, derived from Charter’s public filings, represent Charter’s results for each of the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, as well as a year over year comparison on a pro forma basis as if the Transactions were completed on January 1, 2015.

 

Charter’s revenue increased $19.2 billion and $646 million during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, as compared to the corresponding prior years.  Revenue growth primarily reflects the Transactions and increases in the number of residential Internet and triple play customers and in commercial business customers, growth in rates driven by higher equipment revenue and rate increases offset by a decrease in basic video customers. On a pro forma basis, assuming the transactions occurred as of January 1, 2015, total revenue increased by $2.6 billion for the year ended December 31, 2016 compared to the year ended December 31, 2015. Revenue growth in 2015 primarily reflects increases in the number of residential Internet and triple play customers and in commercial business customers, growth in expanded basic and digital penetration, promotional and annual rate increases, and higher advanced services penetration, partially offset by a decrease in advertising sales in 2015 and a decrease in average basic video customers.

The increase in revenue during 2016 and 2015 was partially offset by the net impact of an increase in operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, of $12.1 billion and $457 million, respectively. The increase in operating expenses in 2016 was primarily due to the Transactions. The increase in operating expenses in 2015 was primarily attributable to an increase in programming costs as a result of annual contractual rate adjustments, including increases in amounts paid for retransmission consents, and the introduction of new networks offset by synergies as a result of the Transactions and lower pay-per-view programming expenses.  

Charter’s Adjusted OIBDA in 2016 and 2015 increased as a result of the above discussion.  On a pro forma basis, assuming the transactions occurred as of January 1, 2015, Adjusted OIBDA increased by $1.7 billion as a result of an increase in residential and commercial revenues offset by increases in programming costs and other expenses.

Depreciation and amortization expense increased $4.8 billion and $23 million during the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The increase in depreciation and amortization expense in 2016 is attributable to additional depreciation and amortization related to the Transactions, inclusive of the incremental amounts as a result of the higher fair values recorded in acquisition accounting. The increase in depreciation and amortization in 2015 is attributable to the depreciation on more recent capital expenditures, partially offset by certain assets becoming fully depreciated.