Charter 2012 Annual Report Download - page 59

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information see Note 7 to the accompanying consolidated financial statements contained in “Item 8. Financial Statements
and Supplementary Data.”
Contractual Obligations
The following table summarizes our payment obligations as of December 31, 2012 under our long-term debt and certain other
contractual obligations and commitments (dollars in millions.)
Payments by Period
Total Less than 1 year 1-3 years 3-5 years More than 5 years
Contractual Obligations (a)
Long-Term Debt Principal Payments (a) $ 12,937 $ 260 $ 509 $ 3,211 $ 8,957
Long-Term Debt Interest Payments (b) 5,347 762 1,507 1,388 1,690
Capital and Operating Lease Obligations (c) 125 32 49 30 14
Programming Minimum Commitments (d) 521 146 192 183 —
Other (e) 648 507 141 — —
Total $ 19,578 $ 1,707 $ 2,398 $ 4,812 $ 10,661
(a) The table presents maturities of long-term debt outstanding as of December 31, 2012. Refer to Notes 7 and 18 to our
accompanying consolidated financial statements contained in “Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data”
for a description of our long-term debt and other contractual obligations and commitments.
(b) Interest payments on variable debt are estimated using amounts outstanding at December 31, 2012 and the average implied
forward London Interbank Offering Rate (“LIBOR”) rates applicable for the quarter during the interest rate reset based
on the yield curve in effect at December 31, 2012. Actual interest payments will differ based on actual LIBOR rates and
actual amounts outstanding for applicable periods.
(c) We lease certain facilities and equipment under noncancelable operating leases. Leases and rental costs charged to expense
for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2011 and 2010, were $28 million, $27 million and $28 million, respectively.
(d) We pay programming fees under multi-year contracts ranging from three to ten years, typically based on a flat fee per
customer, which may be fixed for the term, or may in some cases escalate over the term. Programming costs included
in the accompanying statement of operations were approximately $2.0 billion, $1.9 billion and $1.8 billion, for the years
ended December 31, 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively. Certain of our programming agreements are based on a flat fee
per month or have guaranteed minimum payments. The table sets forth the aggregate guaranteed minimum commitments
under our programming contracts.
(e) “Other” represents other guaranteed minimum commitments, which consist primarily of commitments to our customer
premise equipment vendors and billing services vendors.
The following items are not included in the contractual obligations table because the obligations are not fixed and/or determinable
due to various factors discussed below. However, we incur these costs as part of our operations:
• We rent utility poles used in our operations. Generally, pole rentals are cancelable on short notice, but we anticipate that
such rentals will recur. Rent expense incurred for pole rental attachments for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2011
and 2010 was $47 million, $49 million and $50 million, respectively.
• We pay franchise fees under multi-year franchise agreements based on a percentage of revenues generated from video
service per year. We also pay other franchise related costs, such as public education grants, under multi-year agreements.
Franchise fees and other franchise-related costs included in the accompanying statement of operations were $176 million,
$174 million and $178 million for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2011 and 2010, respectively.
• We also have $67 million in letters of credit, primarily to our various worker’s compensation, property and casualty, and
general liability carriers, as collateral for reimbursement of claims.
Limitations on Distributions
Distributions by Charter’s subsidiaries to a parent company for payment of principal on parent company notes are restricted under
indentures and credit facilities governing our indebtedness, unless there is no default under the applicable indenture and credit