UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

(Mark One)

For the year ended December 31, 2003
or

For the Transition Period From            to

Charter Communications, Inc.

Securities registered pursuant to section 12(b) of the Act: None
Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act:
Class A Common Stock, $.001 Par Value

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes þ No o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. o

Indicate by checkmark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes x No o

The aggregate market value of the registrant of outstanding Class A Common Stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant at June 30, 2003 was approximately $877 million, computed based on the closing sale price as quoted on the Nasdaq National Market on that date. For purposes of this calculation only, directors, executive officers and the principal controlling shareholder or entities controlled by such controlling shareholder of the registrant are deemed to be affiliates of the registrant.

There were 295,136,831 shares of Class A Common Stock outstanding as of February 29, 2004. There were 50,000 shares of Class B Common Stock outstanding as of the same date.

Documents Incorporated By Reference
The following documents are incorporated into this Report by reference: None

Table of Contents

CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
FORM 10-K — FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2003

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This annual report includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, regarding, among other things, our plans, strategies and prospects, both business and financial, including, without limitation, the forward-looking statements set forth in the “Focus for 2004” section under Part I, Item 1. “Business,” “Overview of Operations” and the “Liquidity and Capital Resources” sections under Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in this annual report. Although we believe that our plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or realize these plans, intentions or expectations. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, without limitation, the factors described under “Certain Trends and Uncertainties” under Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in this annual report. Many of the forward-looking statements contained in this annual report may be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “planned,” “will,” “may,” “intend,” “estimated” and “potential,” among others. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make in this annual report are set forth in this annual report and in other reports or documents that we file from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, and include, but are not limited to:

All forward-looking statements attributable to us or a person acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. We are under no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this annual report.

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PART I

Item 1. Business.

Introduction

Charter Communications, Inc. (“Charter”) is a broadband communications company operating in the United States, with approximately 12.4 million homes passed and approximately 6.54 million customers. Through our broadband network of coaxial and fiber optic cable, we offer our customers traditional cable video programming (analog and digital, which we refer to as “video” service), high-speed cable Internet access (which we refer to as “high-speed data service”), advanced broadband cable services (such as video on demand (“VOD”), high definition television service and interactive television) and, in some of our markets, we offer telephone service (which we refer to as “telephony”). (“Homes passed” represents our estimate of the number of living units, such as single family homes, apartment units and condominium units passed by our cable distribution network. Homes passed excludes commercial units passed by the cable distribution network.)

We offer analog video service to all of our homes passed and we offer digital video service to approximately 99% of our homes passed. At December 31, 2003, we served approximately 6.43 million analog video customers, of which approximately 2.67 million are also digital video customers. We offer high-speed data service to approximately 87% of our homes passed and we serve approximately 1.57 million high-speed data customers (including approximately 105,800 who receive high-speed data only services). At December 31, 2003, we offered voice-over-Internet protocol (“VOIP”) telephony to approximately 33,000 homes passed in one market and traditional switch-based telephony to approximately 86,600 homes passed in another market. We provided telephony service to approximately 24,900 customers in these two markets as of that date. See “— Products and Services.”

At December 31, 2003, our investment in cable properties, long-term debt, accumulated deficit and total shareholders’ deficit were $20.7 billion, $18.6 billion, $4.9 billion and $175 million, respectively. Our working capital deficit was $885 million at December 31, 2003. For the year ended December 31, 2003, our revenues, net loss applicable to common stock and loss per common share were approximately $4.8 billion, $242 million and $0.82, respectively.

We have a history of net losses. Further, we expect to continue to report net losses for the foreseeable future. Our net losses are principally attributable to insufficient revenue to cover our interest costs we incur because of our high level of debt, the depreciation expenses that we incur resulting from the capital investments we have made in our cable properties, and the amortization and impairment of our franchise intangibles. We expect that these expenses (other than amortization and impairment of franchises) will remain significant, and we therefore expect to continue to report net losses for the foreseeable future. Additionally, reported losses allocated to minority interest on the statement of operations will be limited to the extent of any remaining minority interest on the balance sheet related to Charter Communications Holding Company, LLC (“Charter Holdco”). Accordingly, commencing in 2004, Charter expects to absorb all, or substantially all, future losses before income taxes because minority interest in Charter Holdco was substantially eliminated at December 31, 2003. For the year ended December 31, 2003, 53.5% of our losses before income taxes were classified as minority interest.

Charter was organized as a Delaware corporation in 1999 and completed an initial public offering of its Class A common stock in November 1999. Charter is a holding company whose principal assets are an approximate 46% equity interest and a 100% voting interest in Charter Holdco, the direct parent of Charter Communications Holdings, LLC (“Charter Holdings”). Charter also holds certain preferred equity and indebtedness of Charter Holdco that mirror the terms of securities issued by Charter. Charter’s only business is to act as the sole manager of Charter Holdco and its subsidiaries. As sole manager, Charter controls the affairs of Charter Holdco and its subsidiaries. Certain of our subsidiaries commenced operations under the “Charter Communications” name in 1994, and our growth to date has been primarily due to acquisitions and business combinations, most notably acquisitions completed from 1999 through 2001, pursuant to which we acquired a total of approximately 5.5 million customers. We do not expect to make any significant acquisitions in the foreseeable future, but plan to evaluate opportunities to consolidate our operations through exchanges of cable systems with other cable operators, as they arise. We may also sell certain assets from time to time. Paul G. Allen controls Charter with an as-converted common equity interest of 58% and a beneficial voting control interest of 93%.

Our principal executive offices are located at Charter Plaza, 12405 Powerscourt Drive, St. Louis, Missouri 63131. Our telephone number is (314) 965-0555. We have a website accessible at http://www.charter.com. Since January 1, 2002, our annual reports, quarterly reports and current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments thereto,

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have been made available on our website as soon as reasonably practicable after they have been filed. The information posted on our website is not incorporated into this annual report.

Adoption of New Policies

Commencing in January 2002 and continuing through the first quarter of 2003, our management elected to implement a number of new policies described in “Item 7 — Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation — Adoption of New Polices.”

Restatement of Prior Results

There were no restatements in 2003 of prior results. However, certain reclassifications have been made to 2002 and 2001 amounts to conform to 2003 presentation. Also, as discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2002, as part of a re-audit performed by KPMG LLP, we concluded that it was appropriate to make certain adjustments to previously reported results. In the restatement of our results, adjustments were made, among other things, to previous interpretations and applications of generally accepted accounting principles that had been consistently followed by us since 2000 and throughout the restatement period.

These adjustments reduced revenues reported in our 2002 quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the first three quarters of 2002 by a total of $38 million, and in our 2001 annual report on Form 10-K for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000 by $146 million and $108 million, respectively. Such adjustments represent approximately 1%, 4% and 3% of previously reported revenues for the respective periods in 2002, 2001 and 2000. Our previously reported consolidated net loss increased by a total of $26 million for the first three quarters of 2002 and decreased by $11 million for the year ended December 31, 2001. Our previously reported net loss increased by $29 million for the year ended December 31, 2000, primarily due to adjustments related to the original accounting for acquisitions and elements of our rebuild and upgrade activities. See “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Restatement of Prior Results” for a more detailed discussion of the restatement.

Certain Significant Developments in 2003 and Early 2004

In 2003, we substantially completed the upgrade of our cable systems that we had commenced in 2000. Our systems upgrade increased our bandwidth capacity, enabling us to offer digital video service, two-way communication capability and other advanced services. In addition, our upgrade has enabled us to reduce the number of headend control centers, or “headends,” which house the equipment to receive broadcast and satellite signals, transmit signals to customers and connect customers for data services. In 2003, we invested approximately $132 million to upgrade our systems. At December 31, 2003, approximately 92% of our customers were served by bandwidth of 550 megahertz or greater, approximately 87% are served by bandwidth of 750 megahertz or greater and approximately 87% of our plant was two-way enabled. See “— Our Network Technology.”

During 2003, we undertook a number of transition activities including reorganizing our workforce, adjusting our video pricing and packages, completing call center consolidations and implementing billing conversions. Due to the focus on such activities and certain financial constraints, we reduced spending on marketing our products and services. We believe that the reduction in marketing activities and other necessary operational changes negatively impacted customer retention and acquisition, primarily during the first half of the year. During the second half of 2003, we increased our marketing efforts and implemented promotional campaigns to slow the loss of analog video customers, and to accelerate advanced services penetration, specifically in high-speed data. In 2003, we had a net decline in analog video customers from approximately 6.58 million to approximately 6.41 million. During the same period, our number of high-speed data customers increased by approximately 427,500, contributing to a revenue increase of approximately 6% in 2003. See “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

At December 31, 2003, we offered digital video service to approximately 99% of our estimated homes passed and the estimated penetration rate (i.e., the percentage of digital-enabled estimated homes passed that received the service) was 22%. We also offered high-speed data service to approximately 923,500 additional homes passed in 2003, bringing estimated high-speed data enabled homes passed at December 31, 2003, to approximately 10.7 million, and increased our number of high-speed data customers during 2003 from approximately 1,138,100 to approximately 1,565,600, a penetration rate of 15% of high-speed data homes passed. In 2003, revenues from high-

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speed data services increased 65%. See “— Products and Services” and “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

Asset Sales

On October 1, 2003, our subsidiaries closed the sale of cable systems serving approximately 25,000 customers in Port Orchard, Washington, for a total price of approximately $91 million, subject to adjustments.

On March 1, 2004, our subsidiary, Charter Holdings, and several of its subsidiaries closed the sale of cable systems in Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia with Atlantic Broadband Finance, LLC. We anticipate that an additional closing for a cable system in New York will occur during the first quarter of 2004. After giving effect to the sale of the New York system, net proceeds will be approximately $735 million, subject to post-closing adjustments. We will use these proceeds to repay bank debt. At December 31, 2003, the systems sold in this transaction, including the New York system, served approximately 230,800 analog video customers, 83,300 digital video customers and 37,800 high-speed data customers.

CCH II Debt Exchanges

On September 23, 2003, we and our subsidiaries, CCH II, LLC (“CCH II”) and Charter Holdings, purchased, in a non-monetary transaction, a total of approximately $609 million principal amount of our outstanding convertible senior notes and approximately $1.3 billion principal amount of the senior notes and senior discount notes issued by Charter Holdings from institutional investors in a small number of privately negotiated transactions. As consideration for these securities, CCH II issued approximately $1.6 billion principal amount of 10.25% senior notes due 2010, achieving approximately $294 million of debt discount. CCH II also issued an additional $30 million principal amount of 10.25% senior notes for an equivalent amount of cash and used the net proceeds for transaction costs and general corporate purposes.

