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Cable Has $386 Billion Economic Impact, NCTA Report Says

The cable industry's 2.7 million employees receive $116 billion in pay annually, and that employment has grown by 1.25 million since 2002, Bortz Media Group said in a cable industry study released Wednesday by NCTA. The overall economic impact of…

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cable TV is $386 billion, NCTA said. The report includes a litany of what it calls pluses of the industry, including more than $2.4 billion paid to local municipalities last year in franchise fees and $3.4 billion in subscriber taxes and fees paid to state and local governments. Cable network gross advertising revenue topped $30 billion in 2014, up from $27 billion two years earlier, the study said. Of the $40.4 billion spent in 2014 on program network production and acquisition, $33.7 billion went to national and regional networks, with another $3.9 billion to premium networks and $2.7 billion to pay-per-view and VOD services. The number of cable broadband customers in 2014 was 55.8 million, up from 49.6 million in 2012. The industry's phone service customers totaled 28.5 million, up from 26.4 million two years earlier.