Charter Communications Inc (CHTR) 2017 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Charter's Second Quarter 2017 Investor Call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over to Stefan Anninger. Please go ahead.

早安.我叫米歇爾，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表Charter公司歡迎各位參加2017年第二季投資人電話會議。（操作員指示）我現在想把電話轉給斯特凡·安寧格。請繼續。

Good morning, and welcome to Charter's Second Quarter 2017 Investor Call. The presentation that accompanies this call can be found on our website, ir.charter.com, under the Financial Information section.

早安，歡迎參加Charter公司2017年第二季投資人電話會議。本次電話會議的簡報可在我們的網站 ir.charter.com 的「財務資訊」部分找到。

Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that there are a number of risk factors and other cautionary statements contained in our SEC filings, including our most recent proxy statement and Forms 10-K and 10-Q. We will not review those risk factors and other cautionary statements on this call. However, we encourage you to read them carefully.

在我們繼續之前，我想提醒各位，我們的美國證券交易委員會文件中包含許多風險因素和其他警示性聲明，包括我們最新的委託書聲明以及 10-K 表格和 10-Q 表格。本次電話會議我們將不討論這些風險因素和其他警示性聲明。不過，我們建議您仔細閱讀。

Various remarks that we make on this call concerning expectations, predictions, plans and prospects constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from historical or anticipated results. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's current view only, and Charter undertakes no obligation to revise or update such statements or to make additional forward-looking statements in the future.

我們在本次電話會議中就預期、預測、計畫和前景所作的各種評論構成前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與歷史結果或預期結果有所不同。任何前瞻性陳述僅反映管理階層目前的觀點，Charter 不承擔任何義務修改或更新此類陳述，也不承擔未來作出其他前瞻性陳述的義務。

During the course of today's call, we will be referring to non-GAAP measures as defined and reconciled in our earnings materials. These non-GAAP measures, as defined by Charter, may not be comparable to measures with similar titles used by other companies. We will also refer to pro forma results. While the Time Warner Cable and Bright House transactions closed on May 18, 2016, these pro forma results present certain information regarding the combined operations as if the transactions had closed on January 1, 2015, in order to provide a more useful discussion of our results. Please refer to the pro forma disclosures throughout today's materials, including the reconciliations provided in Exhibit 99.1 to our Form 10-Q filed on November 3, 2016.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及我們在獲利資料中定義和調整的非GAAP指標。根據 Charter 的定義，這些非 GAAP 指標可能與其他公司使用的類似名稱的指標不具可比性。我們也會參考模擬結果。雖然時代華納有線電視和 Bright House 的交易於 2016 年 5 月 18 日完成，但這些模擬結果提供了有關合併運營的某些信息，就好像這些交易是在 2015 年 1 月 1 日完成的一樣，以便對我們的結果進行更有用的討論。請參閱今天所有資料中的模擬揭露，包括我們在 2016 年 11 月 3 日提交的 10-Q 表格附件 99.1 中提供的調節表。

Unless otherwise specified, customer and financial data that we may refer to on this call for periods prior to the third quarter of 2016 are pro forma for the transactions as if they had closed at the beginning of the earliest period referenced. Please also note that all growth rates noted on this call and in the presentation are calculated on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise specified. Additionally, all customer and passings data that you see in today's materials continue to be based on legacy company definitions.

除非另有說明，否則我們在本次電話會議中可能提及的 2016 年第三季之前的客戶和財務數據均為模擬交易數據，如同這些交易在所提及的最早期間開始時已經完成一樣。另請注意，除非另有說明，本次電話會議和簡報中提及的所有成長率均按同比計算。此外，您在今天資料中看到的所有客戶和通行資料仍然基於公司過去的定義。

Joining me on today's call are Tom Rutledge, Chairman and CEO; and Chris Winfrey, our CFO.

今天和我一起參加電話會議的有董事長兼執行長湯姆·拉特利奇，以及財務長克里斯·溫弗瑞。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

這樣，我就把電話交給湯姆了。

Thanks, Stefan. In June, we finished the rollout of our new pricing packaging and branding across our national footprint with the last launch of Spectrum in Hawaii. We now offer a simple, straightforward, high-value product using a consistent and uniform approach across our 50 million passings under one brand, Spectrum. The new product is succeeding with consumers across our footprint.

謝謝你，斯特凡。6 月，我們完成了在全國範圍內新定價方案和品牌推廣的全面實施，Spectrum 是我們在夏威夷推出的最後一家服務商。我們現在提供簡單、直接、高價值的產品，在 Spectrum 品牌下，我們以一致且統一的方式為 5,000 萬用戶提供服務。新產品在我們業務覆蓋範圍內都受到了消費者的歡迎。

In the second quarter, our customers and PSU connects were higher year-over-year. And as of the end of the second quarter, 30% of Time Warner Cable and Bright House legacy customers were in our new pricing and packaging, up from 17% at the end of last quarter. In areas where we've had Spectrum in place for at least 3 quarters, 43% of our residential customers have Spectrum-packaged products. Progression of product and package migration is virtually identical to what we saw at Legacy Charter. More of our customers are getting better products with better and consistent pricing, which will drive higher customer satisfaction, lower churn and greater value into our business. Today, nearly all of our video connects are purchasing our expanded base video product, and expanded video customers grew in the second quarter.

第二季度，我們的客戶數量和 PSU 連線數均較去年同期成長。截至第二季末，時代華納有線電視和 Bright House 的老客戶中有 30% 採用了我們的新定價和套餐，高於上季末的 17%。在我們已開通 Spectrum 服務至少 3 個季度的地區，43% 的住宅用戶擁有 Spectrum 套餐產品。產品和軟體包遷移的進展與我們在 Legacy Charter 看到的情況幾乎完全相同。越來越多的客戶能夠以更優惠、更穩定的價格獲得更好的產品，這將提高客戶滿意度，降低客戶流失率，並為我們的業務帶來更大的價值。如今，我們幾乎所有的視訊連接用戶都在購買我們擴展的基礎視訊產品，而且擴展視訊客戶在第二季度實現了成長。

Our Internet connects are getting faster minimum speeds. We're now offering minimum speeds of 100 megabits in over half of our footprint with minimum speeds of 60 megabits in the remaining footprint. We're also starting to see improvements in Legacy TWC disconnects with the base of customers in Legacy TWC pricing and packaging declining in size every month. And Time Warner Cable legacy customer relationships grew by 3.5% year-over-year. Legacy Bright House and Legacy Charter also continued to perform well, especially when you consider that last year's second quarter benefited from dislocation at certain key competitors.

我們的網路連線速度正在不斷提升，最低速度也越來越快。現在，我們在超過一半的服務區域內提供最低 100 兆比特的網速，在其餘服務區域內提供最低 60 兆比特的網速。我們也開始看到傳統 TWC 的斷線情況有所改善，採用傳統 TWC 定價和套餐的客戶群每月都在減少。時代華納有線電視的傳統客戶關係年增了 3.5%。Legacy Bright House 和 Legacy Charter 也繼續表現良好，尤其考慮到去年第二季度受益於某些主要競爭對手的動盪。

At Legacy Charter, we grew customer relationships by over 5% year-over-year. And at Legacy Bright House, we grew customer relationships by 6% when adjusting for seasonal program changes. Despite the transitional nature of our integration and our limited price increases this year, we grew total revenue by 4% in the quarter and our adjusted EBITDA grew by over 8%. Our growth plan is on track and our financial results are better than where we were at the same point in time when we were reorganizing Legacy Charter.

在 Legacy Charter，我們的客戶關係年增超過 5%。在 Legacy Bright House，我們在調整季節性專案變更後，客戶關係增加了 6%。儘管我們的整合處於過渡階段，今年的價格上漲幅度有限，但我們本季的總收入成長了 4%，調整後的 EBITDA 成長了 8% 以上。我們的成長計畫進展順利，財務表現比我們重組 Legacy Charter 時的情況要好。

In June, we restarted our all-digital project in the 40% of Time Warner Cable and 60% of Bright House that is not yet all-digital. We're early in that project and most of our all-digital initiative will take place in 2018, but we're on schedule. In July, we completed the launch of new Spectrum pricing and packaging for the small and medium business segment. We're now offering simple, straightforward, fully featured and attractively priced SMB products in a consistent uniform approach nationwide, and our SMB strategy is intended to drive customer and market share growth. The growth opportunity in front of us is very large in both SMB and Enterprise, where we still have a low market share.

6 月，我們重啟了 Time Warner Cable 旗下 40% 和 Bright House 旗下 60% 尚未實現全數位化的部門的全數位化專案。該專案尚處於早期階段，我們的大部分全數位化計畫將在 2018 年實施，但我們正按計劃進行。7 月，我們完成了中小企業的新 Spectrum 定價和套餐的推出。我們現在以全國統一的方式提供簡單、直接、功能齊全且價格優惠的中小企業產品，我們的中小企業策略旨在推動客戶和市場份額的成長。我們在中小企業和大型企業市場都擁有巨大的成長機會，而我們在這些市場的佔有率仍然很低。

The integration of our field operations, customer operations and network operations is well underway and progressing as planned. Despite the complexity of changing product features, packaging and pricing, business rules, systems and training, we've been able to avoid customer disruption and our in-sourcing efforts and service metric improvements are ahead of schedule. Our wireless and product development efforts also continue to move forward. We intend to launch a wireless service in 2018 under our MVNO agreement with Verizon. And together with Comcast, we're working to find ways to cooperate in order to drive additional value for customers from our common wireless MVNO efforts.