November 2003 CCO Holdings Sale of Senior Notes

In November 2003, our subsidiary, CCO Holdings, LLC (“CCO Holdings”), sold $500 million total principal amount of 8¾% senior notes and used the net proceeds of such sale to repay approximately $486 million principal amount of bank debt of our subsidiaries. In November 2003, we terminated our previously announced commitment for a secured loan facility with Vulcan Inc. as a result of this transaction.

Focus for 2004

Our principal financial goal is to maximize our return on invested capital. To do so, we will focus on increasing revenues, improving customer retention and enhancing customer satisfaction by providing reliable, high-quality service offerings, superior customer service and attractive bundled offerings.

Specifically, we are focusing in 2004 on:

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We believe that our high-speed data service has the potential to continue to provide a substantial portion of our revenue growth in the near future. We also plan to continue to expand our marketing of our high-speed data service to the business community, which we believe has shown an increasing interest in high-speed data service and private network services.

We believe we offer our customers an excellent choice of services through an increased variety of bundled packages, particularly with respect to our digital video and high-speed data services. Our digital platform enables us to offer a significant number and variety of channels, and we offer customers the opportunity to choose among groups of channel offerings, including premium channels, and to combine chosen programming with other services such as high-speed data, high definition television (in selected markets) and VOD (in selected markets).

We plan to continue our efforts to improve customer satisfaction through consolidation of customer contact centers, which we have reduced from over 300 at December 31, 2000 to 53 at December 31, 2003. Our 20 largest customer contact centers now serve approximately 93% of our customers. We anticipate that this initiative will assist us in reducing customer contact rates and call abandonment rates, thereby improving customer satisfaction while reducing costs. We believe that consolidation and standardization of call centers enable us to provide a more consistent experience for our customers and to improve sales through the use of better trained, more efficient and sales-oriented customer service representatives.

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Summary Organizational Chart

The chart below sets forth our organizational structure and that of our principal direct and indirect subsidiaries. Equity ownership and voting percentages are actual percentages as of December 31, 2003 and do not give effect to any exercise, conversion or exchange of options, performed and in the climate of the countries in which the work

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Charter Communications, Inc. Charter’s principal assets are an approximate 46% common equity interest and a 100% voting interest in Charter Holdco and “mirror” notes that are payable by Charter Holdco to Charter which have the same principal amount and terms as Charter’s convertible senior notes. Charter Holdco, through its subsidiaries, owns cable systems and certain strategic investments. As sole manager under the applicable operating agreements, Charter controls the affairs of Charter Holdco and most of its subsidiaries. In addition, Charter also provides management services to Charter Holdco and its subsidiaries under a management services agreement.

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The following table sets forth information as of December 31, 2003 with respect to the shares of common stock of Charter on an actual outstanding, “as converted” and “fully diluted” basis:

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Charter Communications Holding Company, LLC. Charter Holdco, a Delaware limited liability company that was formed on May 25, 1999, is the direct 100% parent of Charter Holdings. The common membership units of Charter Holdco are owned 46% by Charter, 19% by Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and 35% by Charter Investment, Inc. All of the outstanding common membership units in Charter Holdco held by Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. are controlled by Mr. Allen and are exchangeable on a one-for-one basis at any time for shares of high vote Class B common stock of Charter, which are in turn convertible into Class A common stock of Charter. Charter controls 100% of the voting power of Charter Holdco and is its sole manager.

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The following table sets forth the information as of December 31, 2003 with respect to the common units of Charter Holdco on an actual outstanding and “fully diluted” basis.

Preferred Equity in CC VIII, LLC. Upon the closing of the acquisition of certain cable systems by our subsidiary, CC VIII, in 2000, some of the former owners received a portion of their purchase price in the form of preferred membership units in CC VIII, LLC, which were exchangeable for shares of Charter Class A common stock. In April 2002, these former owners exercised their right to put their preferred CC VIII membership interests to

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Mr. Allen and this transaction closed on June 6, 2003. An issue has arisen regarding the ultimate ownership of these CC VIII membership units following the consummation of this put right. See “Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions — Transactions Arising Out of Our Organizational Structure and Mr. Allen’s Investment in Charter Communications, Inc. and Its Subsidiaries — Equity Put Rights — CC VIII.”

Charter Communications Holdings, LLC. Charter Holdings, a Delaware limited liability company formed on February 9, 1999, is a co-issuer of the publicly held Charter Holdings notes that consist of $2.8 billion total principal amount at maturity of notes issued in March 1999, $1.4 billion total principal amount at maturity of notes issued in January 2000, $2.0 billion total principal amount at maturity of notes issued in January 2001, $2.3 billion total principal amount at maturity of notes issued in May 2001 (includes additional issuance in January 2002) and $330 million total principal amount at maturity of notes issued in January 2002. Charter Holdings owns 100% of Charter Communications Holdings Capital, the co-issuer of these notes. Charter Holdings also owns CCH II, CCO Holdings and the subsidiaries that conduct all of our cable operations, including the Charter Operating, CC V/CC VIII, CC VI and CC VII Companies described below in “Operating Subsidiaries.”

CCH II, LLC. CCH II, a Delaware limited liability company formed on March 20, 2003, is a co-issuer of the CCH II notes that consist of $1.6 billion principal amount of notes issued in September 2003. CCH II owns 100% of CCH II Capital Corp., the co-issuer of these notes. CCH II also owns CCO Holdings and the subsidiaries that conduct all of our cable operations, including the Charter Operating, CC V/CC VIII, CC VI and CC VII Companies described below in “Operating Subsidiaries.”

CCO Holdings, LLC. CCO Holdings, a Delaware limited liability company formed on June 12, 2003, is a co-issuer of the CCO Holdings notes that consist of $500 million principal amount of notes issued in November 2003. CCO Holdings owns 100% of CCO Holdings Capital Corp., the co-issuer of these notes. CCO Holdings also owns the subsidiaries that conduct all of our cable operations, including the Charter Operating, CC V/CC VIII, CC VI and CC VII Companies described below in “Operating Subsidiaries.”

Operating Subsidiaries. These companies own or operate all of our cable systems. There are four groups of these operating subsidiaries, identified as follows: the Charter Operating companies, the CC V/CC VIII companies, the CC VI companies, and the CC VII companies. Each group of operating subsidiaries has a separate credit facility, and the public notes issued by Renaissance Media Group and CC V Holdings are within two of these subsidiary groups. See “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Liquidity and Capital Resources.”

Products and Services

We offer our customers traditional cable video programming (analog and digital video) as well as high-speed data services and in some areas advanced broadband services such as high definition television, VOD and interactive television. We sell our video programming and high-speed data services on a subscription basis, with prices and related charges, that vary primarily based on the types of service selected, whether the services are sold as a “bundle” versus on an "à la carte” basis, and the equipment necessary to receive the services, with some variation in prices depending on geographic location. In addition, we offer telephony service to a limited number of customers.

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The following table summarizes our customer statistics for analog and digital video, high-speed data and telephony as of December 31, 2003 and December 31, 2002.

Pro forma for the effects of the Port Orchard, Washington sale on October 1, 2003, analog video customers, digital video customers and high-speed data customers would have been 6,552,200, 2,669,800 and 1,128,200, respectively as of December 31, 2002.

On March 1, 2004, our subsidiary, Charter Holdings, and several of its subsidiaries closed on the sale of cable systems with Atlantic Broadband Finance, LLC with an anticipated additional closing in the first quarter of 2004 for a cable system in New York. At December 31, 2003, the systems sold in this transaction, including the New York system, served approximately 230,800 analog video customers, 83,300 digital video customers and 37,800 high-speed data customers.

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Video Services

Our video service offerings include the following:

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High-Speed Data Services

We offer high-speed data services to our residential and commercial customers primarily via cable modems attached to personal computers. We generally offer our high-speed data services as Charter High-Speed Internet™, although in certain markets we offer this service in conjunction with a third-party provider. For our Charter High-Speed Internet service customers, we have a custom start page that is co-branded with Microsoft Corporation’s network of websites, known as MSN®, with content modules that we provide, including, among other things, movie trailers, previews of movies on pay-per-view and VOD, and television listings. We also offer traditional dial-up Internet access in a very limited number of our markets.

In the fall of 2003, we re-priced our high-speed data service, offering faster speed and additional features both as part of a service bundle and as an “à la carte” offering. We ended 2003 with 15% penetration of high-speed data homes passed, up from the 12% penetration of high-speed data homes passed at year-end 2002. This gave us an annual percentage increase in high-speed data customers of 38% and an increase in high-speed data revenues of 65% in 2003 compared to year-end 2002. As of September 30, 2003, in most of our systems, we migrated high-speed data customers to the fastest residential speed available at no additional charge to our existing high-speed data customers. These customers will remain at that speed without additional charge through March 2004. At that time, we expect to begin migrating customers to our two-tier offerings with new pricing and new choices of connection speed.

Advanced Broadband Services

We continue to test, evaluate and deploy new advanced services that we believe will provide new revenue streams to offset overall increasing programming costs or enhance our appeal to consumers to counter competition. These advanced services include:

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Digital Video Recorder

In December 2003, we launched digital video recording capabilities service in four Los Angeles systems serving 121,000 digital video customers at year-end. We expect to further expand DVR deployment in 2004 and we expect to end 2004 with DVR deployment in systems serving approximately 1.38 million digital video customers, which would be approximately 52% of our digital video customers as of December 31, 2003.

Sale of Advertising

We receive revenue from the sale of local advertising on satellite-delivered networks such as MTV®, CNN® and ESPN®. In any particular market, we generally insert local advertising on a minimum of four networks, and have covered up to 45 channels. Our system rebuild and digital service launches have increased the number of available channels on which we are able to insert local advertising. We also provide cross-channel advertising to some programmers.

From time to time, certain of our equipment vendors have purchased advertising from us. For the years ending December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001, advertising revenues from equipment vendors was recognized in the amounts of $0, $13 million, and $14 million, respectively. These revenues resulted from purchases at market rates pursuant to executed binding agreements. However, in connection with our restatement announced in April 2003, we reversed all advertising revenues, approximately $17 million, from two set-top terminal manufacturers recognized in 2000. Based on a reassessment of the underlying structure of the arrangements during 2000, the prices paid for the set-top terminals and the advertising revenue recognized were determined to be in excess of fair value. See “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Restatement of Prior Results.”

