COO of Cablevision Systems (CVC) Tom Rutledge spoke at the Bank of America 2007 Media, Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference this week saying that the company has a lot of room for growth in advertising sales.
He said that in the U.S. there is about $300 billion in ad messages spent per year. Of that, Cablevision accounts for around 4 percent of it with consumers. He said the company has the potential to reach between $12 billion to $15 billion in ad sales a year. At this time they pull in around $250 million from ads - 6 percent of its overall revenue.
He asked, "Who else reaches almost 70% of their universe [with its customers] with a full suite of video, data and voice services--yet is such an inconsequential part of the advertising mix?" Concerning ad revenue in the future he said this should change and the company will "...create opportunities that will fulfill the needs of business to reach our customers."
While there is huge potential in ad revenue for the taking, Rutledge added that the triple-play aspect of the company is still very strong and is selling well. At this time they have a 69 percent cable penetration, a 46 percent share of data services and a 26 percent share of voice services.
The company has been growing in voice at about 10 percentage points yearly, and data services at a 6 percent growth clip.
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