我們的現場營運、客戶營運和網路營運的整合工作正在順利進行，並按計劃進行推進。儘管產品功能、包裝和定價、業務規則、系統和培訓等方面的變化非常複雜，但我們避免了對客戶造成乾擾，而且我們的內部化工作和服務指標改進也提前完成了計劃。我們的無線和產品開發工作也在持續進行中。我們計劃在 2018 年根據與 Verizon 的 MVNO 協議推出無線服務。我們正與 Comcast 一起努力尋找合作方式，以便透過我們共同的無線 MVNO 業務為客戶創造更多價值。

We're also testing the capabilities of our network with 5G-like services. We've already received permission to test in a number of areas from the FCC and began some field trials just last week. We intend to use our trials to provide us with better insight into the capabilities of our robust broadband network architecture.

我們也在測試我們網路在類似 5G 服務方面的效能。我們已經獲得了美國聯邦通信委員會 (FCC) 的許可，可以在多個地區進行測試，並且就在上週開始了一些實地試驗。我們計劃透過試驗，更了解我們強大的寬頻網路架構的性能。

Now I'll turn the call over to Chris to provide more details on the quarter.

現在我將把電話交給克里斯，讓他提供本季的更多細節。

Thanks, Tom. And I wanted to remind everyone that we aligned Bright House's seasonal customer program with Legacy Charter and Time Warner Cable. As a result, seasonal customers at Bright House now remain reported as customers throughout the year. That reduced the negative net additions impact we would have seen in the second quarter from customers activating a seasonal plan at Bright House, and it will reduce the positive net adds impacts from seasonal customers returning to Florida in the winter when comparing to historicals. So today, when I reference our second quarter 2017 results, I'll be comparing to second quarter 2016 results that have been adjusted to exclude the seasonal disconnect activity in 2016. We've provided that more meaningful year-over-year comparison on Slide 6 of today's investor presentation.

謝謝你，湯姆。我想提醒大家，我們已將 Bright House 的季節性客戶計畫與 Legacy Charter 和 Time Warner Cable 進行了整合。因此，布萊特豪斯的季節性顧客現在都被納入全年顧客名單中。這減少了第二季因 Bright House 的客戶啟動季節性計畫而產生的負淨新增影響，與歷史數據相比，這將減少冬季季節性客戶返回佛羅裡達州帶來的正淨新增影響。所以今天，當我提到我們 2017 年第二季的業績時，我將與 2016 年第二季的業績進行比較，而 2016 年第二季的業績已經過調整，排除了 2016 年的季節性斷網活動。我們在今天投資者簡報的第 6 張投影片中提供了更有意義的同比比較數據。

Turning to our results. During the second quarter, total customer relationships grew by 1.1 million or 4.2% year-over-year with 3.5% at TWC, 5.3% at Legacy Charter and 6% at Bright House, which reflects higher-quality legacy products and service relative to TWC and the impact of Charter's strategy on an already strong base. As Tom mentioned, at the end of the second quarter, 30% of TWC and Bright House customers were in Spectrum pricing and packaging. That pricing and packaging continues to drive strong connect activity with sales up year-over-year across the TWC footprint.

接下來來看看我們的結果。第二季度，客戶關係總數較去年同期成長 110 萬，增幅為 4.2%，其中 TWC 成長 3.5%，Legacy Charter 成長 5.3%，Bright House 成長 6%。這反映出傳統產品和服務相對於 TWC 而言品質更高，以及 Charter 的策略對原本就強大的基礎產生了影響。正如湯姆所提到的，在第二季末，TWC 和 Bright House 30% 的客戶採用了 Spectrum 的定價和套餐。這種定價和包裝策略繼續推動強勁的連接活動，TWC 業務範圍內的銷售額同比增長。

As Slide 6 shows, we grew residential PSUs by 155,000 versus 340,000 last year, again, already adjusted for seasonal disconnects last year. The lower PSU net adds were primarily driven by lower voice net adds at Legacy TWC and lower Internet net adds across all 3 legacy entities. Over the last year, TWC residential video customers declined by 3.2%, pre-deal Charter grew its residential video customer base by 0.4% and Legacy Bright House lost 0.7% of its residential video customers, but continues to improve its year-over-year video results.

如幻燈片 6 所示，我們住宅 PSU 增加了 155,000 個，而去年為 340,000 個，同樣，這已經根據去年的季節性斷電情況進行了調整。PSU 淨新增用戶數減少主要是由於 Legacy TWC 的語音淨新增用戶數減少以及所有 3 個傳統實體的互聯網淨新增用戶數減少所致。過去一年，TWC 住宅視訊用戶下降了 3.2%，交易前的 Charter 住宅視訊用戶群成長了 0.4%，而原 Bright House 的住宅視訊用戶流失了 0.7%，但其視訊業務的同比業績仍在持續改善。

TWC's video net loss was 5,000 better than last year with all of the net losses this quarter driven by churn from low-value, limited basic packages. Importantly, Legacy TWC's expanded basic video customer base grew significantly in the second quarter compared to a loss in last year's second quarter. The improvement in expanded video relationship net adds in the second quarter from selling mix and migration was well over 200,000 year-over-year. Similar to what we saw at Legacy Charter after launching our new pricing and packaging, TWC video net gains should improve as the headwind of limited basic churn declines as the limited basic base gets smaller and once we get a majority of the Legacy TWC base into Spectrum pricing and packaging.

TWC 的視訊業務淨虧損比去年減少了 5,000 戶，本季的所有淨虧損都是由於低價值、功能有限的基本套餐用戶流失造成的。值得注意的是，與去年第二季度虧損相比，傳統 TWC 的基本視訊用戶群在第二季度實現了顯著成長。第二季度，由於銷售組合和遷移，擴展視訊關係淨新增用戶數年增超過 20 萬。就像我們在 Legacy Charter 推出新的定價和套餐後看到的情況一樣，隨著基本用戶群規模縮小，有限基本用戶流失帶來的不利影響減弱，TWC 的視頻淨收益應該會有所改善，一旦我們將 Legacy TWC 的大部分用戶納入 Spectrum 的定價和套餐，情況就會更加樂觀。

Legacy Charter lost 10,000 video customers in the quarter versus a loss of 7,000 a year ago, and Bright House lost 12,000 video customers versus a loss of 20,000 last year. In total, we lost 90,000 residential video customers in the seasonally weak quarter. That result was already 10,000 better than the prior year loss of 100,000 with this quarter's losses primarily driven by limited basic relationships at Legacy TWC. In Residential Internet, we added a total of 231,000 customers during the quarter versus 308,000 last year, adjusted for the seasonal plan at Bright House with Legacy Charter declining from 90,000 in the second quarter of 2016 to 61,000 this quarter. As Tom mentioned, the year-over-year decline was in part related to the second quarter of 2016 Internet net adds that benefited from challenges faced by competitors. And on the other hand, this year, we admittedly have been focused on putting 75% of our company's new footprint onto the Charter growth trajectory.

Legacy Charter 本季流失了 10,000 名視訊用戶，而去年同期流失了 7,000 名；Bright House 本季流失了 12,000 名視訊用戶，而去年同期流失了 20,000 名。在季節性淡季，我們總共流失了 9 萬名住宅影片用戶。這一結果已經比上一年虧損 10 萬英鎊的情況好轉了 1 萬英鎊，本季度的虧損主要是由於 Legacy TWC 的基本關係有限造成的。在住宅網路方面，本季我們新增了 231,000 名客戶，而去年同期為 308,000 名。在 Bright House 的季節性計畫調整後，Legacy Charter 的客戶數量從 2016 年第二季的 9 萬人下降到本季的 61,000 人。正如湯姆所提到的，年減的部分原因是 2016 年第二季網路淨新增用戶受益於競爭對手面臨的挑戰。另一方面，今年我們確實將公司 75% 的新業務拓展重點放在了 Charter 的成長軌跡上。

Over the last 12 months, we grew our total Residential Internet customer base by 1.3 million customers or 6.2% with 5.4% growth at TWC, 7.5% growth at Legacy Charter and over 8% at Bright House. In voice, we grew customers by 14,000 in the second quarter versus 132,000 last year with the lower growth largely driven by higher churn at TWC, in part driven by a low-price promotional voice offer in TWC markets in prior year quarters. Over the last year, total residential customers grew by 934,000 or by 3.8%. And residential revenue per customer was down modestly given smaller price increases this year versus last, continued stand-alone Internet sell-in and migration activity of TWC and Bright House to Spectrum pricing and packaging, which is richer in value, in particular as it relates to equipment. There was also some mechanical ARPU from change -- ARPU effect from changes to the Legacy Bright House seasonal plan.