Pricing for Our Products and Services

Our revenues are derived principally from the monthly fees our customers pay for the services we offer. A one-time installation fee, which is often waived during certain promotional periods for a standard installation, is charged to new customers. The prices we charge vary based on the level of service the customer chooses and the particular geographic market. Most of our pricing is reviewed and adjusted on an annual basis.

In accordance with the Federal Communications Commission’s rules, the prices we charge for cable-related equipment, such as set-top terminals and remote control devices, and for installation services are based on actual costs plus a permitted rate of return.

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Although our cable service offerings vary across the markets we serve because of various factors including competition and regulatory factors, our services, when offered on a stand-alone basis, are typically offered at monthly price ranges, excluding franchise fees and other taxes, as follows:

In addition, from time to time we offer free service or reduced-price service during promotional periods in order to attract new customers. There is no assurance that these customers will remain as customers when the period of free service expires.

Our Network Technology

We have substantially completed the build-out of our systems to a minimum bandwidth of 550 megahertz or greater, which enables us to:

As part of the upgrade of our systems during the last several years, we reduced the number of headends that serve our customers from 1,138 at January 1, 2001 to 748 at December 31, 2003. Because headends are the control centers of a cable system, where incoming signals are amplified, converted, processed and combined for transmission to the customer, reducing the number of headends reduces related equipment, service personnel and maintenance expenditures. We expect that headend consolidation, together with our other upgrades, will allow us to provide enhanced picture quality and greater system reliability. As a result of the upgrade, approximately 88% of our customers were served by headends serving at least 10,000 customers as of December 31, 2003.

The following table sets forth the technological capacity of our systems as of December 31, 2003:

See “— Products and Services” for statistics regarding the approximate number of our customers who purchase the various services enabled by these upgrades.

As of December 31, 2003 our cable systems consisted of approximately 219,400 strand miles, including approximately 48,300 strand miles of fiber optic cable, passing approximately 12.4 million households and serving approximately 6.5 million customers.

We adopted the hybrid fiber coaxial cable (“HFC”) architecture as the standard for our systems upgrades. HFC architecture combines the use of fiber optic cable with coaxial cable. Fiber optic cable is a communication medium that uses glass fibers to transmit signals over long distances with minimum signal loss or distortion. Fiber optic cable has excellent broadband frequency characteristics, noise immunity and physical durability and can carry

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hundreds of video, data and voice channels over extended distances. Coaxial cable is less expensive and requires a more extensive signal amplification in order to obtain the desired transmission levels for delivering channels. In most systems, we deliver our signals via fiber optic cable from the headend to a group of nodes, and use coaxial cable to deliver the signal from individual nodes to the homes passed served by that node. Our system design enables a maximum of 500 homes passed to be served by a single node. Currently, our average node serves approximately 385 homes passed. Our system design provides for six strands of fiber to each node, with two strands activated and four strands reserved for spares and future services. We believe that this hybrid network design provides high capacity and superior signal quality. The design also provides reserve capacity for the addition of future services.

The primary advantages of HFC architecture over traditional coaxial-only cable networks include:

We currently maintain a national network operations center to monitor our data networks and to further our strategy of providing high quality service. Monitoring previously done by our regional operations centers has been migrated to our national network operations center. Centralized monitoring becomes increasingly important as we increase the number of customers utilizing two-way high-speed data service. Our local dispatch centers focus primarily on monitoring the HFC plant, also replacing our existing regional operating centers.

Management of Our Systems

Many of the functions associated with our financial management are centralized, including accounting, billing, finance and acquisitions, payroll and benefit administration, information system design and support, internal audit, purchasing, marketing, programming contract administration and Internet service, network and circuits administration.

To improve efficiency and operational consistency throughout our systems, we have consolidated from three divisions and ten regions to five operating divisions, eliminating certain layers of middle management. Each division is supported by operational, financial, marketing and engineering functions. The reorganization has facilitated the establishment of and adherence to standard practices, Charter branding throughout our systems and improved internal communication. We believe these improvements enhance consistency of service delivery.

Customer Care

Historically, we have fielded customer service requests, inquiries and complaints through a large number of small customer service centers throughout the country. As a consequence of our aggressive acquisition program in 1999 through 2001, the number of these service centers grew rapidly and in 2000 was in excess of 300 service centers. We believe that maintaining such a large number of service centers hindered our ability to maximize the consistency of our service delivery and related customer satisfaction due to the logistical challenges and poor economies of scale inherent in maintaining and supervising such a large number of service centers.

In an effort to better serve our customers, we are consolidating our local customer care functions by operating technologically advanced, high-volume customer contact centers, and as a result we have closed and expect to continue to close a number of local payment and customer service centers. By establishing regional customer contact centers, we are able to service our customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and utilize technologically advanced equipment that we believe enhances interactions with our customers. Our customer care specialists receive specialized training to develop customer contact skills and product knowledge that are targeted towards prompt and responsive resolution of customer complaints and customer retention, as well as towards selling additional and higher levels of service to our customers. As of December 31, 2003, we had 53 customer service locations, and our 20 largest customer service locations serviced approximately 93% of our customers.

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Sales and Marketing

Charter and its subsidiaries have a single team responsible for overseeing the sales and marketing strategies of our individual systems. For most of our systems with over 60,000 customers, an assigned marketing manager implements our marketing decisions, while smaller systems are handled at the divisional level. Due to our focus in 2003 on certain other operational matters and due to certain financial constraints, we reduced spending in 2003 on marketing our products and services. For the year ended December 31, 2003, we had marketing expenditures of $107 million. We expect to increase our spending on marketing in 2004.

Our marketing efforts are intended to promote good interaction, quick information flow and sharing of best practices between our corporate office, which handles programs and administration, and our field offices, which implement our various marketing programs. We monitor government regulation, customer perception, competition, pricing and product preferences, among other factors, to increase our responsiveness to our customers. Our coordinated marketing techniques include door-to-door solicitation, telemarketing, media advertising, e-marketing, direct mail solicitation and retail locations. We also market and sell our services through consumer electronics retailers and other retailers that sell televisions or cable modems.

In January 2004, we introduced the first national branding campaign in Charter’s history. The “Get Hooked” branding initiative will be a key focal point of our national marketing campaigns throughout the year, designed to promote our long-term objective of increasing our cash flow through deeper market penetration and growth in revenue per customer. Our goal for 2004 is for our corporate team to produce six to eight national marketing campaigns employing our new national “Get Hooked” Charter branding to:

Programming

General

We believe that offering a wide variety of programming is an important factor that influences a customer’s decision to subscribe to and retain our cable services. We rely on market research, customer demographics and local programming preferences to determine channel offerings in each of our markets. We obtain basic and premium programming from a number of suppliers, usually pursuant to a written contract. Our programming contracts generally continue for a fixed period of time, usually from three to ten years, and are subject to negotiated renewal. Some program suppliers offer financial incentives to support the launch of a channel and ongoing marketing support or launch fees. We also negotiate volume discount pricing structures. Programming costs are usually payable each month based on calculations performed by us and are subject to adjustment based on the results of periodic audits by the programmers.

Costs

Programming tends to be made available to us for a license fee, which is generally paid based on the number of customers to whom we make such programming available. Such license fees may include “volume” discounts available for higher numbers of customers, channel placement or service penetration. Some channels are available without cost to us for a limited period of time, after which we pay for the programming. For home shopping channels, we receive a percentage of the amount our customers spend on home shopping purchases.

Our cable programming costs have increased, in every year we have operated, in excess of customary inflationary and cost-of-living type increases. We expect them to continue to increase due to a variety of factors, including:

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In particular, sports programming costs have increased significantly over the past several years. In addition, contracts to purchase sports programming sometimes contain built-in cost increases for programming added during the term of the contract.

Historically, we have been able to absorb increased programming costs through increased prices to our customers. However, with the impact of competition and other marketplace factors, there is no assurance that we will be able to continue to do so. In order to maintain margins despite increasing programming costs, we plan to continue to migrate certain program services from our analog level of service to our digital tiers. We expect that this migration will result in enhanced quality of programming offered on digital tiers and provide our video customers more value and more choice. Additionally, as we migrate our programming to our digital tier packages, certain programming that was previously available to all of our customers via an analog signal, may be part of an elective digital tier package. As a result, the customer base upon which we pay programming fees will proportionately decrease, and the overall expense for providing that service would likewise decrease. Reductions in the size of certain programming customer bases may result in the loss of specific volume discount benefits. We plan to seek to renegotiate the terms of our agreements with certain programmers as these agreements come due for renewal.

As measured by programming costs, and excluding premium services (substantially all of which were renegotiated and renewed in 2003), as of February 18, 2004 approximately 34% of our current programming contracts are scheduled to expire by the end of 2004, and approximately another 11% by the end of 2005. There can be no assurance that these agreements will be renewed on favorable or comparable terms. To the extent that we are unable to reach agreement with certain programmers on terms that we believe are reasonable, we may be forced to remove such programming channels from our line-up by the programmers, which could result in a further loss of customers. In addition, our inability to fully pass these programming cost increases on to our customers would have an adverse impact on our cash flow and operating margins.

Franchises

As of December 31, 2003, our systems operated pursuant to a total of approximately 4,400 franchises, permits and similar authorizations issued by local and state governmental authorities. Each franchise is awarded by a governmental authority and such governmental authority often must approve a transfer to another party. Most franchises are subject to termination proceedings in the event of a material breach. In addition, most franchises require us to pay the granting authority a franchise fee of up to 5.0% of revenues as defined in the various agreements, which is the maximum amount that may be charged under the applicable federal law. We are entitled to and generally do pass this fee through to the customer.

Prior to the scheduled expiration of most franchises, we initiate renewal proceedings with the granting authorities. This process usually takes three years but can take a longer period of time. The Communications Act provides for an orderly franchise renewal process in which granting authorities may not unreasonably withhold renewals. In connection with the franchise renewal process, many governmental authorities require the cable operator to make certain commitments. Historically we have been able to renew our franchises without incurring significant costs, although any particular franchise may not be renewed on commercially favorable terms or otherwise. Our failure to obtain renewals of our franchises, especially those in the major metropolitan areas where we have the most customers, would have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or our liquidity, including our ability to comply with our debt covenants. Approximately 28% of our franchises covering approximately 26% of our video customers expire on or before December 31, 2005. We expect to renew substantially all of these franchises.

Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the “1996 Telecom Act”), state and local authorities are prohibited from limiting, restricting or conditioning the provision of telecommunications services. They may, however, impose “competitively neutral” requirements and manage the public rights-of-way. Granting authorities may not require a cable operator to provide telecommunications services or facilities, other than institutional networks, as a condition of an initial franchise grant, a franchise renewal, or a franchise transfer. The 1996 Telecom Act also limits franchise fees to an operator’s cable-related revenues and clarifies that they do not apply to revenues that a cable operator derives from providing new telecommunications services. In a March 2002 decision, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) held that revenue derived from the provision of cable modem service should not be added to franchise fee payments already limited by federal law to 5% of traditional cable service revenue. The same decision tentatively limited local franchising authority regulation of cable modem service. On October 6, 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated in part the FCC’s March 2002 decision and remanded for

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further proceedings. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the portion of the FCC’s March 2002 decision holding that cable modem service is not a “cable service.” Although the Ninth Circuit’s decision should not subject cable operators to additional cable franchise fee requirements for the provision of cable modem service, it could possibly result in other telecommunications regulation.

Competition

We face competition in the areas of price, services, and service reliability. We compete with other providers of television signals and other sources of home entertainment. In addition, as we continue to expand into additional services such as high-speed Internet access and telephony, we face competition from other providers of each type of service. We operate in a very competitive business environment, which can adversely affect our business and operations.

In terms of competition for customers, we view ourselves as a member of the broadband communications industry, which encompasses multi-channel video for television and related broadband services, such as high-speed data and other interactive video services. In the broadband industry, our principal competitor for video services throughout our territory is direct broadcast satellite (“DBS”), and in markets where it is available, our principal competitor for data services is digital subscriber line (“DSL”). We do not consider other cable operators to be significant one-on-one competitors in the market overall, as traditional overbuilds are infrequent and spotty geographically (although in a particular market, a cable operator overbuilder would likely be a significant competitor at the local level). As of December 31, 2003, we are aware of traditional overbuild situations impacting approximately 5% of our total homes passed.

Although cable operators tend not to be direct competitors for customers, their relative size may affect the competitive landscape in terms of how a cable company competes against non-cable competitors in the market place as well as in relationships with vendors who deal with cable operators. For example, a larger cable operator might have better access to and pricing for the multiple types of services cable companies offer. Also, a larger entity might have different access to financial resources and acquisition opportunities.

Our key competitors include:

DBS

Direct broadcast satellite is a significant competitor to cable systems. The DBS industry has grown rapidly over the last several years, far exceeding the growth rate of the cable television industry, and now serves more than 20 million subscribers nationwide. DBS service allows the subscriber to receive video and high-speed Internet access services directly via satellite using a relatively small dish antenna. Consistent with increasing consolidation in the communications industry, News Corp., one of the world’s largest media companies, recently acquired a controlling interest in DIRECTV, Inc. (“DirecTV”), the largest domestic DBS company. This business combination could significantly strengthen DirecTV’s competitive posture, particularly through favorable programming arrangements with various News Corp. affiliates and subsidiaries, such as the Fox television network. In addition to the two established DBS providers, DirecTV and EchoStar Communications Corporation (“EchoStar”), Cablevision Systems Corp. launched a satellite enabling a third DBS provider, R/L DBS Company, LLC, which commenced offering service in the fall of 2003. Additionally, EchoStar and DirecTV both have entered into joint marketing agreements with major telecommunications companies to offer bundled packages combining phone service, DSL and DBS services.

Video compression technology and high powered satellites allow DBS providers to offer more than 200 digital channels from a single 32 transponder satellite, thereby surpassing the typical analog cable system. In 2003, major DBS competitors offered a greater variety of channel packages, and were especially competitive at the lower end pricing, such as a monthly price of approximately $30 for 75 channels compared to approximately $40 for the closest comparable package in most of our markets. In addition, while we continue to believe that the initial investment by a DBS customer exceeds that of a cable customer, the initial equipment cost for DBS has decreased substantially, as the DBS providers have aggressively marketed offers to new customers of incentives for discounted or free equipment, installation and multiple units. DBS providers are able to offer service nationwide and are able to establish a national image and branding with standardized offerings, which together with their ability to avoid franchise fees of up to 5% of revenues and property tax, leads to greater efficiencies and lower costs in the lower tiers of service. However, we believe that most consumers continue to prefer our stronger local presence in our markets. We believe that cable-delivered VOD and SVOD service are superior to DBS service because cable headends can store thousands of titles which customers can access and control independently, whereas DBS

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technology can only make available a much smaller number of titles with DVR-like customer control. We also believe that our higher tier products, particularly our bundled premium packages, are price-competitive with DBS packages and that many consumers prefer our ability to economically bundle video packages with data packages. Further, cable providers have the potential in some areas to provide a more complete “whole house” communications package when combining video, high-speed data and voice. We believe that this, combined with the introduction of more new products that DBS cannot offer (local high definition television and local interactive television) differentiates us from DBS competitors and could enable us to win back some of our former customers who migrated to satellite. Recent joint marketing arrangements between DBS providers and telecommunications carriers allow similar bundling of services in certain areas.

DBS companies historically were prohibited from retransmitting popular local broadcast programming. However, a change to the copyright laws in 1999 eliminated this legal impediment. As a result, DBS companies now may retransmit such programming, once they have secured retransmission consent from the popular broadcast stations they wish to carry, and honor mandatory carriage obligations of less popular broadcast stations in the same television markets. In response to the legislation, DirecTV and EchoStar have begun carrying the major network stations in the nation’s top television markets. DBS, however, is limited in the local programming it can provide because of the current capacity limitations of satellite technology. DBS companies currently offer local broadcast programming only in the larger U.S. markets, although the number of markets covered is increasing.

DirecTV is now providing two-way high-speed Internet access services. Another satellite company called WildBlue Communications, Inc. (formerly iSKY, Inc.) reports that it plans to deliver two-way high-speed Internet access to residential and small business markets in the contiguous United States and portions of Canada in 2004 using the Ka-band and spot beam technology. EchoStar is offering its video programming services with the Internet services provided by EarthLink, an Internet service provider, using digital subscriber line technology. In addition, EchoStar is using a recently launched satellite to test a dish-based broadband service and Hughes Network Systems is developing a new Ka-band broadband service for enterprise markets.

DSL

The deployment of DSL allows Internet access to subscribers at data transmission speeds greater than those available over conventional telephone lines. DSL service therefore is competitive with high-speed Internet access over cable systems. Several telephone companies which already have plant, an existing customer base, and other operational functions in place (such as, billing, service personnel, etc.) and other companies offer DSL service. DSL actively markets its service and many providers have offered promotional pricing with a one-year service agreement. The FCC has initiated a rulemaking proceeding that could materially reduce existing regulation of DSL service, essentially freeing such service from traditional telecommunications regulation. It is also possible that federal legislation could reduce regulation of Internet services offered by incumbent telephone companies. Legislative action and the FCC’s decisions and policies in this area are subject to change. We expect DSL to remain a significant competitor to our data services.

DSL and other forms of high-speed Internet access provide competition to our own provision of Internet access. For example, as discussed above, satellite-based delivery options are in development. In addition, local wireless Internet services have recently begun to operate in many markets using available unlicensed radio spectrum. This service option, popularly known as “wi-fi”, offers another alternative to cable-based Internet access.

High-speed Internet access facilitates the streaming of video into homes and businesses. As the quality and availability of video streaming over the Internet improves, video streaming may compete with the traditional delivery of video programming services over cable systems. It is possible that programming suppliers will consider bypassing cable operators and market their services directly to the consumer through video streaming over the Internet.

We believe that pricing for residential and commercial data services on our system is generally comparable to that for similar DSL services and that some residential customers prefer our ability to bundle data services with video services. However, DSL providers may currently be in a better position to offer data services to businesses since their networks tend to be more complete in commercial areas. They also have the ability to bundle telephony with data services for a higher percentage of their customers, and that ability is appealing to many consumers. Recent joint marketing arrangements between DSL providers and DBS providers may allow some additional bundling of services.

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Broadcast Television

Cable television has long competed with broadcast television, which consists of television signals that the viewer is able to receive without charge using an “off-air” antenna. The extent of such competition is dependent upon the quality and quantity of broadcast signals available through “off-air” reception compared to the services provided by the local cable system. Traditionally, cable television has provided a higher picture quality and more channel offerings than broadcast television. However, the recent licensing of digital spectrum by the FCC will provide traditional broadcasters with the ability to deliver high definition television pictures and multiple digital-quality program streams, as well as advanced digital services such as subscription video and data transmission. Walt Disney Co. recently announced the launching of a movie service that bypasses cable through direct access to homes by data streams sent over the television broadcast spectrum.

Traditional Overbuilds

Cable systems are operated under non-exclusive franchises granted by local authorities. More than one cable system may legally be built in the same area. It is possible that a franchising authority might grant a second franchise to another cable operator and that such a franchise might contain terms and conditions more favorable than those afforded us. In addition, entities willing to establish an open video system, under which they offer unaffiliated programmers non-discriminatory access to a portion of the system’s cable system, may be able to avoid local franchising requirements. Well-financed businesses from outside the cable industry, such as public utilities that already possess fiber optic and other transmission lines in the areas they serve, may over time become competitors. There are a number of cities that have constructed their own cable systems, in a manner similar to city-provided utility services. There also has been interest in traditional overbuilds by private companies. Constructing a competing cable system is a capital intensive process which involves a high degree of risk. We believe that in order to be successful, a competitor’s overbuild would need to be able to serve the homes and businesses in the overbuilt area on a more cost-effective basis than we can. Any such overbuild operation would require either significant access to capital or access to facilities already in place that are capable of delivering cable television programming.

As of December 31, 2003, we are aware of overbuild situations impacting approximately 5% of our total homes passed and potential overbuild situations in areas servicing approximately 1% of our total homes passed, together representing a total of approximately 6% of our homes passed. Additional overbuild situations may occur in other systems. In response to such overbuilds, these systems have been designated priorities for the upgrade of cable plant and the launch of new and enhanced services. As of December 31, 2003, we have upgraded many of these systems to at least 750 megahertz two-way HFC architecture.

Telephone Companies and Utilities

The competitive environment has been significantly affected by technological developments and regulatory changes enacted under the 1996 Telecom Act, which was designed to enhance competition in the cable television and local telephone markets. Federal cross-ownership restrictions historically limited entry by local telephone companies into the cable business. The 1996 Telecom Act modified this cross-ownership restriction, making it possible for local exchange carriers, who have considerable resources, to provide a wide variety of video services competitive with services offered by cable systems.

