Adelphia

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For other uses, see Adelphia (disambiguation).

Template:Infobox Company Adelphia Communications Corporation Template:Otcbb, named after the Greek word for "brotherhood", was the sixth largest US cable television operator before it filed for bankruptcy in 2002 due to internal corruption. Oren Cohen, analyst of Merrill Lynch, questioned where the Rigas family got the cash to buy about $1bn of the company's stock. Later, the Rigas family (John Rigas and sons), which founded the company in 1952, had allegedly been deceiving its investors as well as mismanaging and allocating funds. Along with one of his sons, John Rigas, now 80, was convicted in the summer of 2004 of conspiracy, bank fraud, and securities fraud.

Adelphia is currently undergoing improvements in management and customer care. Although some argue that Adelphia's increases in cable rates are unnecessary and unreasonable, others argue that it is necessary to temporarily issue the increases at intervals to pull the company out of its bankrupt state. The company says price increases are to cover costs of current operations and not related to the bankruptcy. Adelphia, despite its current situation, continues to expand its cable television and internet services as the new management team makes drastic management and leadership improvements. Adelphia also appears to be keeping up with the recent changes in technology as it expands to offer such services as HDTV. Within the past year or so, Adelphia has also begun to market its own DVR-equipped cable boxes, which add recording functions comparable to those of TiVo.

In 2003-04, Adelphia became the first leading cable company to offer XXX-rated pornography programming in a major market (Southern California). This move marked a sharp change in the company's attitude towards such programming. Subsequently, the company removed the XXX programming and retuned to offering only XX programming. Under the Rigas management, the company had, in 1999, dropped the Spice Channel, which featured soft-core pornography, from several newly acquired cable systems, citing conflict with founder John Rigas' morality.

One previous marker of Adelphia's success before its bankruptcy included the naming of a football stadium, The Coliseum (formerly Adelphia Coliseum) in Nashville, after its company name.

1 Dissolution
2 Management
3 See also
4 External links

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Dissolution

A proposed 18-billion dollar U.S. deal would divide Adelphia's assets between Time Warner Cable and Comcast. The deal, recently approved by the Federal Trade Commission, still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Upon its completion, expected later in 2006, Time Warner and Comcast will take over the Adelphia cable systems, along with trading some of their own systems to pair with the new Adelphia acquisitions in different regions of the country.

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