在過去的 12 個月裡，我們的住宅網路用戶總數增加了 130 萬用戶，增幅達 6.2%，其中 TWC 增加了 5.4%，Legacy Charter 增加了 7.5%，Bright House 增加了超過 8%。在語音業務方面，我們第二季的客戶數量增加了 14,000 人，而去年同期為 132,000 人。成長放緩主要是由於 TWC 的客戶流失率較高，部分原因是 TWC 在前幾季在市場上推出了低價促銷語音服務。過去一年，住宅用戶總數增加了 93.4 萬戶，增幅為 3.8%。由於今年價格漲幅比去年小，以及獨立網路銷售的持續成長，加上TWC和Bright House向Spectrum定價和套餐的遷移活動（Spectrum的定價和套餐更具價值，尤其是在設備方面），每位住宅用戶的收入略有下降。此外，由於變化，ARPU 也出現了一些機械性的變化——Legacy Bright House 季節性計畫的變化對 ARPU 產生了影響。

Slide 7 shows our customer growth, combined with our ARPU growth, resulted in year-over-year pro forma residential revenue growth of 3.8%. Total commercial revenue, SMB and Enterprise combined, grew by 9.5%. SMB specifically grew by 9.7% and Enterprise grew by 9.3%. Excluding cell backhaul and NaviSite, Enterprise grew by over 13%.

投影片 7 顯示，我們的客戶成長，加上 ARPU 的成長，使得住宅收入較去年同期成長 3.8%。中小企業和大型企業合計商業總收入成長了 9.5%。中小企業成長了 9.7%，企業成長了 9.3%。除去蜂巢回傳和 NaviSite，企業業務成長超過 13%。

As Tom mentioned, we have now launched new national pricing and packaging for both Enterprise and SMB designed to drive higher customer growth and market share gains. Second quarter advertising revenue declined by 5.8% year-over-year, driven by political advertising in the prior year. Excluding political, advertising revenue was still down about 3% year-over-year, given lower year-over-year local and barter revenue. So in total, second quarter pro forma revenue for the company was up 3.9% year-over-year and 4.3% excluding advertising.

正如 Tom 所提到的，我們現在已經推出了針對企業和中小企業的全新全國定價和包裝方案，旨在推動客戶成長和市場份額提升。受上年度政治廣告收入下降的影響，第二季廣告收入較去年同期下降 5.8%。剔除政治廣告收入，由於地方廣告和以物易物收入較去年同期下降，廣告收入仍下降約 3%。因此，該公司第二季以備考計算的總收入年增 3.9%，若不計廣告收入，則較去年同期成長 4.3%。

Looking at total revenue growth at each of our Legacy companies, TWC revenue grew by 3.4%; pre-deal Charter grew by 4.9%, driven by customer growth; and Bright House revenue grew by 4.1% with improving unit growth and little reliance on rate.

從我們旗下各傳統公司的總收入增長來看，TWC 的收入增長了 3.4%；交易前的 Charter 的收入增長了 4.9%，這主要得益於客戶數量的增長；而 Bright House 的收入增長了 4.1%，這得益於用戶數量的增長以及對費率的依賴程度的降低。

As we move to operating expenses on Slide 8, note that this quarter, we reclassified some operating expense between expense lines. We moved bad debt expense and customer bank card fees from other expense to cost to service customers. We also moved some expenses from the other expense category to marketing expense. And so today's materials, including our release, trending schedule and presentation, provide these reclassifications on a pro forma basis, which allows for proper year-over-year comparison.

在第 8 張投影片中，我們將討論營運費用。請注意，本季度我們對一些營運費用進行了費用類別的重新分類。我們將壞帳支出和客戶銀行卡手續費從其他費用轉移到了客戶服務成本。我們也把一些費用從其他費用類別轉移到了行銷費用類別。因此，今天的材料，包括我們的新聞稿、趨勢日程和演示文稿，都以形式為基礎提供了這些重新分類，從而可以進行適當的同比比較。

In the second quarter, total operating expenses grew by $83 million or 1.3% year-over-year with transition expense accounting for $30 million of our total OpEx this quarter. Programming increased 9.6% year-over-year, driven by contractual rate increases in renewals and a higher expanded mix, partially offset by transaction synergies. When you think about programming, keep in mind we had some synergies already in the second quarter of 2016, and you won't have the same year-over-year benefit later this year. We're also shifting our mix pretty dramatically to higher-value expanded basic, and we've had recent renewals. And we expect significant pay-per-view revenue and expense in the third quarter from an August event.

第二季度，總營運支出年增 8,300 萬美元，增幅為 1.3%，其中過渡支出佔本季總營運支出的 3,000 萬美元。節目製作量年增 9.6%，主要受續約合約價格上漲和節目組合擴大的推動，但部分被交易協同效應所抵消。在考慮程式設計時，請記住我們在 2016 年第二季度已經取得了一些協同效應，而今年晚些時候你將不會再獲得相同的同比收益。我們也大幅調整產品組合，轉向更高價值的擴展基礎產品，而且我們最近也進行了續約。我們預計8月份的活動將在第三季帶來可觀的按次付費收入和支出。

Regulatory, connectivity and produced content expense declined 3.3% year-over-year this quarter as we continue to combine the companies' networking contracts. Cost to service customers also declined year-over-year, driven by benefits from the combination of the 3 companies and lower bad debt expense. We are also seeing early productivity benefits from simplified pricing and packaging and higher in-sourced labor. Marketing expenses declined by 2.4% year-over-year as we continue to drive overhead synergies from our transactions, which were partially offset by a higher level of marketing and sales activities under Charter's operating model. And finally, other expenses were down 5.2% year-over-year, driven by the elimination of duplicate cost.

由於我們繼續合併各公司的網路合同，本季度監管、連接和內容製作費用同比下降了 3.3%。受三家公司合併帶來的好處以及壞帳支出減少的影響，客戶服務成本也較去年同期下降。我們也看到，簡化定價和包裝以及提高內部勞動力投入，都帶來了早期生產力效益。由於我們繼續透過交易實現營運成本協同效應，行銷費用年減了 2.4%，但 Charter 的營運模式下行銷和銷售活動的增加部分抵銷了這一協同效應。最後，其他費用較去年同期下降 5.2%，主要原因是消除了重複成本。

Adjusted EBITDA grew by 8.6% in the second quarter and, excluding transition cost, adjusted EBITDA grew by 8.7%. As we look to the back half of the year, in addition to the lack of political advertising, our EBITDA growth rate will benefit less from transaction synergies than it has over the last 4 quarters, and the next wave of additional transaction synergies will take some time. As I mentioned last quarter, the full elimination of duplicate cost will take us into early 2019 as we fully integrate the platforms of the 3 companies and multiple billing, provisioning and network environments.

第二季調整後 EBITDA 成長了 8.6%，若不計過渡成本，調整後 EBITDA 成長了 8.7%。展望下半年，除了缺乏政治廣告外，我們的 EBITDA 成長率將不像過去 4 個季度那樣受益於交易協同效應，而且下一波額外的交易協同效應還需要一些時間才能顯現。正如我上個季度提到的，徹底消除重複成本將要到 2019 年初，屆時我們將全面整合這 3 家公司的平台以及多個計費、配置和網路環境。

And the separate financial benefits from our operating model increased over the same period as the customer base migrates and the operating investments around in-sourcing and all-digital, for example, as those subside. So similar to subscribers where we've already turned the corner, and revenue, which will take a few more quarters, our expense development won't be linear, but our view on the long-term growth and profitability potential for Charter remain the same.

同時，隨著客戶群的遷移以及圍繞內部資源整合和全數位化等方面的營運投資的減少，我們營運模式帶來的其他財務收益在同一時期有所增加。與我們已經扭轉局面的訂閱用戶數量和還需要幾個季度才能實現的收入情況類似，我們的支出發展也不會是線性的，但我們對Charter的長期增長和盈利潛力的看法仍然不變。

Turning to net income on Slide 9. We generated $139 million in net income attributable to Charter shareholders in the second quarter versus pro forma net income of $248 million last year with higher year-over-year adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter this year more than offset by higher depreciation and amortization and the onetime pension curtailment gain that we had last year.

請參閱第 9 頁的淨收入。第二季歸屬於 Charter 股東的淨收入為 1.39 億美元，而去年同期備考淨收入為 2.48 億美元。今年第二季調整後 EBITDA 年成長，但被去年同期更高的折舊和攤提以及一次性退休金削減收益所抵銷。

Turning to Slide 10. Capital expenditures totaled $2.1 billion in the second quarter, including $86 million of transition spend. Excluding transition, second quarter CapEx increased by $98 million year-over-year or 5%, driven by higher spending on CPE, which is offset by timing of spend on scalable infrastructure. The higher CPE spend was largely the result of higher connect volumes and 2-way set-top box placement rates now that Spectrum pricing and packaging has been launched across all of our markets, as well as inventory build related to the same.

翻到第10張投影片。第二季資本支出總額為 21 億美元，其中包括 8,600 萬美元的過渡支出。不計過渡期支出，第二季資本支出年增 9,800 萬美元，增幅達 5%，主要原因是 CPE 支出增加，但可擴展基礎設施的支出時間安排抵銷了這一增長。CPE 支出增加主要是由於 Spectrum 定價和套餐已在我們所有市場推出，從而帶動了連接量和雙向機上盒安裝率的提高，以及與之相關的庫存增加。

As Slide 11 shows, we generated over $1.1 billion of free cash flow in the second quarter versus $524 million of actual, not pro forma, free cash flow in the second quarter last year. That growth was largely driven by cash flow from acquired systems, but also by EBITDA growth. We also have a continued working capital benefit from timing and our continued improvements on that front. On a pro forma basis, adjusted EBITDA less CapEx grew by 16% in the second quarter. We finished the quarter with $61.8 billion in debt principal and our run rate annualized cash interest expense is currently $3.4 billion pro forma for our July debt offering, whereas our P&L interest expense in the quarter suggests a $3.0 billion annual run rate. That difference is due to purchase accounting.