Although telephone companies can lawfully enter the cable television business, activity in this area is currently quite limited. Local exchange carriers do provide facilities for the transmission and distribution of voice and data services, including Internet services, in competition with our existing or potential interactive services ventures and businesses. We cannot predict the likelihood of success of the broadband services offered by our competitors or the impact on us of such competitive ventures. The entry of telephone companies as direct competitors in the video marketplace may become more widespread and could adversely affect the profitability and valuation of established cable systems.

As we expand our offerings to include Internet access and other telecommunications services, we will be subject to competition from other telecommunications providers. The telecommunications industry is highly competitive and includes competitors with greater financial and personnel resources, who have brand name recognition and long-standing relationships with regulatory authorities and customers. Moreover, mergers, joint ventures and alliances among franchise, wireless or private cable operators, local exchange carriers and others may result in providers capable of offering cable television, Internet, and telecommunications services in direct competition with us. For example, major local exchange carriers have entered into arrangements with EchoStar and DirecTV in which they will market packages combining phone service, DSL and DBS services.

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Additionally, we are subject to competition from utilities which possess fiber optic transmission lines capable of transmitting signals with minimal signal distortion. Utilities are also developing broadband over power line technology, which will allow the provision of Internet and other broadband services to homes and offices.

Private Cable

Additional competition is posed by satellite master antenna television systems, or SMATV systems, serving multiple dwelling units, or MDUs, such as condominiums, apartment complexes, and private residential communities. These private cable systems may enter into exclusive agreements with such MDUs, which may preclude operators of franchise systems from serving residents of such private complexes. Private cable systems can offer both improved reception of local television stations and many of the same satellite-delivered program services that are offered by cable systems. SMATV systems currently benefit from operating advantages not available to franchised cable systems, including fewer regulatory burdens and no requirement to service low density or economically depressed communities. Exemption from regulation may provide a competitive advantage to certain of our current and potential competitors. The FCC ruled in 1998 that private cable operators can lease video distribution capacity from local telephone companies and distribute cable programming services over public rights-of-way without obtaining a cable franchise. In 1999, both the Fifth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals upheld this FCC policy.

Wireless Distribution

Cable systems also compete with wireless program distribution services such as multi-channel multipoint distribution systems or “wireless cable,” known as MMDS, which uses low-power microwave frequencies to transmit television programming over-the-air to paying customers. Wireless distribution services generally provide many of the programming services provided by cable systems, and digital compression technology increases significantly the channel capacity of their systems. Both analog and digital MMDS services, however, require unobstructed “line of sight” transmission paths and MMDS ventures have been quite limited to date.

The FCC recently completed its auction of Multichannel Video Distribution & Data Service (“MVDDS”) licenses. MVDDS is a new terrestrial video and data fixed wireless service that the FCC hopes will spur competition in the cable and DBS industries.

Regulation and Legislation

The following summary addresses the key regulatory and legislative developments affecting the cable industry.

Cable system operations are extensively regulated by the FCC, some state governments and most local governments. A failure to comply with these regulations could subject us to substantial penalties.

Our business can be dramatically impacted by changes to the existing regulatory framework, whether triggered by legislative, administrative, or judicial rulings. Congress and the FCC have expressed a particular interest in increasing competition in the communications field generally and in the cable television field specifically. The 1996 Telecom Act altered the regulatory structure governing the nation’s communications providers. It removed barriers to competition in both the cable television market and the local telephone market. At the same time, the FCC has pursued spectrum licensing options designed to increase competition to the cable industry by wireless multichannel video programming distributors. We could be materially disadvantaged in the future if we are subject to new regulations that do not equally impact our key competitors.

Congress and the FCC have frequently revisited the subject of communications regulation, and they are likely to do so in the future. In addition, franchise agreements with local governments must be periodically renewed, and new operating terms may be imposed. Future legislative, regulatory, or judicial changes could adversely affect our operations. We can provide no assurance that the already extensive regulation of our business will not be expanded in the future.

Cable Rate Regulation

The cable industry has operated under a federal rate regulation regime for more than a decade. The regulations currently restrict the prices that cable systems charge for basic service and associated equipment. All other cable offerings are now universally exempt from rate regulation. Although rate regulation operates pursuant to a federal formula, local governments, commonly referred to as local franchising authorities, are primarily responsible for

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administering this regulation. The majority of our local franchising authorities have never certified to regulate basic cable rates, but they retain the right to do so (and order rate reductions and refunds), except in those specific communities facing “effective competition.” Federal law defines effective competition as existing in a variety of circumstances that historically were rarely satisfied, but are increasingly likely to be satisfied with the recent increase in DBS competition.

There have been frequent calls to impose expanded rate regulation on the cable industry. Confronted with rapidly increasing cable programming costs, it is possible that Congress may adopt new constraints on the retail pricing or packaging of cable programming. Such constraints could adversely affect our operations.

The federal rate regulations also require cable operators to maintain a “geographically uniform” rate within each community, except in those communities facing effective competition. As we attempt to respond to a changing marketplace with competitive pricing practices, we may face legal restraints and challenges that impede our ability to compete.

Must Carry/Retransmission Consent

Federal law currently includes “must carry” regulations, which require cable systems to carry certain local broadcast television stations that the cable operator would not select voluntarily. Alternatively, popular commercial television stations can prohibit cable carriage unless the cable operator first negotiates for “retransmission consent,” which may be conditioned on significant payments or other concessions. Either option has a potentially adverse effect on our business. The burden associated with must carry could increase significantly if the FCC requires cable systems to simultaneously carry both the analog and digital signals of each television station, as the broadcast industry transitions from an analog to a digital format. The burden could also increase significantly if the FCC requires cable systems to carry multiple program streams included within a single digital broadcast transmission. Although the FCC tentatively ruled against this expansion in a 2001 ruling, it is reviewing the issue and could reach a contrary result in the near future. If these expanded must-carry requirements were adopted, we would have less freedom over our distribution capacity.

Access Channels

Local franchise agreements often require cable operators to set aside certain channels for public, educational and governmental access programming. Federal law also requires cable systems to designate a portion of their channel capacity for commercial leased access by unaffiliated third parties. Increased activity in this area could further burden the channel capacity of our cable systems.

Access to Programming

The FCC recently extended a regulation prohibiting video programmers affiliated with cable companies from favoring cable operators over new competitors and requiring such programmers to sell their satellite-delivered programming to other multichannel video distributors. This provision limits the ability of vertically integrated cable programmers to offer exclusive programming arrangements to cable companies. DBS providers traditionally had no similar restriction on exclusive programming, but the FCC recently imposed that restriction as part of its approval of the DirecTV-News Corp. merger.

The FCC has also adopted regulations to avoid unreasonable conduct in retransmission consent negotiations between broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors, including cable and DBS. It recently imposed special conditions on the DirectTV-News Corp. merger, including a requirement that Fox affiliated broadcast stations enter into commercial arbitration for disputes over retransmission consent. Given the heightened competition and media consolidation that Charter faces, it is possible that we will find it increasingly difficult to gain access to popular programming at favorable terms. Such difficulty could adversely impact our business.

Ownership Restrictions

Federal regulation of the communications field traditionally included a host of ownership restrictions, which limited the size of certain media entities and restricted their ability to enter into competing enterprises. Through a series of legislative, regulatory, and judicial actions, most of these restrictions recently were eliminated or substantially relaxed. For example, historic restrictions on local exchange carriers offering cable service within their telephone service area, as well as those prohibiting broadcast stations from owning cable systems within their broadcast service area, no longer exist. Changes in this regulatory area, including some still subject to judicial review, could

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alter the business landscape in which we operate, as formidable new competitors (including electric utilities, local exchange carriers, and broadcast/media companies) may increasingly choose to offer cable services. The relaxation of ownership restrictions could, for example, simplify Comcast Corporation’s recent bid for Walt Disney Company, notwithstanding overlapping cable and broadcast properties.

The FCC previously adopted regulations precluding any cable operator from serving more than 30% of all domestic multichannel video subscribers and from devoting more than 40% of the activated channel capacity of any cable system to the carriage of affiliated national video programming services. These cable ownership restrictions were invalidated by the courts, and the FCC is now considering adoption of replacement regulations.

Internet Service

Over the past several years, proposals have been advanced at the FCC and Congress that would require cable operators offering Internet service to provide non-discriminatory access to unaffiliated Internet service providers. Several local franchising authorities actually adopted mandatory “open access” requirements, but various federal courts rejected each of these actions, relying on different legal theories.

It remains unclear today precisely what regulatory regime ultimately will be applied to the cable industry’s high-speed Internet service. The FCC has ruled that cable modem service is an interstate information service, rather than a cable or telecommunications service. This classification left cable modem service exempt from the burdens associated with traditional cable and telecommunications regulation. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently vacated in part the FCC’s ruling and remanded for further proceedings. The Ninth Circuit held that cable modem service is not “cable service,” but is part “telecommunications service” and part “information service.” Various parties have sought en banc review of this Ninth Circuit decision.

Although the FCC previously suggested that regulatory forbearance of cable modem service would be appropriate, regardless of the technical classification ultimately assigned to it, a number of technology companies continue to press the FCC to subject cable modem service to certain “nondiscrimination principles.” The final regulatory status of cable modem service remains uncertain. Its outcome could materially affect our business. It could also affect whether local franchising authorities can collect franchise fees on cable modem service and whether cable systems will have any payment obligations to the federal government’s universal service fund.

As the Internet has matured, it has become the subject of increasing regulatory interest. There is now a host of federal laws affecting Internet service, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which affords copyright owners certain rights against us that could adversely affect our relationship with any customer accused of violating copyright laws. Recently enacted Anti-Spam legislation also imposes new obligations on our operations. Moreover, Congress has not yet extended the five-year moratorium on state and local taxation of Internet access, which expired in late 2003. Taxation of Internet access or the adoption of new Internet regulations could adversely affect our business.

Phone Service

The 1996 Telecom Act created a more favorable regulatory environment for us to provide telecommunications services. In particular, it limited the regulatory role of local franchising authorities and established requirements ensuring that we could interconnect with other telephone companies to provide a viable service. Many implementation details remain unresolved, and there are substantial regulatory changes being considered that could impact, in both positive and negative ways, our primary telecommunications competitors and our own entry into the field of phone service. The FCC and state regulatory authorities are considering, for example, whether common carrier regulation traditionally applied to incumbent local exchange carriers should be modified and how new alternative technologies, like VOIP, should be regulated. It is unclear how these proceedings will be resolved and how they will affect Charter’s potential expansion into phone service.

