The state’s Public Service Commission ordered Charter Communications, which operates under the brand name Spectrum, to leave New York. It also ordered Charter to file a plan within 60 days to find a replacement provider.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
By Vivian Wang
July 27, 2018
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration moved to ban Charter Communications from New York on Friday, ordering the internet, television and phone behemoth to leave the state and hand over its business to another company.
The state’s Public Service Commission said Charter had failed to comply with the terms of its 2016 merger with Time Warner Cable. Under that agreement, the state allowed Charter to acquire Time Warner, making it the second-largest cable operator in the country, if the company agreed to upgrade or expand its broadband services in sparsely populated areas. The commissioners voted on Friday to revoke approval for that merger, effectively barring the company from continuing to operate.
The commission ordered Charter — which trails only Comcast in size — to file a plan within 60 days to find a replacement provider, without any disruptions to service. It also asked the State Supreme Court in Albany to force the company to pay additional fines.
Any actual halt to Charter’s operations is unlikely to come soon, as the company plans to challenge the order.
The Public Service Commission’s decision is the latest and most aggressive offensive in a prolonged battle between Charter, which operates under the brand name Spectrum and employs more than 11,000 New Yorkers, and Mr. Cuomo, who has accused the company of reneging on its promises to expand broadband service to rural areas of the state.
At an unrelated news conference after the decision, Mr. Cuomo said Charter had repeatedly refused the state’s efforts to hold it responsible.
“Some of these large corporations think they can get away with murder, right?” he said. “Just because you’re a big corporation doesn’t mean you can come into this state and bully the consumers of this state. It’s not going to happen.”
In its decision, the commission invoked the language of morality, declaring in a statement that in light of the company’s “egregious” and “wholly deficient” performance, it could “no longer in good faith and conscience” allow it to do business in New York.
Spectrum officials suggested that the move may have been politically motivated, noting that Election Day was nearing. The governor has steadily escalated his rhetoric against the company recently, as the embattled provider has fended off both Mr. Cuomo’s charges of malfeasance and an unrelated workers’ strike that has lasted more than a year.
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“In the weeks leading up to an election, rhetoric often becomes politically charged,” the company said in a statement. “But the fact is that Spectrum has extended the reach of our advanced broadband network to more than 86,000 New York homes and businesses since our merger agreement.”
Mr. Cuomo is facing an aggressive challenge on his left flank from the other Democratic candidate for governor, Cynthia Nixon, as well as attacks by the Republican candidate, the Dutchess County executive, Marcus J. Molinaro.
While the feud between the state and Charter has stretched over months, Friday’s decision arrived abruptly, announced after a vote at a hastily called special meeting of the commission in Albany.
The commission had previously ordered Charter to pay a $2 million fine for its slow broadband rollout. Mr. Cuomo has also threatened the company with legal action — a fact the governor brought up at a news conference earlier this month, where he told a reporter from NY1, Spectrum’s local news affiliate, that he didn’t want to argue with him because “I already have a lawsuit with your station, as you know.” The governor’s office later said the comment was a joke and that he had been referring to the broadband dispute.
But Mr. Cuomo was critical of the station’s coverage on Friday, arguing that it had not adequately reported on its parent company’s legal woes. “They virtually blacked it out of their newscast,” he said.
Union members who have been striking against Charter cheered the decision, with Derek Jordan, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3, calling company leaders “bad players.” If Charter handed its services over to another company, the union would continue negotiating with that provider to secure robust pension and medical benefits, Mr. Jordan said.