如投影片 11 所示，我們在第二季產生了超過 11 億美元的自由現金流，而去年同期實際自由現金流（而非備考自由現金流）為 5.24 億美元。這一成長主要由收購系統帶來的現金流驅動，但也得益於 EBITDA 的成長。我們也因時機把握和我們在該方面不斷改進而持續受益於營運資金。以備考基準計算，第二季調整後的 EBITDA（扣除資本支出）增加了 16%。本季末，我們的負債本金為 618 億美元，以 7 月的債務發行計算，我們目前的年化現金利息支出為 34 億美元，而本季的損益表利息支出顯示，年化利息支出為 30 億美元。這種差異是由於採購會計處理造成的。

As of the end of the second quarter, our net debt to last 12-month pro forma adjusted EBITDA was 4.1x and our long-term target leverage remains at 4 to 4.5x. In April, Charter redeemed TWC 5.85% senior secured notes due 2017. Also in April, we closed on $1.25 billion of high-yield notes and $1.25 billion of investment-grade notes. Then in July, we closed on an additional $1.5 billion of investment-grade notes. The proceeds from these offerings have and will be used for general corporate purposes, including potential buybacks. Our weighted average cost of debt is now 5.4% with a weighted average life of 11.5 years with over 90% of our debt maturing after 2019.

截至第二季末，我們的淨負債與過去 12 個月的備考調整後 EBITDA 比率為 4.1 倍，我們的長期目標槓桿率仍為 4 至 4.5 倍。今年 4 月，Charter 贖回了 TWC 2017 年到期的 5.85% 優先擔保票據。同樣在四月份，我們完成了 12.5 億美元的高收益債券和 12.5 億美元的投資等級債券的發行。隨後在 7 月份，我們又完成了 15 億美元的投資等級債券的發行。這些發行所得款項已經並將繼續用於一般公司用途，包括潛在的股票回購。我們目前的加權平均債務成本為 5.4%，加權平均期限為 11.5 年，超過 90% 的債務將在 2019 年之後到期。

During the second quarter, we repurchased 11.2 million shares in Charter holding common units totaling approximately $3.7 billion at an average price of $331 per share.

第二季度，我們以每股 331 美元的平均價格回購了 1,120 萬股 Charter 持有的普通股，總計約 37 億美元。

As Slide 11 shows, since the start of our buyback program in September of last year until June 30, we've spent $6.1 billion on repurchases, reflecting 6% of the company's equity on a fully diluted basis. Our share repurchase activity will continue to depend on other potential uses of capital and market conditions.

如投影片 11 所示，自去年 9 月啟動股票回購計畫至 6 月 30 日，我們已花費 61 億美元用於股票回購，相當於公司完全稀釋後的股權的 6%。我們的股票回購活動將繼續取決於其他潛在的資金用途和市場狀況。

Turning to our tax assets on Slide 13. We estimate the total present value of those assets reflecting our current NOL utilization is approximately $5.5 billion, and we don't currently expect to be a material cash income taxpayer until 2019 at the earliest.

接下來請看第 13 頁投影片，了解我們的稅務資產。我們估計，反映我們目前淨經營虧損利用情況的這些資產的總現值約為 55 億美元，我們目前預計最早也要到 2019 年才會成為重要的現金所得稅納稅人。

Operator, we're now ready for Q&A.

操作員，我們現在可以進入問答環節了。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Ben Swinburne from Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的本·斯溫伯恩。

Tom, could you talk a little bit about what you and Comcast are working on, on the wireless front? Obviously, there's been a lot in the press about discussions with other wireless companies than Verizon. But just what are you spending your time on in that partnership today? What are your objectives and goals? What do you think you can get out of that as you guys start to launch in 2018? And then, Chris, it's great to hear that connects are growing year-on-year, and I think that's happening despite marketing actually being down. I know there's other drivers of connects than just marketing spend, but can you just talk about the efficiency you're seeing on the customer growth and how you think about sort of costs to add customers as we move forward? It seems like you guys are getting better at that as you integrate these assets.

湯姆，你能談談你和康卡斯特在無線網路方面正在進行哪些合作嗎？顯然，媒體上有很多關於與 Verizon 以外的其他無線運營商進行洽談的報道。但如今你在這段合作關係中究竟把時間花在了哪些方面呢？你們的目標和目的是什麼？你認為你們在 2018 年開始推出產品時能從中獲得什麼？克里斯，很高興聽到用戶連線數逐年成長，我認為這是在行銷實際下滑的情況下發生的。我知道除了行銷支出之外，還有其他因素會影響客戶連接，但您能否談談您在客戶成長方面看到的效率，以及您如何看待我們未來增加客戶的成本？看來你們在整合這些資源方面做得越來越好了。

So Ben, to the first part of your question, we did announce that we were working with Comcast. Because we share the same MVNO, the same company with Verizon, we picked up our MVNO agreement as part of the Time Warner merger, and it is very similar to what Comcast's MVNO is. And they're already launched and down the road and successful with their effort. And because we have the same opportunity as Comcast in terms of using the MVNO to drive our business forward, it makes sense for us to find ways to work together to be efficient and to know how that MVNO works and to have a good relationship with Verizon. We expect to generate significant growth ultimately in that MVNO and significant growth for Verizon as a result of that. And there are opportunities on a national level, which neither Comcast nor Charter has as regional players, that come together in this MVNO and we'd like to take advantage of them. And that's the reason why we have the relationship.

所以本，關於你問題的第一部分，我們確實宣布過正在與康卡斯特合作。因為我們與 Verizon 共用同一家 MVNO（行動虛擬網路營運商），也就是同一家公司，所以我們的 MVNO 協定是在時代華納合併時獲得的，它與 Comcast 的 MVNO 非常相似。他們已經啟動項目，並且取得了成功。因為我們和 Comcast 一樣，都有機會利用 MVNO 來推動業務發展，所以我們有必要找到合作方式來提高效率，了解 MVNO 的運作方式，並與 Verizon 建立良好的關係。我們預計該虛擬營運商最終將實現顯著成長，並因此為 Verizon 帶來顯著成長。而且，在全國範圍內，存在著一些康卡斯特和Charter作為區域運營商所不具備的機會，這些機會匯聚在這個虛擬移動網絡運營商（MVNO）中，我們希望能夠利用這些機會。這就是我們建立這種關係的原因。

On the second question, connects were up at TWC and across the entire company quarter-over-quarter, and as you mentioned, the marketing and sales costs actually came down. I would actually -- I would argue that we're actually spending more, and we're doing more activities, and obviously, we have higher sales. The efficiencies you're seeing are really from just the reduction of 3 different corporate overheads for marketing and sales. So when you think about creative and research and that type of activity, the "transaction synergies" would actually be much higher than what you're seeing because the variable activity that we're doing and our willingness to take commissions and to go drive sales is actually higher. So I think that -- not to be Debbie Downer, but I think that's short-lived. And as we continue to increase our connects, and the transaction synergies in that relatively easy area to get synergies out of will subside, I think you'll see that normalize and be more reflective of what we know at Charter. Now with a bigger company, a single set of overhead, can we be more efficient than Legacy Charter was? Yes. But the year-over-year benefits, as we get through the back half of this year, will probably start to decline.

關於第二個問題，TWC 和整個公司的連接數環比都有所增長，而且正如您所提到的，行銷和銷售成本實際上下降了。實際上，我認為我們實際上投入了更多資金，開展了更多活動，而且顯然，我們的銷售額也更高了。你所看到的效率提升，其實只是源自於行銷和銷售這三項不同公司開支的減少。所以，當你考慮創意、研究和這類活動時，「交易協同效應」實際上會比你看到的要高得多，因為我們所做的可變活動以及我們接受佣金和推動銷售的意願實際上更高。所以我覺得──我不想掃興，但我覺得這種情況不會持續太久。隨著我們不斷增加連接，以及在這個相對容易獲得協同效應的領域中，交易協同效應將會減弱，我認為你會看到這種情況趨於正常化，並更能反映我們在 Charter 所了解的情況。現在公司規模更大，管理費用也統一了，我們能否比 Legacy Charter 更有效率？是的。但隨著今年下半年的到來，年比收益可能會開始下降。

And there's efficiency in the way the new assets fit together, too, in terms of our ability to buy a DMA and buy the same amount of advertising as we used to buy and reach more serviceable passings than we historically could reach. So just the footprint of the assets makes marketing more efficient.

而且，新資產的組合方式也帶來了效率，我們能夠購買一個 DMA，購買與過去相同數量的廣告，並觸及比以往更多的有效路人。因此，光是資產的規模就能提高行銷效率。

Next question comes from Vijay Jayant from Evercore.

下一個問題來自 Evercore 的 Vijay Jayant。

I just want to focus on your pricing strategy rather than the lack thereof. Obviously, you're transitioning the Time Warner Cable and the Bright House base to a common pricing promotion, but you haven't really had any rate increases of any size on the Legacy Charter side. Do we have to sort of wait for that transition to complete to actually have across-the-footprint rate increases? Because I think that's a lever that you haven't used at all. And just continuing on this pricing, looking at your stand-alone broadband offer, which looks so attractive relative to your peer group, I just want to understand the strategy. Is it sort of helping these virtual MVPD products to probably scale, given they can buy broadband at relatively lower cost? Just thoughts on that.