Pole Attachments

The Communications Act requires most utilities to provide cable systems with access to poles and conduits and simultaneously regulates the rates charged for this access. The Act specifies that significantly higher rates apply if the cable plant is providing telecommunications service, as well as traditional cable service. The FCC has clarified that a cable operator’s favorable pole rates are not endangered by the provision of Internet access. Although that determination was upheld by the United States Supreme Court, a subsequent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding the proper regulatory classification of Internet service has once again

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created controversy in this area. It remains possible that the underlying pole attachment formula, or its application to Internet and telecommunications offerings, will be modified in a manner that substantially increases our pole attachment costs.

Cable Equipment

The FCC has undertaken several steps to promote competition in the delivery of cable equipment and compatibility with new digital technology. The FCC has expressly ruled that cable customers must be allowed to purchase set-top terminals from third parties and established a multi-year phase-in during which security functions (which would remain in the operator’s exclusive control) would be unbundled from the basic converter functions, which could then be provided by third party vendors. The first phase of implementation has already passed. A prohibition on cable operators leasing digital set-top terminals that integrate security and basic navigation functions is currently scheduled to go into effect as of July 1, 2006.

The FCC recently adopted rules implementing an agreement between major cable operators and manufacturers of consumer electronics on “plug and play” specifications for one-way digital televisions. The rules require cable operators to provide “CableCard” security modules and support to customer owned digital televisions and similar devices already equipped with built-in set-top terminal functionality. Cable operators must support basic home recording rights and copy protection rules for digital programming content. The FCC has adopted companion “broadcast flag” rules, requiring cable carriage of a code embedded in digital broadcast programming that will regulate the further use of copyright programming. The FCC is conducting additional related rulemakings, and the cable and consumer electronics industries are currently negotiating an agreement that would establish additional “plug and play” specifications for two-way digital televisions.

The FCC rules are subject to challenge and inter-industry negotiations are ongoing. It is unclear how this process will develop and how it will affect our offering of cable equipment and our relationship with our customers.

Other Communications Act Provisions and FCC Regulatory Matters

In addition to the Communications Act provisions and FCC regulations noted above, there are other statutory provisions and FCC regulations affecting our business. The Communications Act, for example, includes cable-specific privacy obligations. The Act carefully limits our ability to collect and disclose personal information.

FCC regulations include a variety of additional areas, including, among other things: (1) equal employment opportunity obligations; (2) customer service standards; (3) technical service standards; (4) mandatory blackouts of certain network, syndicated and sports programming; (5) restrictions on political advertising; (6) restrictions on advertising in children’s programming; (7) restrictions on origination cablecasting; (8) restrictions on carriage of lottery programming; (9) sponsorship identification obligations; (10) closed captioning of video programming; (11) licensing of systems and facilities; and (12) maintenance of public files.

It is possible that the FCC will expand or modify its regulation of cable systems in the future, and we cannot predict at this time how that might impact our business.

Copyright

Cable systems are subject to federal copyright licensing covering carriage of television and radio broadcast signals. The possible modification or elimination of this compulsory copyright license is the subject of continuing legislative review and could adversely affect our ability to obtain desired broadcast programming. We cannot predict the outcome of this legislative activity. Moreover, the Copyright Office has not yet provided any guidance as to the how the compulsory copyright license should apply to newly offered digital broadcast signals.

Copyright clearances for non-broadcast programming services are arranged through private negotiations. Cable operators also must obtain music rights for locally originated programming and advertising from the major music performing rights organizations. These licensing fees have been the source of litigation in the past, and we cannot predict with certainty whether license fee disputes may arise in the future.

Franchise Matters

Cable systems generally are operated pursuant to nonexclusive franchises granted by a municipality or other state or local government entity in order to cross public rights-of-way. Cable franchises generally are granted for fixed

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terms and in many cases include monetary penalties for noncompliance and may be terminable if the franchisee fails to comply with material provisions.

The specific terms and conditions of cable franchises vary materially between jurisdictions. Each franchise generally contains provisions governing cable operations, franchise fees, system construction, maintenance, technical performance, and customer service standards. A number of states subject cable systems to the jurisdiction of centralized state government agencies, such as public utility commissions.

Although local franchising authorities have considerable discretion in establishing franchise terms, there are certain federal protections. For example, federal law caps local franchise fees and includes renewal procedures designed to protect incumbent franchisees from arbitrary denials of renewal. Even if a franchise is renewed, however, the local franchising authority may seek to impose new and more onerous requirements as a condition of renewal. Similarly, if a local franchising authority’s consent is required for the purchase or sale of a cable system, the local franchising authority may attempt to impose more burdensome requirements as a condition for providing its consent.

Employees

As of December 31, 2003, we had approximately 15,500 full-time equivalent employees, approximately 300 of which were represented by collective bargaining agreements. We have never experienced a work stoppage. At December 31, 2002, these numbers were approximately 18,600 and approximately 300, respectively.

The corporate office, which includes employees of Charter and Charter Holdco, is responsible for coordinating and overseeing our operations. The corporate office performs certain financial and administrative functions on a centralized basis such as accounting, billing, finance and acquisitions, payroll and benefit administration, information system design and support, internal audit, purchasing, marketing and programming contract administration. The corporate office performs these services on a cost reimbursement basis pursuant to a management services agreement. See “Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions — Transactions Arising Out of Our Organizational Structure and Mr. Allen’s Investment in Charter and Its Subsidiaries — Intercompany Management Agreements” and “— Mutual Services Agreements.”

Item 2. Properties.

Our principal physical assets consist of cable distribution plant and equipment, including signal receiving, encoding and decoding devices, headend reception facilities, distribution systems and customer drop equipment for each of our cable systems.

Our cable plant and related equipment are generally attached to utility poles under pole rental agreements with local public utilities and telephone companies, and in certain locations are buried in underground ducts or trenches. We own or lease real property for signal reception sites and own most of our service vehicles.

Historically our subsidiaries have owned the real property and buildings for our data centers, customer contact centers and our divisional administrative offices. However, for the foreseeable future, we plan to reduce our number of administrative offices and lease the space, where possible, while attempting to sell those existing locations that we believe are no longer required. Our subsidiaries generally have leased space for business offices throughout our operating divisions. Our headend and tower locations are located on owned or leased parcels of land, and we generally own the towers on which our equipment is located. Charter Holdco owns the real property and building for our principal executive offices.

The physical components of our cable systems require maintenance as well as periodic upgrades to support the new services and products we introduce. See “Item 1. Business – Our Network Technology.” We believe that our properties are generally in good operating condition and are suitable for our business operations.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

Securities Class Actions and Derivative Suits

Fourteen putative federal class action lawsuits (the “Federal Class Actions”) have been filed against Charter and certain of its former and present officers and directors in various jurisdictions allegedly on behalf of all purchasers of Charter’s securities during the period from either November 8 or November 9, 1999 through July 17 or July 18, 2002. Unspecified damages are sought by the plaintiffs. In general, the lawsuits allege that Charter utilized

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misleading accounting practices and failed to disclose these accounting practices and/or issued false and misleading financial statements and press releases concerning Charter’s operations and prospects. The Federal Class Actions were specifically and individually identified in public filings made by Charter prior to the date of this annual report. In October 2002, Charter filed a motion with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (the “Panel”) to transfer the Federal Class Actions to the Eastern District of Missouri. On March 12, 2003, the Panel transferred the six Federal Class Actions not filed in the Eastern District of Missouri to that district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with the eight Federal Class Actions already pending there. The Panel’s transfer order assigned the Federal Class Actions to Judge Charles A. Shaw. By virtue of a prior court order, StoneRidge Investment Partners LLC became lead plaintiff upon entry of the Panel’s transfer order. StoneRidge subsequently filed a Consolidated Amended Complaint. The Court subsequently consolidated the Federal Class Actions into a single consolidated action (the “Consolidated Federal Class Action”) for pretrial purposes. On June 19, 2003, following a pretrial conference with the parties, the Court issued a Case Management Order setting forth a schedule for the pretrial phase of the Consolidated Federal Class Action. Motions to dismiss the Consolidated Amended Complaint have been filed. On February 10, 2004, in response to a joint motion made by StoneRidge and defendants Charter, Vogel and Allen, the court entered an order providing, among other things, that: (1) the parties who filed such motion engage in a mediation within ninety (90) days; and (2) all proceedings in the Consolidated Federal Class Actions are stayed for ninety (90) days.

The Consolidated Federal Class Action is entitled:

On September 12, 2002, a shareholders derivative suit (the “State Derivative Action”) was filed in Missouri state court against Charter and its then current directors, as well as its former auditors. A substantively identical derivative action was later filed and consolidated into the State Derivative Action. The plaintiffs allege that the individual defendants breached their fiduciary duties by failing to establish and maintain adequate internal controls and procedures. Unspecified damages, allegedly on Charter’s behalf, are sought by the plaintiffs.

The State Derivative Action is entitled:

Separately, on February 12, 2003, a shareholders derivative suit (the “Federal Derivative Action”), was filed against Charter and its then current directors in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The plaintiff alleges that the individual defendants breached their fiduciary duties and grossly mismanaged Charter by failing to establish and maintain adequate internal controls and procedures. Unspecified damages, allegedly on Charter’s behalf, are sought by the plaintiffs.

The Federal Derivative Action is entitled:

In addition to the Federal Class Actions, the State Derivative Action and the Federal Derivative Action, six putative class action lawsuits have been filed against Charter and certain of its then current directors and officers in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (the “Delaware Class Actions”). The lawsuits were filed after the filing of a 13D amendment by Mr. Allen indicating that he was exploring a number of possible alternatives with respect to restructuring or expanding his ownership interest in Charter. We believe the plaintiffs speculated that Mr. Allen might have been contemplating an unfair bid for shares of Charter or some other sort of going private transaction on unfair terms and generally alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties by participating in or acquiescing to such a transaction. The lawsuits were brought on behalf of Charter’s securities holders as of July 29, 2002, and seek unspecified damages and possible injunctive relief. The Delaware Class Actions are substantively

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identical. No such transaction by Mr. Allen has been presented. Plaintiffs’ counsel has granted the defendants an indefinite extension of time to respond to the only complaint that has been served in the Delaware Class Actions.

The Delaware Class Actions consist of:

All of the lawsuits discussed above are each in preliminary stages. No reserves have been established for potential losses or related insurance recoveries on these matters because we are unable to predict the outcome. Charter intends to vigorously defend the lawsuits.

