Cox Communications
Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It is the third-largest cable television provider in the United States,[3] serving approximately 6.5 million customers, including 2.9 million digital cable subscribers, 3.5 million Internet subscribers,[4] and almost 3.2 million digital telephone subscribers, making it the seventh-largest telephone carrier in the country.[5] Cox is headquartered at 6205 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd in Sandy Springs, Georgia, U.S., in the Atlanta metropolitan area.[6] It is a privately owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises.
Company type
February 1962
- Mark Greatrex (president and CEO)
- James C. Kennedy (chairman)
- Anne Cox Chambers (director)
US$11 billion (2016)[2]
20,000 (2020)
Cox Communications Virginia created the philanthropic Cox Charities to annually provide grants to nonprofits serving youth. The organizations must have education programs that focus on science and technology, literacy, mentoring and other areas.[25] In the 2016-2017 program, 15 nonprofits received a total of $150,000.[26] They were:
Other state branches of Cox Communications also donate money annually through a Community Investment Grant program. The money comes from employees and goes to 501(c)(3) organizations. The organizations will differ from state to state, and year to year, but usually also have a focus on education, technology, social issues, and the arts.[27] These programs can be found in Oklahoma (nearly $165,000 in 2017),[27] Arkansas (nearly $100,000 in 2017),[28] Nebraska and Iowa (nearly $90,000 in 2017),[29] and the Southeast region, including parts of Louisiana, Florida's Gulf Coast, Central Florida and Middle Georgia.[30]
Privatization[edit]
In 2004, Cox Enterprises announced its intention to purchase those shares of Cox Communications which it did not already own. A $6.6 billion tender offer was completed in December of that year, and Cox Communications has been a wholly owned subsidiary ever since.[31] This was the second time Cox Communications was taken private by Cox Enterprises.
Residential services[edit]
Cox Cable TV[edit]
Cox distributes standard definition and high-definition cable television programming, including Digital Cable.[32] Cox launched Digital Cable on its Orange County system in 1997. In February 2008, Cox started to implement switched digital video (SDV) technology in some of their markets.[33] In late 2014, Cox started notifying customers in their Connecticut market that they would be moving to an All Digital Video platform, requiring a small digital adapter (termed a Cox Mini-Box) for televisions that were previously connected to an analog only signal. This same notification was extended to all other major markets in 2016.
Carriage controversies[edit]
News Corporation Dispute[edit]
On January 1, 2000, Cox was involved in a retransmission consent dispute with News Corporation (the parent company of the Fox broadcast network, now owned by Fox Corporation), pulling four Fox owned-and-operated stations, after retransmission consent talks between News Corp. and Cox broke down, reportedly because Fox had denied permission for Cox to broadcast programming on its O&O stations unless Cox gave it two channel slots on its digital cable service. The affected stations were WJW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio (now owned by Nexstar Media Group), KTBC in Austin, Texas, KRIV in Houston, Texas, and KDFW in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, off its cable systems in those areas; another Fox O&O WHBQ-TV in Memphis (itself now owned by Imagicomm Communications) was also pulled from its Jonesboro, Arkansas, system (of the mentioned systems; only the Cleveland metropolitan area continues to be served by Cox; the Texas systems were later bought out by Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) and Comcast; the Jonesboro system was sold to Suddenlink Communications in May 2006). The removal of those stations, which were temporarily replaced with premium service Starz! Family (which was made available to subscribers for free), blacked out Fox programming to 425,000 Cox customers. The blackout lasted six days as the two sides came to an agreement on January 6, and the Fox-owned stations were brought back to the systems. Cox gave $1 refunds of their January cable bill to roughly 90,000 subscribers in Texas and Arkansas as compensation.[55]
LIN TV-Cox dispute[edit]
In a separate dispute (clumped with the above dispute by media outlets as the "Cox vs Fox" dispute) that occurred around the same time, customers in Hampton Roads, Virginia lost access to LIN TV-owned Fox affiliate WVBT (channel 43) on January 1, 2000; retransmission talks between WVBT and Cox broke down, reportedly due to a demand by WVBT to be placed somewhere between channels 2 and 14 (it had been broadcast on channel 43). Cox refused to move WVBT to a lower channel number; the channel space was filled in the interim by pay channel HBO Family. It was not until February 5 of that year that the station resumed on Cox's Hampton Roads system (remaining on channel 43), after an agreement was reached during a ten-hour arbitration session.[56] Cox did not offer rebates to its 335,000 subscribers in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Cleveland, Ohio, who also lost their Fox stations.
Nexstar dispute[edit]
On January 29, 2016, seventeen Nexstar Broadcasting stations were dropped by Cox after failing to reach a new retransmission deal. The contract had expired on December 31, 2015, but the two companies allowed talks to continue until January 22, 2016. The channels were replaced by a screen which accused Nexstar of "demanding a significant fee increase". In Las Vegas, where the dispute threatened to black out Super Bowl 50 due to local CBS station KLAS-TV being affected by the dispute, Cox announced on February 3, 2016, that it would offer a free preview of the game's Spanish-language broadcaster, ESPN Deportes, over Super Bowl weekend. The next day, Cox reached a new deal with Nexstar, and the stations were restored.[57][58][59]
Copyright lawsuits[edit]
BMG Rights Management[edit]
On December 17, 2015, Cox was held responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers according to a ruling from a federal jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia . The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG $25 million in damages.[61][62] This verdict was reaffirmed by the judge on August 8, 2016.[63] On February 14, 2017, Cox was ordered to additionally pay $8.5 million in costs.[64] On November 7, 2016, Cox appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit[65] and on February 1, 2018, the court overturned the $25 million verdict due to erroneous jury instructions but upheld its loss of safe harbor protections due to not having a meaningful repeat infringer policy.[66] On August 27, 2018, before the case was scheduled to be tried for a second time, both parties agreed to a confidential settlement.[67]
Sony Music, et al.[edit]
On July 31, 2018, a billion dollar lawsuit was filed against Cox in the same court, before the same judge that handled the BMG case, by 53 record labels, including Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers.[68] On December 19, 2019, the jury ruled against Cox and awarded $1 billion to the record labels.[69] On June 2, 2020, the judge ruled the jury's verdict is not excessive but also ruled that damages should be issued per work, not per copyright, as a single song, such as a mashup, may have multiple copyrights.[70] However, on January 12, 2021, the court backtracked on this point because Cox did not raise it during the jury trial, and thus upheld the $1 billion verdict.[71] The case was appealed to the Fourth Circuit on May 24, 2021.[72] While pending, Cox filed an additional motion for relief with the district court on December 27, 2021, alleging concealed evidence that came to light in a separate lawsuit by the record labels against Charter.[73] This motion was denied on March 23, 2022.[74] A ruling on the appeal to the Fourth Circuit is pending.
Marketing[edit]
One of Cox's marketing trademarks is a fictional animated "spokesman" character named "Digital Max", used from 2005 through 2008.[75][76] The phasing out of Digital Max in 2008 was followed by the introduction of the current Cox mascots, the "Digeez", little digital helpmates featured in many of Cox Communications' brand commercials.