我只想關注你們的定價策略，而不是缺乏定價策略這一點。顯然，你們正在將 Time Warner Cable 和 Bright House 的用戶群過渡到統一的價格促銷活動，但 Legacy Charter 的用戶群實際上並沒有任何大幅度的價格上漲。我們是否需要等到這種轉型完成後才能真正實現全區域費率的提升？因為我覺得你根本沒有用過這個槓桿。繼續討論定價問題，看看你們的獨立寬頻套餐，相對於同行來說，這個套餐看起來非常有吸引力，我想了解你們的定價策略。考慮到虛擬 MVPD 產品可以以相對較低的成本購買寬頻，這是否有助於它們擴大規模？一些想法。

Well, I'll answer your question. We have a strategy of providing high-quality, fully featured, rich products and packages to our customers so that we can grow our customer base and retain our customer base. And we believe that we can continue to accelerate our growth rate through that strategy and drive revenue growth and operating efficiencies with a higher penetrated network and lower cost -- network cost per customer and maximize the free cash flow of the business ultimately as a result of our strategy. So in the pricing and packaging issues that we face today, our biggest issue is the fact that our legacy customer base has a variety of different pricing scenarios that are inconsistent with the way we're packaging going forward. And in many cases, the equipment rates, for instance, modem charges and other -- and set-top boxes, are significantly higher than what we're charging on the increment. And we're mixing and matching our growth rate and packagings to maintain existing ARPUs without rate increases and to create products that drive more satisfaction and are stickier in the long run, and do all that with an accelerating growth rate. And so we're happy with our pricing strategy as it is today.

好吧，我會回答你的問題。我們的策略是向客戶提供高品質、功能齊全、內容豐富的產品和套餐，以便擴大客戶群並留住現有客戶。我們相信，透過這項策略，我們可以繼續加快成長速度，透過更高的網路滲透率和更低的成本（每位客戶的網路成本）來推動收入成長和營運效率，並最終最大限度地提高業務的自由現金流。因此，在我們今天面臨的定價和包裝問題中，我們最大的問題是，我們原有的客戶群有各種不同的定價方案，這與我們未來的包裝方式不一致。在許多情況下，設備費用（例如數據機費用和其他費用，以及機上盒費用）遠高於我們按增量收取的費用。我們正在不斷調整成長率和產品包裝，以在不提高價格的情況下維持現有的每用戶平均收入 (ARPU)，並創造出能夠帶來更高滿意度和更強長期黏性的產品，同時還要實現所有這一切的加速成長。因此，我們對目前的定價策略感到滿意。

Your next question comes from John Hodulik from UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的約翰‧霍杜利克。

Maybe a couple of questions for Chris. First, on the video trends, you talked about growth in the expanded video sub base, and obviously, some -- still some churn on the limited side -- on the limited basic side from -- or I think largely from the TWC deal. How along is that -- how far through that process already? Is there any color you can give us on how long that's going to last? Does it end sort of this year as we sort of anniversary those -- some of those -- the completion of those promotions? That's number one. And then number two, on the CapEx side, I think -- I'm looking at the chart right, but you -- in terms of restarting the all-digital effort, you saw an increase in CapEx and the CPE as you sort of -- I guess, it's through front-end loading the equipment purchases. Should we see that number continue to move up as you move through that process and scale that up? It's also clear that you've offset some of the spending, because CapEx in total is sort of largely flat. Is that sort of how we should think of things as we sort of move into the latter part of the year and really scaling that all-digital effort?

也許我有幾個問題想問克里斯。首先，關於視訊趨勢，您談到了擴展視訊訂閱用戶群的成長，顯然，有限訂閱用戶群方面仍然有一些流失——或者我認為主要是由於 TWC 的交易。進展如何？這個過程已經進行到什麼程度了？您能告訴我們大概還能撐多久嗎？今年是不是就到此為止了，因為我們將迎來其中一些促銷活動的周年紀念日？這是第一點。其次，在資本支出方面，我認為——我正在看圖表，但是——就重新啟動全數位化工作而言，您看到資本支出和 CPE 有所增加，因為您——我想，這是透過前期集中採購設備實現的。隨著流程的推進和規模的擴大，我們是否會看到這個數字繼續上升？很明顯，你們已經抵消了一些支出，因為資本支出總額基本上持平。隨著我們進入今年下半年，並真正擴大全數位化工作的規模，我們是否應該這樣考慮問題？

Right. So on the limited base development, they're started and announced (inaudible) very large base of limited basic customers at TWC, not inconsistent with where Legacy Charter was in 2012. And the type of progression that we expect to see there so far has been pretty identical to what we experienced before. So I think it'll take more than a few quarters. But the real question is at what point do you reach the tipping point where the expanded relationship growth is so large that it overcomes the continued migration and churn that comes out of the limited basic base. And that, I think, still takes a few quarters, but it's significantly improving. The other metric to keep your eye on is at what point has the TWC base crossed the line of being over 50% in Spectrum pricing and packaging, which is competitive, an advanced product set at fair rates that don't explode upon promotional roll off. And that's why we continue to provide that statistic because that's when at least one bucket is bigger than the next.

正確的。因此，在有限的基礎開發方面，他們已經開始並宣布（聽不清楚）TWC 擁有非常龐大的有限基礎客戶群，這與 Legacy Charter 在 2012 年的情況並不矛盾。到目前為止，我們預期在那裡看到的發展趨勢與我們之前經歷的非常相似。所以我覺得這需要不只幾季的時間。但真正的問題是，何時才能達到臨界點，即擴展關係的成長如此之大，以至於能夠克服有限的基本基礎所帶來的持續遷移和流失。我認為這還需要幾個季度的時間，但情況正在顯著改善。另一個值得關注的指標是，TWC 的用戶群何時超過了 Spectrum 定價和套餐的 50%，該套餐具有競爭力，提供價格合理的先進產品，且促銷期結束後價格不會暴漲。這就是為什麼我們要繼續提供該統計數據的原因，因為只有當至少有一個桶比下一個桶大時，才會發生這種情況。

Well, the only thing I would add is that after 3 quarters where that's been rolled out, 43% of the people in our Legacy Time Warner and Bright House footprint are on new pricing and packaging, but we have been doing a rolled phase of the pricing and packaging. So we just finished that in Hawaii. And so you've got a lot of different quarters in there that came in at different weighted averages. So it's hard to forecast it, but ultimately, it turns.

我唯一要補充的是，經過三個季度的推廣，在我們原時代華納和 Bright House 服務覆蓋範圍內，43% 的用戶已經採用了新的定價和套餐，但我們一直採取的是分階段推廣的方式。我們剛剛結束了在夏威夷的行程。因此，這其中包含了許多不同的季度，它們的加權平均值各不相同。所以很難預測，但最終，情況總是會好轉。

In total TWC and Bright House, about 30% of that base at the end of Q2. And if you look back to all of our previous disclosure at Legacy Charter and the video trends there, I think that's still as good a proxy as any. On the CPE side, the CPE inside the quarter was really driven by, frankly, a replenishment of inventory out of Q1, higher sales and connects in Q2, higher set-top box placement -- 2-way set-top box placement per connect in Q2. Very little of the Q2 CPE spend was really driven by inventory build for all-digital. That's still yet to come. And I think, as you think about the back half of this year, particularly Q4, my guess is that we'll want to highlight that at some point as to what the all-digital CPE build is for inventory in preparation for the larger amount of activity that's taking place in 2018. And from an overall CapEx for this year, relatively flat year-over-year. We've approved a fair amount of capital and we hope that we can spend it. We're not limited by budget per se, but more about what can practically be done. I think if we're successful, you'll see a higher level of spend in Q3 and Q4, but it makes it a little bit difficult to forecast because it's simply a function of how much you can get done. I would argue the faster you can get it done and behind you, the better it will be.

截至第二季末，TWC 和 Bright House 的總用戶數約佔該用戶總數的 30%。如果你回顧一下我們在 Legacy Charter 之前的所有披露資訊以及那裡的視頻趨勢，我認為這仍然是一個很好的參考指標。在 CPE 方面，本季 CPE 的成長主要得益於第一季庫存的補充、第二季度更高的銷售額和連接數，以及更高的機上盒安裝量——第二季度每個連接數的雙向機上盒安裝量。第二季 CPE 支出中真正用於全數位化設備庫存建設的部分非常少。那件事尚未發生。我認為，在展望今年下半年，特別是第四季度時，我們可能會在某個時候重點介紹全數位化 CPE 構建的庫存情況，以便為 2018 年即將發生的更多活動做好準備。從今年的整體資本支出來看，與去年相比基本持平。我們已經批准了相當數量的資金，希望能夠將其花出去。我們並非受限於預算本身，而是受限於實際上能做到什麼程度。我認為如果我們成功了，你會看到第三季和第四季的支出水準更高，但這使得預測變得有點困難，因為這只取決於你能完成多少工作。我認為，你越快完成這件事並將其拋在腦後，就越好。

Your next question comes from Bryan Kraft from Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的布萊恩‧克拉夫特。

I wanted to follow up on the cost synergy comments that Chris had made. Chris, cost to serve customers was down meaningfully year-over-year this quarter. As we think about the next phase of the cost synergy opportunity from here, is that an area where we should expect to continue to see the most operating leverage? And just wondering if you could also comment maybe on some of the other areas and how we should think about operating leverage and the other costs, marketing, regulatory, et cetera.