Government Investigations

In August 2002, Charter became aware of a grand jury investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri into certain of its accounting and reporting practices, focusing on how Charter reported customer numbers, and its reporting of amounts received from digital set-top terminal suppliers for advertising. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has publicly stated that Charter is not currently a target of the investigation. Charter has also been advised by the U. S. Attorney’s office that no member of its board of directors, including its Chief Executive Officer, is a target of the investigation. On July 24, 2003, a federal grand jury charged four former officers of Charter with conspiracy and mail and wire fraud, alleging improper accounting and reporting practices focusing on revenue from digital set-top terminal suppliers and inflated customer account numbers. On July 25, 2003 one of the former officers who was indicted entered a guilty plea. We are fully cooperating with the investigation.

On November 4, 2002, Charter received an informal, non-public inquiry from the Staff of the SEC. The SEC has subsequently issued a formal order of investigation dated January 23, 2003, and subsequent document and testimony subpoenas. The investigation and subpoenas generally concern Charter’s prior reports with respect to its determination of the number of customers, and various of its accounting policies and practices including its capitalization of certain expenses and dealings with certain vendors, including programmers and digital set-top terminal suppliers. We are fully cooperating with the SEC Staff.

Indemnification

We are generally required to indemnify each of the named individual defendants in connection with the matters described above pursuant to the terms of our bylaws and (where applicable) such individual defendants’ employment agreements. In accordance with these documents, in connection with the pending grand jury investigation, SEC investigation and the above described lawsuits, some of our current and former directors and our

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current and former officers have been advanced certain costs and expenses incurred in connection with their defense. See “Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions – Indemnification Advances” for greater detail.

Insurance

Charter has liability insurance coverage that we believe is available for the matters described above, where applicable, subject to the terms, conditions and limitations of the respective policies. There is no assurance that current coverage will be sufficient for all claims described above or any future claims that may arise.

Other Litigation

In October 2001, two customers, Nikki Nicholls and Geraldine M. Barber, filed a class action suit against Charter in South Carolina Court of Common Pleas (“South Carolina Class Action”), purportedly on behalf of a class of Charter customers, alleging that Charter improperly charged them a wire maintenance fee without request or permission. They also claimed that Charter improperly required them to rent analog and/or digital set-top terminals even though their television sets were “cable ready.” Charter removed this case to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina in November 2001, and moved to dismiss the suit in December 2001. The federal judge remanded the case to the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas in August 2002 without ruling on the motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs subsequently moved for a default judgment, arguing that upon return to state court, Charter should have but did not file a new motion to dismiss. The state court judge granted the plaintiff’s motion over Charter’s objection in September 2002. Charter immediately appealed that decision to the South Carolina Court of Appeals and the South Carolina Supreme Court, but those courts have ruled that until a final judgment is entered against Charter, they lack jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

In January 2003, the Court of Common Pleas granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. In October and November 2003, Charter filed motions (a) asking that court to set aside the default judgment, and (b) seeking dismissal of plaintiffs’ suit for failure to state a claim. In January 2004, the Court of Common Pleas granted in part and denied in part Charter’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. It also took under advisement Charter’s motion to set aside the default judgment.

The South Carolina Class Action is entitled:

Outcome

We are unable to predict the outcome of the lawsuits and the government investigations described above. An unfavorable outcome in any of these lawsuits or the government investigations could have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or our liquidity, including our ability to comply with our debt covenants.

In addition to the matters set forth above, we are also party to other lawsuits and claims that arose in the ordinary course of conducting our business. In the opinion of management, after taking into account recorded liabilities, the outcome of these other lawsuits and claims are not expected to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or our liquidity, including our ability to comply with our debt covenants.

Item 4. Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders.

No matters were submitted to a vote of security holders during the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2003.

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PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity and Related Stockholder Matters.

(A) Market Information

Our Class A common stock is quoted on the Nasdaq National Market under the ticker symbol “CHTR.” The Class B common stock has no established public trading market.

(B) Holders

As of February 29, 2004, there were approximately 3,800 holders of record of our Class A common stock and one holder of record of our Class B common stock.

(C) Dividends

Charter has not paid stock or cash dividends on any of its common stock, and we do not intend to pay cash dividends on common stock for the foreseeable future. Except for the cash dividends on preferred stock issued from time to time, we intend to retain future earnings, if any, to finance our business. Additionally, Charter is prohibited from declaring or paying cash dividends on any class of stock on par with or junior to the Series A convertible redeemable preferred stock, including the common stock, unless the cumulative dividends on the preferred stock and any accrued dividends on stock on par with the preferred stock for any past or current period have been paid or set aside in full.

Charter Holdco may make pro rata distributions to all holders of its common membership units, including Charter. Covenants in the indentures and credit agreements governing the debt obligations of Charter Communications Holdings and its subsidiaries restrict their ability to make distributions to us, and accordingly, limit our ability to declare or pay cash dividends. See “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

(D) Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

No unregistered equity securities of Charter were sold by Charter or its subsidiaries during the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2003. For information regarding securities issued under our equity compensation plans, see “Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management — Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans.”

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Item 6. Selected Financial Data.

The following table presents selected consolidated financial data for the periods indicated (dollars in millions, except share data):

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(a) Certain prior year amounts have been reclassified to conform with the 2003 presentation.

Comparability of the above information from year to year is affected by acquisitions and dispositions completed by us. See note 4 to our consolidated financial statements contained in “Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” and “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Acquisitions.”

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

Reference is made to “Certain Trends and Uncertainties” of this section and “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” which describe important factors that could cause actual results to differ from expectations and non-historical information contained herein. In addition, the following discussion should be read in conjunction with the audited consolidated financial statements of Charter Communications, Inc. and subsidiaries as of and for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001.

Introduction

During 2003, we undertook a number of transition activities including reorganizing our workforce, adjusting our video pricing and packages, completing call center consolidations and implementing billing conversions. Due to the focus on such activities and certain financial constraints, we reduced spending on marketing our products and services. The reduced marketing activities and other necessary operational changes negatively impacted customer retention and acquisition, primarily during the first half of the year. During the second half of 2003, we increased our marketing efforts and implemented promotional campaigns to slow the loss of analog video customers, and to accelerate advanced service penetration, specifically in high-speed data.

In 2003, we took a series of steps intended to improve our balance sheet and liquidity:

During the years 1999 through 2001, we grew significantly, principally through acquisitions of other cable businesses financed by debt and, to a lesser extent, equity. We do not anticipate that we will engage in significant merger or acquisition activity for the foreseeable future other than exchanges of non-strategic assets or divestitures, such as the sale of cable systems to Atlantic Broadband Finance, LLC discussed above. We therefore do not believe that our historical growth rates are accurate indicators of future growth.

Historically, our ability to fund operations and investing activities has depended on our continued access to credit under our subsidiaries’ credit facilities. While our use of cash has changed over time such that the substantial majority of our cash now comes from cash flows from operating activities, we expect we will continue to borrow under our subsidiaries’ credit facilities from time to time to fund cash needs. The occurrence of an event of default under our subsidiaries’ credit facilities could result in borrowings from these facilities being unavailable to us and could, in the event of a payment default or acceleration, also trigger events of default under our notes and our subsidiaries’ outstanding notes and would have a material adverse effect on us. Approximately $188 million of indebtedness under our subsidiaries’ credit facilities is scheduled to mature during 2004. We expect to fund payment of such indebtedness through availability under our subsidiaries’ revolving credit facilities.

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Adoption of New Policies

Commencing in January 2002 and continuing through the first quarter of 2003, our management elected to implement a number of new policies including:

Change in Disconnect and Bad Debt Policies. Our estimated customer count is intended to include those people receiving cable service (regardless of payment status), except for complementary accounts (such as our employees). Our disconnect and bad debt guidelines for slow or nonpaying customers provide that, in general, customers are to be terminated for non-payment after approximately 60-75 days, and written off/referred to collection at approximately 90-110 days. We initially began implementing this policy in January 2002 after we decided to change our past practice under which we did not promptly disconnect these customers on a uniform basis. Effective year-end 2001, we also increased our allowance for doubtful accounts. The number of our customers who are presently more than 90 days overdue and our bad debt expense associated with such customers are lower than they were prior to the institution of these policies.

Procedures to ensure adherence to Disconnect and Customer Count Policies. During our review of internal audit findings and in the course of internal investigations, and subsequently in the course of responding to governmental investigations, we became concerned that certain employees either were not or had not previously been complying with our customer count and disconnect policies. We have since announced to our employees that a failure to follow these polices will be met with disciplinary action including, in appropriate cases, termination. We have terminated and disciplined employees who have not followed the policies. We have instituted regular review of customer reports by senior employees in an effort to ensure adherence to our policies and consistency of application throughout our various operating divisions, and we have established a telephone hotline number for employees to call and report misconduct relating to the reporting of customer numbers. We have also elected not to provide guidance on expected customer numbers in our public disclosures.

Corporate Compliance Program. Prior to 2002, we did not have a formal compliance program. We have since established a corporate compliance program, pursuant to which we provide a revised Code of Conduct to our employees that is incorporated into our Employee Handbook. The Code and Handbook require that employees report violations of the Code or other behavior which they believe might be unethical or illegal. Employees can report matters to their supervisor, to the Human Resources Department, through a hotline or through a secure website, and may do so anonymously. The compliance program is overseen by a compliance committee comprised of our high-ranking officers, which meets on a quarterly basis. The head of the committee in turn reports to the Audit Committee.

Treatment of Data Only Customers. We have changed our methodology for reporting analog cable video customers to exclude those customers who receive high-speed data service only. This represents a change in our methodology from prior reports through September 30, 2002, in which high-speed data service only customers (which numbered approximately 55,900 at September 30, 2002) were included within our analog cable video customers. We made this change because we determined that a substantial number of those customers who only received high-speed data service were unable to receive our most basic level of analog video service because this service was physically secured or blocked, was unavailable in certain areas or the customers were unaware that this service was available to them. In addition, in light of our decision to begin marketing of our high-speed data services as a separate product, we believed that separate disclosure of this information would assist investors in understanding our current business and in monitoring what we expected to be an increasing number of data only customers. See “Item 1. Business – Products and Services.”

Disclosure Committee. We established a Disclosure Committee, consisting of senior personnel from the business units, our internal audit group, and the finance and legal groups, and we now follow an extensive review and certification process in connection with our filings with the SEC and other disclosure documents.

Audit Committee. We modified our Audit Committee’s charter to expand the role of the committee and to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the rules issued thereunder (including Nasdaq rules).