我想就克里斯提出的成本綜效問題做進一步說明。克里斯，本季服務客戶的成本較去年同期顯著下降。當我們思考下一階段的成本綜效機會時，這是否是我們能夠繼續看到最大營運槓桿效應的領域？我還想問問您是否可以就其他一些領域發表意見，例如我們應該如何看待經營槓桿和其他成本、行銷、監管等等。

Yes. So the last thing I want to do is get -- we don't provide overall guidance and I don't want to get into, certainly, a line-by-line cost guidance. I think the -- as you look back after the call, some of the prepared remarks I had around the trends and the different moving pieces were designed to help people so that as they're putting their own models together, at least they can think about it the way we think about it. Year-over-year on cost to serve, there are benefits with the combination of the transactions that are accelerated up front. What hasn't flowed into that yet is some of the investments that we make on the operating cost side as we more fully in-source and have the duplication of labor from outsourced labor on -- that's being transitioned out and in-sourced labor that's being transitioned in. And so the doubling up, so to speak, hasn't totally taken place as of yet. But we are seeing already -- through better utilization and better statistics, the management of the call centers, and fundamentally, a lower drive of calls from Spectrum pricing and packaging because of the way it's put together, we are seeing some upfront operational synergies as well as the transaction synergies from the elimination of overhead. But I think it gets a little bit more complicated as time progresses as you have the investments flowing in and the benefits, the further benefits that take a little bit of time to flow back into the P&L, and that's really the nature of the comments that I was providing in the prepared remarks. So I think our expense development is not going to be linear. We know exactly where we're going, but there are a lot of moving parts in each one of those lines. And then I think people will have to take a look back to -- in terms of operating leverage, what we said from the outset is that we think the margin on this business, as we sell more and we get better utilization of fixed assets, is very, very good. But it doesn't mean that it won't go up and down and it certainly won't be a straight line.

是的。所以我最不想做的就是──我們不提供整體指導，我當然也不想提供逐項成本指導。我認為——在通話結束後回顧一下，我事先準備好的關於趨勢和各種動態因素的發言旨在幫助人們，這樣當他們建立自己的模型時，至少可以像我們一樣思考。從年度服務成本來看，預先加速的交易組合具有優勢。目前還沒有體現在營運成本方面的一些投資中，因為我們正在逐步將部分工作收回內部，並減少外包勞動力造成的重複勞動——這些工作正在逐步減少，而內部勞動力正在逐步增加。因此，可以說，這種「加倍」的情況目前還沒有完全發生。但我們已經看到——透過更好的利用率和更好的統計數據，呼叫中心的管理，以及從根本上來說，由於 Spectrum 的定價和打包方式，呼叫量有所減少，我們看到了一些前期營運協同效應，以及透過消除管理費用而產生的交易協同效應。但我認為隨著時間的推移，情況會變得更加複雜，因為投資不斷流入，收益也隨之而來，而這些收益需要一些時間才能回流到損益表中，這正是我在準備好的發言稿中所要表達的觀點。所以我認為我們的支出發展不會是線性的。我們很清楚自己的目標，但每條路徑上都有很多環節需要協調配合。然後我認為人們需要回顧一下——就經營槓桿而言，我們從一開始就說過，我們認為隨著銷量增加和固定資產利用率提高，這項業務的利潤率非常非常好。但這並不意味著它不會上下波動，而且它肯定不會是一條直線。

Yes. So I -- so in the transition process, obviously, you have more anomalies in terms of quarter-over-quarter price -- or cost changes because of the synergies of the company coming together and the work that's necessary to put the company together. But the fundamental objective of creating high-value packages with high-quality service, which improves customer satisfaction, which extends customer life and reduces total volume of transactions because longer life, less churn means that for the same amount of revenue, you have less connects and disconnects and less marketing expense per dollar of revenue, and with higher-quality service and less repeat service calls, you have less service cost per customer, and with higher penetration, you have less network cost per customer if you're growing your business. And so all of our trend lines and all of our strategy is designed to be a more efficient business through quality service.

是的。所以，在過渡過程中，顯然，由於公司合併帶來的協同效應以及將公司整合起來所需的工作，季度價格或成本變化方面會出現更多異常情況。但其根本目標是創造高價值、高品質服務的套餐，從而提高客戶滿意度，延長客戶生命週期，並減少交易總量。因為更長的生命週期、更低的客戶流失率意味著，在相同的收入水平下，連接和斷開的次數更少，每美元收入的營銷費用也更低；而更高質量的服務和更少的重複服務呼叫，則意味著每個客戶的服務成本更低；更高的滲透率，意味著如果你正在發展業務，則每個客戶的網絡成本也會更低。因此，我們所有的趨勢線和所有策略都是為了透過優質服務提高業務效率而設計的。

Your next question comes from Jason Bazinet from Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的傑森·巴齊內特。

Just a quick question for Mr. Winfrey. We're using EBITDA less CapEx per home passed to sort of benchmark you guys versus some of your peers. And you guys are doing a great job, but I -- as I sort of think about that gap closing, it seems like there's 2 buckets. There's the operational side and then there's the synergy side. I think you've given us good percentages on the operational side, the 43% that are on the new packages and pricing on the Legacy TWC, Bright House. On the synergy side, high level without a dollar number, how far along do you think you are on that process of realizing sort of all of the synergies?

我有個問題想問溫弗瑞先生。我們採用 EBITDA 減去每套已售房屋的資本支出，來衡量你們與一些同行之間的表現。你們做得很好，但是——當我思考如何縮小差距時，感覺好像有兩個桶子。一方面是營運方面，另一方面是綜效方面。我認為您在營運方面給出了很好的百分比，新套餐的 43% 以及 Legacy TWC 和 Bright House 的定價。從綜效的角度來看，拋開具體的金額不談，您認為在實現所有綜效的過程中，您目前進展到什麼程度了？

So a couple of things. One, when you think about EBITDA minus CapEx for home passed, you really have to think about customer relationship growth in that mix. It is expensive to go acquire customers, both from the OpEx side through marketing and sales cost and the upfront cost to provision in call centers, and it's expensive on the CapEx side as well. So if I wanted to drive our EBITDA minus CapEx to industry-leading numbers, we could do that and we could do it relatively quickly and I think it would be very bad for the equity. So you just need to be careful with, are you looking at it in a moment in time? Are you looking at it over 2 years? Or are you looking at it over 5 years? Because I think...

有兩件事。第一，當你考慮過去 EBITDA 減去資本支出時，你真的必須把客戶關係成長考慮在內。獲取客戶的成本很高，無論是營運支出的行銷和銷售成本，或是呼叫中心的前期投入成本，資本支出的成本也很高。所以，如果我想把我們的 EBITDA 減去資本支出提升到行業領先的水平，我們可以做到，而且可以相對快速地做到，但我認為這對股權來說非常不利。所以你只需要注意，你是否只專注在某一時刻的情況了？你打算用兩年時間考慮嗎？還是您考慮的是五年之內的情況？因為我覺得…

Yes, over 5. Let's say over 5 years.

是的，超過5年。就說超過5年吧。

So then, from a synergy perspective, we've done everything that we thought we were going to do so far, and we're very pleased with where we're at. And there's nothing that would cause us to be any more conservative around what we thought we would do over a 3-year time period. But offsetting that, as I've said many times before, we have -- you see a transition cost line, that isn't -- that is not the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of friction and investment that's going on inside the business, and intentional duplication that occurs until you're able to the transition some of these systems. And all of that's designed to minimize customer service disruptions so that you can continue [the growth engine] along the way.

所以，從協同效應的角度來看，我們已經完成了所有我們計劃要做的事情，我們對目前的進展感到非常滿意。沒有任何因素會讓我們在未來三年內採取更保守的策略。但正如我之前多次說過的那樣，抵消這一點的是——你看到的過渡成本線，並不是——就企業內部正在發生的摩擦和投資而言，以及在你能夠過渡其中一些系統之前發生的有意重複工作而言，這並不是冰山一角。所有這些都是為了最大限度地減少客戶服務中斷，以便您能夠繼續保持成長勢頭。

And do you think all of that will be complete, say, in 5 years?

你認為所有這些工作會在五年內完成嗎？

Yes, 5 years. Yes, I think as you get into 2000 -- early 2019 or call it mid-2019 is where you'll start to see it moving on all fronts.

是的，5年。是的，我認為到了 2000 年——或者說 2019 年年中，你會開始看到它在各個方面都有所進展。

Your next question comes from Mike McCormack from Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的麥克‧麥考馬克。

Tom, maybe just a comment. Comcast made some comments this morning regarding wireless. Now, at least, we know what they're doing, and at least the timing on what you're planning to do. But the comment was just sort of saying that wireless is a tough industry, and historically, I think people have thought you guys might be interested in owners' economics at some point. Has anything changed in your view on that front? And then secondly, just on the single play penetration. How high do we think that should go over time? And what impact, maybe for Chris, would that have on the margin profile of the company?

湯姆，或許你只是想說句話。康卡斯特今天早上就無線網路問題發表了一些評論。現在，至少我們知道他們在做什麼，也至少知道你們計劃做什麼的時間安排。但那句話的意思其實是說無線行業競爭很激烈，而且從歷史上看，我認為人們一直認為你們可能會在某個時候對運營商的經濟狀況感興趣。你在這方面的看法是否有改變？其次，就單次進攻滲透而言。我們認為隨著時間的推移，這個數值應該會達到多高？那麼，對克里斯來說，這會對公司的利潤率產生什麼影響呢？

I wouldn't -- I would say I agree with Comcast's point of view on that, but we like our MVNO. We like our relationship with Verizon. We like our potential relationship with Comcast. And we do think that the industry has a lot of challenges in front of it and that the -- that it's fully penetrated. That gives us a tremendous opportunity as new entrants with other high-quality services to package with it, but I agree with their point of view.

我不會——我會說我同意康卡斯特的觀點，但我們喜歡我們的虛擬運營商。我們很滿意與Verizon的合作關係。我們看好與康卡斯特的潛在合作關係。我們認為，該行業面臨許多挑戰，而且——它已經完全滲透了。這為我們這些擁有其他高品質服務的新進業者提供了一個巨大的機會，可以將其與其他服務打包銷售，但我同意他們的觀點。

On single play, look, I -- it's not our stated goal. Our stated goal was to get as many services into the home because we think that's the best way that we can deliver value to the consumer and retain that consumer for a longer period of time. And by having a higher amount of revenue per household, even if we're saving the customer a lot of money, means that we've got better utilization of our network. Your question is, could -- what's the margin profile of a company that becomes more Internet and single-play focused over time? I think the answer is it depends on how far penetrated you get with that Internet product in that single play. If you had 100% of the households on single-play Internet, that would be a pretty nice business with a very high margin and it'd have lower CapEx. But as -- they're small and I don't know how relevant they are to Charter. But there's some other companies who have public numbers who have gone down -- intentionally gone down the path of that strategy because they've given up on video. And when you look at revenue and EBITDA growth, I think our plan is working better from an overall output perspective and I think it provides us much more optionality down the road. And we still think video is a very good business. It doesn't have the dissimilar gross margin as it relates to Internet. It maybe has a different margin percent, gross margin percent, but dollars of margin is what matters. And we think video is still very important to selling Internet. And if we didn't push or have an attractive video product, we would sell less Internet, and I think one way or another, that's the right way to think about it.

就單次進攻而言，你看，我——這不是我們既定的目標。我們明確的目標是盡可能地將服務送到客戶家中，因為我們認為這是我們為消費者提供價值並長期留住消費者的最佳方式。即使我們為客戶節省了很多錢，但透過提高每戶家庭的收入，也意味著我們更好地利用了網路。你的問題是，隨著時間的推移，一家公司如果更加專注於網路和單一業務，其利潤率會如何變化？我認為答案取決於你在那一次行銷活動中，該網路產品的滲透程度。如果所有家庭都使用單次網路服務，那將是一項利潤非常高、資本支出較低的非常不錯的業務。但是——它們規模很小，我不知道它們與 Charter 的相關性有多大。但還有一些公開業績數據的公司業績下滑——他們故意採取這種策略，因為他們已經放棄了視訊業務。從營收和 EBITDA 成長的角度來看，我認為從整體產出角度來看，我們的計畫效果更好，而且我認為它為我們未來的發展提供了更大的選擇。我們仍然認為視頻業務非常好。它與互聯網相比，毛利率並沒有顯著差異。它的毛利率可能不同，但利潤金額才是最重要的。我們認為視訊對於網路銷售仍然非常重要。如果我們不大力推廣或推出有吸引力的影片產品，我們的網路銷量就會下降，我認為無論如何，這才是正確的思考方式。

Your next question is from Philip Cusick from JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的菲利普‧庫西克。

First, where are we in the IT and billing system migrations? I saw a headline last week that you'd signed a contract with someone. And then second, if, Chris, you could dig in a little bit more on the Legacy TWC improvements, gross adds and really picking up of new connections or -- and -- versus a shrinking pool of potential churners. And are you doing better with saves and upgrades as people call and are pushed up in terms of price?

首先，我們在IT和計費系統遷移方面進展到什麼程度了？我上週看到一則新聞標題，說你和某人簽了合約。其次，克里斯，如果你能更深入地探討一下傳統 TWC 的改進、新增用戶數量以及真正獲得新連接的情況，或者——以及——與潛在流失用戶數量減少的情況，那就太好了。隨著人們打電話諮詢並被推高價格，你們在保存和升級方面做得更好了嗎？

So with regard to IT, we actually have 4 billing vendors, 1 of which is quite small, Hawaii only, but so 3 for most of the country. And we have -- we have continued relationships with those vendors. Our strategy is to build a uniform front-facing engine over top of all the legacy billing systems and provisioning systems so that every customer service representative that we have and every field person, who also has a tablet, essentially every front-line person in the company and every customer is looking at the same set of prices, packages and service infrastructure information about their account in the same format everywhere across the country, regardless of who the underlying IT vendors are. And we're well on our way to doing that. When we closed the deal, we had 11 different billing environments. So even though we had 4 billing vendors, we had multiple instances of the same vendor where traffic, meaning calls and customer service activity, couldn't be moved from one zone to another. Although they're not geographic, the customer base inside of any one of those instances is limited to the service infrastructure that was built at that scale. And so by the end of this year, we'll be at 3. And at the end of next year, we'll be at one, meaning one environment with an umbrella over top of it, what we call an abstraction layer. And we'll be able to provide a consistent high-quality service product and have virtual service anywhere, anytime, anyplace from any person in Charter, and that's our objective. And so our relationship with the billing vendors is consistent with that strategy.

所以就 IT 而言，我們實際上有 4 家計費供應商，其中 1 家規模很小，只服務夏威夷，但全國大部分地區有 3 家。我們與這些供應商一直保持著合作關係。我們的策略是在所有傳統計費系統和配置系統之上構建一個統一的前端引擎，這樣，我們公司的每一位客戶服務代表、每一位現場工作人員（他們也都配備了平板電腦）、基本上公司的每一位一線人員以及每一位客戶，無論底層 IT 供應商是誰，都能在全國範圍內以相同的格式查看與其帳戶相關的相同價格、套餐和服務基礎設施的相同價格。我們正朝著這個目標穩步前進。交易完成後，我們當時有 11 種不同的計費環境。因此，儘管我們有 4 個計費供應商，但同一供應商卻有多個實例，導致流量（即呼叫和客戶服務活動）無法從一個區域轉移到另一個區域。雖然它們並非基於地理位置，但任何一個實例中的客戶群都僅限於以該規模建構的服務基礎架構。因此，到今年年底，我們將達到 3 個。到明年年底，我們將達到 1 個，這意味著只有一個環境，​​上面覆蓋著一層保護層，我們稱之為抽象層。我們將能夠提供始終如一的高品質服務產品，並且Charter的任何用戶都可以隨時隨地享受虛擬服務，這就是我們的目標。因此，我們與計費供應商的關係也與此策略相符。

And churn for the TWC legacy base, it remains elevated. And -- for the base that's not converted over to Spectrum pricing and packaging. And it's going to continue to remain elevated in that segment until it's fully migrated or churned out over time. We're doing, on the margin, better [on] saves inside that footprint now that the Spectrum pricing and packaging is rolled out. But given the nature of some of the packages and the level the promotional pricing versus rack rate pricing that existed in those legacy packages, and even with respect to pricing and packaging, sometimes that's a difficult save because of the way that it was sold in. So it will happen over time but it's not going to be overnight and there's no special pill.

對於TWC的傳統用戶群來說，用戶流失率仍然很高。而且——對於尚未轉換為 Spectrum 定價和套餐的基本用戶群而言。而且，在完全遷移或隨著時間的推移逐漸消失之前，該細分市場的價格將繼續保持高位。現在 Spectrum 的定價和套餐已經推出，我們在現有規模內節省成本的利潤率也更高了。但考慮到某些套餐的性質，以及這些傳統套餐中促銷價格與零售價格之間的差距，甚至在定價和包裝方面，由於銷售方式的原因，有時很難挽救這些套餐。所以這會隨著時間的推移而發生，但不會一夕之間發生，也沒有什麼特效藥。

Should we think about the new Spectrum pricing and packaging churn as sort of similar to Legacy Charter churn? And even within the non -- or the older pricing base, that churn is coming down as well? Is that a fair way to interpret what you said?

我們是否應該將 Spectrum 的新定價和套餐變更與傳統 Charter 的變更視為某種相似之處？即使在非老客戶群中，客戶流失率也在下降嗎？這樣理解你的意思適合嗎？

Over time, that's correct, is that it should all converge and we know what that should look like. The difference in the short term is that the tenure of a customer has an impact on the level of churn. And so as you sell more, that has a temporary impact of having slightly higher churn. And that's the case with any cable business. So the answer to your question is yes, over the mid- to long term, but the level of selling activity also has an impact.

隨著時間的推移，沒錯，這一切最終都會趨於一致，我們也知道那會是什麼樣子。短期來看，差別在於客戶的生命週期會對客戶流失率產生影響。因此，隨著銷售量增加，暫時會產生略微上升的客戶流失率的影響。任何有線電視公司都是如此。所以，你的問題的答案是肯定的，從中長期來看，銷售活動量也會產生影響。

Your next question comes from Kannan Venkateshwar from Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的坎南·文卡特什瓦爾。

So Chris, a question on programming cost. Basically, you guys just signed a deal with FOX News, I think, and it looks like you guys have a couple of other big deals coming up over the course of the next 1 year. How should we think about that now that the synergy component in that cost line is more or less behind us? If you could help us with that, that will be great.

克里斯，關於程式設計成本的問題。基本上，你們剛剛和福斯新聞簽了約，我想，而且看起來在接下來的1年裡，你們還會達成其他幾項大交易。既然成本中的綜效部分已經基本過去，我們該如何看待這個問題呢？如果您能在這方面幫我們一把，那就太好了。

Well, I think the fundamental issue is that we have achieved synergies in our programming costs as a result of the transaction and our management of the contracts within the company. That said, the general trend is still pretty much like it has been for a number of years. And when people talk about what's going to happen to the video business 3, 5 years from now, I say it looks a lot like it does now and you still have large programming entities with a need for pricing even though that pricing on the margin is negatively affecting the whole category because you're pricing people out of the market for video, rich, fat bundles of full-service video. Given what's happening to advertising and the distraction of viewers and that overall penetration of MVPD-like services, the revenue that programmers are going to drive is primarily going to come from rate. So you're going to still have the kind of environment we've been in, I think, going forward for a significant period of time. And so our objective is to manage that and to manage our customer relationships and to keep the video business working for us. But it is a high-cost business and one of the big inputs is programming, and it's going to continue to be outsized in terms of its impact on cost.

我認為根本問題在於，由於此次交易以及我們對公司內部合約的管理，我們在編程成本方面實現了協同效應。儘管如此，整體趨勢與過去幾年基本相同。當人們談論未來 3 年、5 年視頻行業的發展趨勢時，我會說它看起來和現在很相似，仍然會有大型節目製作公司需要定價，儘管這種定價策略正在對整個行業產生負面影響，因為它把人們擠出了視頻市場，讓他們無法購買內容豐富、功能齊全的全套視頻服務。鑑於廣告業的現狀、觀眾的分心以及類似 MVPD 服務的整體滲透率，節目製作商的收入主要將來自轉播費。所以我認為，在未來相當長的一段時間內，我們仍將處於我們所處的這種環境中。因此，我們的目標是管理好這一點，管理好我們的客戶關係，並讓視訊業務為我們持續發展。但這是一項高成本的業務，其中一項主要投入是編程，而且編程對成本的影響將繼續非常巨大。

For Charter, we'll need to be talking about it on a per expanded customer relationship, similar to what we did at Legacy Charter over time given the transition of the base out of more limited packages at TWC into more expanded. So there are going to be multiple pieces, and similar to what we've done in the past, we'll be breaking that out over time.

對於 Charter 而言，我們需要根據每個擴展的客戶關係來討論這個問題，類似於我們在 Legacy Charter 時期所做的那樣，因為其基礎套餐從 TWC 的有限套餐過渡到了更擴展的套餐。所以會分成多個部分，就像我們過去所做的那樣，我們會隨著時間的推移逐步推出。

And then if I could follow up on -- recently, there's been, I think, some announcements you did as well on skinny bundles. How do you see the opportunity there? Is it largely a broadband-only opportunity? And how big is that market from your perspective and your footprint?

然後，如果可以的話，我想跟進一下——最近，我認為你們也發布了一些關於精簡版軟體包的公告。您如何看待那裡的機會？這主要是一個僅限寬頻存取的機會嗎？從您的角度來看，您的市場規模有多大？

I think there may be some market there and we have some experimental marketing activity in that space, but it hasn't yet been demonstrated to be a significant niche. And most of the people that are looking at skinny bundles are looking for price. And the problem is that they don't satisfy from a consumption perspective and some people come in and out of the category. There's more churn as a result of that with -- the demand is still there, but the ability to pay for it isn't. So the answer is I don't know, but it's not in programmers' interest to have themselves get disaggregated from the big bundle and become much lower-penetrated niche services. And so I think that continued objective of staying in a big package will continue to drive the model, so to speak, of programming distribution.

我認為那裡可能存在一些市場，我們也在該領域進行了一些實驗性的營銷活動，但尚未證明它是一個重要的細分市場。大多數關注精簡套餐的人都是為了價格。問題在於，從消費角度來看，它們無法滿足消費者的需求，有些人會時而購買這類產品，時而不再購買。由此導致的客戶流失率更高——需求依然存在，但支付能力卻不足。所以答案是我不知道，但對於程式設計師來說，從大型軟體包中分離出來，成為滲透率低得多的利基服務，是不符合他們利益的。因此，我認為，維持整體規模的目標將繼續推動節目分發模式的發展。

Then your final question will come from Jennifer Reif from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

最後一個問題將來自美國銀行美林證券的珍妮佛·雷夫。

It's Jessica Reif. I have 3 follow-ups, I guess. First, I guess, on the programming discussion. There's a lot of talk about consolidation on the programming side. Can you talk about your views of how that potentially changing landscape might affect you? Does it change anything that you just said? Second, Tom, just a follow-up on some of the comments you made about the Comcast deal. Can you just give us some color behind why the exclusivity? What -- the 1-year exclusive deal. What benefits do you get out of that as opposed to just a general deal? And then finally, I guess, for Chris. I heard your comments on the buyback, but can you give us some kind of a near-term outlook about the pace? I think you said it depends on other uses, but you are -- you're kind of at the low end of your target leverage of 4 to 4.5x.

她是傑西卡·雷夫。我大概還有3個後續問題。首先，我想先討論一下程式設計方面的問題。關於程式設計領域的整合，現在有很多討論。您能否談談您認為這種潛在的變化會對您產生哪些影響？這會改變你剛才說的任何內容嗎？其次，湯姆，我想就你之前對康卡斯特交易發表的一些評論做個後續說明。能否詳細解釋為什麼要採取獨家合作方式？什麼？ ——一年獨家合約？與普通交易相比，這樣做有什麼好處？最後，我想，也包括克里斯。我聽到了你關於股票回購的評論，但你能否給我們一些關於近期回購速度的展望？我想你說過這取決於其他用途，但你——你的槓桿率已經接近目標槓桿率 4 到 4.5 倍的下限了。

Well, on programming consolidation, obviously, depending on how significant it was, it could have an impact on pricing power of entities. And I think there are some smaller companies there that have questionable pricing power and you can see them wanting to align themselves to get it. And so I think you'll see some, but it's hard for me to quantify it other than to say that it's consistent with what I previously said. Why the 1-year exclusivity with Comcast? I said earlier that we have the same MVNO. We wanted to work together. We wanted to find a way to make that MVNO work and we thought we needed a significant period of time to able to work together comfortably on the same business plan with regard to the MVNO and the 1 year gives us that. I mean, Chris, I don't know if...

至於程式整合，顯然，根據整合的規模，可能會對實體的定價能力產生影響。我認為那裡有一些規模較小的公司，它們的定價能力值得懷疑，你可以看出它們想要透過某種方式來獲得這種能力。所以我覺得你會看到一些，但我很難量化它，只能說它與我之前所說的一致。為什麼與康卡斯特簽訂為期一年的獨家協議？我之前說過，我們使用的是同一家虛擬業者。我們想一起工作。我們想找到一種方法讓虛擬運營商 (MVNO) 運作起來，我們認為我們需要相當長的一段時間才能就虛擬運營商的同一商業計劃進行舒適的合作，而 1 年的時間正好滿足了我們的需求。我的意思是，克里斯，我不知道是否…

On the buyback, Jessica, look, I get it. I understand why everybody would like to have quarterly or annual guidance for knowing what portion of our free cash flow would be used for buybacks or otherwise, but I don't believe that's smart for us or it's the best outcome for shareholders. And by that, I mean, getting locked into a guidance of sort and having people be disappointed if you found a better opportunity somewhere for deploying that capital may put you in a situation where you end up taking a bad decision just to please previous guidances. So that really is the driver of not providing the guidance or an outlook and making sure that we have the flexibility to do what we think is right in terms of where we deploy the capital, either internally or externally or as it relates to buybacks. So we're not going to be, at least at this stage, getting into that mode of providing that guidance.

關於回購，潔西卡，你看，我明白了。我理解為什麼大家都希望獲得季度或年度指引，以便了解我們自由現金流的哪一部分將用於股票回購或其他用途，但我認為這對我們來說並不明智，也不是股東的最佳結果。我的意思是，如果被某種指導方針束縛，而你又在其他地方找到了更好的資本部署機會，導致人們失望，那麼你可能會為了迎合之前的指導方針而做出錯誤的決定。所以，這正是我們不提供指導或展望的真正原因，也是確保我們有足夠的彈性，可以按照我們認為正確的方式部署資本，無論是內部投資、外部投資或股票回購。所以，至少在現階段，我們不會採取提供指導的方式。

Thanks, everyone. We look forward to speaking to you next quarter.

謝謝大家。我們期待下個季度與您再次交流。

Thanks, Michelle.

謝謝你，米歇爾。

Thank you all.

謝謝大家。

You're very welcome. Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

不客氣。謝謝大家。今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。