Accounting Policy Changes. Consistent with the description of the restatement, we have revised a number of our accounting policies, including treatment of launch incentives received from programmers. For a complete

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discussion of accounting changes and adjustments brought about as a result of the re-audit or restatement, see “Item 7. — Restatement of Prior Results.”

Restatement of Prior Results

There were no restatements in 2003 of prior results. However, certain reclassifications have been made to 2002 and 2001 amounts to conform to 2003 presentation. Also, as discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2002, on November 19, 2002, we announced that we had determined that additional franchise costs and deferred income tax liability should have been recorded for the differences between the financial statement and tax basis of assets we acquired in connection with certain cable businesses acquired throughout 1999 and 2000. As a result of this restatement, we engaged KPMG LLP to perform audits as of and for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000 because our former accountants, Arthur Andersen LLP, were no longer available to provide an opinion as to restated financial statements. In connection with these audits, we concluded that it was appropriate to make certain additional adjustments to previously reported results. Among other things, adjustments were made to previous interpretations and applications of generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) that had been consistently followed by us since 2000 and throughout the restatement period.

These adjustments reduced revenues reported in our 2002 quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the first three quarters of 2002 by a total of $38 million, and in our 2001 annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2001 and 2000 by $146 million and $108 million, respectively. Such adjustments represent approximately 1%, 4% and 3% of previously reported revenues for the respective periods in 2002, 2001 and 2000. Our previously reported consolidated net loss increased by a total of $26 million for the first three quarters of 2002 and decreased by $11 million for the year ended December 31, 2001. Our previously reported net loss increased by $29 million for the year ended December 31, 2000, primarily due to adjustments related to the original accounting for acquisitions and elements of our rebuild and upgrade activities. Net cash flows from operating activities for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000 were reduced by $30 million and $303 million, respectively. The most significant categories of adjustments related to the following items outlined below.

Launch Incentives from Programmers. Amounts previously recognized as advertising revenue in connection with the launch of new programming channels have been deferred and recorded in other long-term liabilities in the year such launch support was provided, and amortized as a reduction of programming costs based upon the relevant contract term. These adjustments decreased revenue $30 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $118 million and $76 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively. Additionally, for the year ended December 31, 2000, we increased marketing expense by $24 million for other promotional activities associated with launching new programming services previously deferred and subsequently amortized. The corresponding amortization of such deferred amounts reduced programming expenses by $36 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $27 million and $5 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively.

Customer Incentives and Inducements. Marketing inducements paid to encourage potential customers to switch from satellite providers to Charter-branded services and enter into multi-period service agreements were previously deferred and recorded as property, plant and equipment and recognized as depreciation and amortization expense over the life of customer contracts. These amounts have been restated as a reduction of revenue in the period such inducements were paid. Revenue declined a total of $5 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $19 million and $2 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively. Substantially all of these amounts are offset by reduced depreciation and amortization expense.

Capitalized Labor and Overhead Costs. Certain elements of labor costs and related overhead allocations previously capitalized as property, plant and equipment as part of our rebuild activities, customer installation and new service introductions have been expensed in the period incurred. Such adjustments increased operating expenses by $73 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $93 million and $52 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively.

Customer Acquisition Costs. Certain customer acquisition campaigns were conducted through third-party contractors in 2000, 2001 and portions of 2002. The costs of these campaigns were originally deferred and recorded as other assets and recognized as amortization expense over the average customer contract life. These amounts have been reported as marketing expense in the period incurred and totaled $32 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $59 million and $4 million and for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively. We

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discontinued this program in the third quarter of 2002 as contracts for third-party vendors expired. Substantially all of these amounts are offset by reduced depreciation and amortization expense.

Rebuild and Upgrade of Cable Systems. In 2000, as we were completing our acquisitions, we initiated a three-year program to replace, upgrade and integrate a substantial portion of our network (the rebuild program). This rebuild/upgrade of the cable network infrastructure was envisioned as providing the platform capacity through which many broadband communication services could be provided to the marketplace for many years to come. Such a rebuild program was unprecedented and is not expected to recur. We began implementation of this three-year rebuild program in January 2000 and adhered to it over the period. It was expanded in July 2001 to encompass cable system assets acquired in June 2001 from AT&T Broadband. There were no other significant modifications to the rebuild program over the three-year period.

As the rebuild program was beginning in early 2000, we were nearing the end of a period in which we were acquired by Paul G. Allen and merged with Marcus Cable and in which we had subsequently completed an initial public offering and acquired 16 cable businesses adding approximately 5 million additional customers. We were faced with integrating these acquisitions, administering the rebuild program and also putting in place processes and new personnel to handle the increased size and complexity of an operation that had grown exponentially in a period of about 18 months. During the first quarter of 2000, management also recognized the need to reassess depreciable lives of the property that was subject to the three-year rebuild program. Based on a review of the rebuild program, $3 billion of assets were identified as being subject to replacement, and accordingly, management reduced the useful lives of those assets. In connection with the restatement, however, it has been determined that some of these assets were to be retained and not replaced because sections of the network were scheduled to be upgraded and not rebuilt. In a cable system rebuild there is outright replacement and retirement of substantially all components of the network, whereas an upgrade involves the retention of the original property, particularly the fiber and coaxial cabling.

Presented below is a schedule of the costs of cable distribution system assets subject to the rebuild program, as originally recorded, reconciled to the final determinations in the restatement. The depreciation lives were shortened for this asset pool as discussed previously and supplemented below.

In connection with the restatement process, we conducted a detailed system-by-system analysis of the rebuild program to identify those assets which were intended to be rebuilt versus upgraded and determined that approximately $844 million of trunk and distribution cabling, and $102 million of headend equipment (in aggregate, $946 million) was enhanced and retained in service. Accordingly, an adjustment was made in the restatement with effect from January 1, 2000 to properly exclude those assets from the population of assets treated as subject to replacement and thus for which a shortened depreciation life was previously assigned.

The evaluation conducted in connection with the restatement also revealed the inadvertent exclusion of $401 million of trunk and distribution cabling and electronics, which were acquired in 1999, from the population of assets that were subject to shortened depreciation lives. This group of assets were misclassified within our fixed assets sub-ledger for one acquisition and thus omitted from the analysis performed in connection with the preparation of our historical financial statements. Accordingly, an adjustment was made in the restatement to properly include these assets as well.

Furthermore, we reduced the value of assets subject to replacement by a total of approximately $1.2 billion to record the assets at estimated depreciated replacement cost at the date of acquisition. This includes a $598 million reduction originally recorded in our previously issued financial statements and a $627 million adjustment identified as part of the restatement.

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As a result of the items identified above, we determined that depreciation expense was overstated by a total of $413 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $330 million and $119 million in the years ended 2001 and 2000, respectively. This resulted in net loss being overstated by a total of $192 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $146 million and $48 million for the years ended 2001 and 2000, respectively.

Deferred Tax Liabilities/Franchise Assets. Adjustments were made to record deferred tax liabilities associated with the acquisition of various cable television businesses. These adjustments increased amounts assigned to franchise assets by $1.4 billion with a corresponding increase in deferred tax liabilities of $1.2 billion. The balance of the entry was recorded to equity and minority interest. In addition, as described above, a correction was made to reduce amounts assigned in purchase accounting to assets identified for replacement over the three-year period of our rebuild and upgrade of our network. This reduced the amount assigned to the network assets to be retained and increased the amount assigned to franchise assets by approximately $627 million with a resulting increase in amortization expense for the years restated. Such adjustments increased the impairment of franchises recognized in the first quarter of 2002 by $199 million (before minority interest) and increased amortization expense by $130 million and $121 million for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000, respectively. This resulted in net loss being understated by a total of $71 million for the first three quarters of 2002, and $57 million and $49 million for the years ended 2001 and 2000, respectively.

Other Adjustments. In addition to the items described above, certain other adjustments were made that increased net loss by $38 million and decreased net loss by $10 million, respectively, for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000. These adjustments were as follows:

The tables below set forth our condensed consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2001 and December 31, 2000, and condensed consolidated statement of operations and condensed consolidated statement of cash flows information for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000.

Controls. The major adjustments discussed above, including for the rebuild and upgrade of cable systems and deferred tax matters/franchise, generally relate to non-routine items and did not result from control deficiencies in our core accounting operations. Since our period of rapid growth in 2000 and early 2001, in which we were rapidly

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acquiring cable systems, we have integrated the various accounting processes of our acquired cable systems. We have also substantially improved the quantity and, we believe, the quality of our accounting and internal audit staff. In addition, we are developing better interactions between our accounting and internal audit staff and the other elements of our organization. These changes in our staff have been supplemented with changes in accounting and internal controls processes and systems which we believe result in an improved ability of management to understand and analyze underlying business data. As part of our acquisitions integration process, we have, among other things, standardized our data and put in place a data warehouse, which has enhanced our abilities to analyze our operating data. Budgeting has been integrated into our financial systems, through the use of specialized commercial software rather than spreadsheet programs. Additionally, we have implemented in the first quarter 2004, a job costing system, that tracks capital at the project level. These changes have given us the ability to better understand, analyze and manage our business data. The role of our internal audit staff has also been expanded, particularly with respect to capitalization and depreciation. We believe that these changes have improved our controls over both recurring transactions and non-recurring transactions.

The following table sets forth selected consolidated balance sheet information, showing previously reported and restated amounts, as of December 31, 2001 (in millions):

The following table sets forth selected consolidated statement of operations information, showing previously reported and restated amounts, for the year ended December 31, 2001 (in millions, except per share and share data):

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The following table sets forth selected consolidated balance sheet information, showing previously reported and restated amounts, as of December 31, 2000 (in millions):

The following table sets forth selected consolidated statement of operations information, showing previously reported and restated amounts, for the year ended December 31, 2000 (in millions, except per share and share data):

The following table sets forth selected consolidated cash flow information, showing previously reported and restated amounts, for the years ended December 31, 2001 and 2000 (in millions):

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Acquisitions

The following table sets forth information regarding our acquisitions from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002 (none in 2003):

All acquisitions were accounted for under the purchase method of accounting and results of operations were included in our consolidated financial statements from their respective dates of acquisition.

We have no current plans to pursue any significant acquisitions. However, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to consolidate our operations through the sale of cable systems to, or exchange of like-kind assets with, other cable operators as such opportunities arise, and on a very limited basis, consider strategic new acquisitions. Our primary criteria in considering these opportunities are the rationalization of our operations into geographic clusters and the potential financial benefits we expect to ultimately realize as a result of the sale, exchange, or acquisition.

Overview of Operations

Approximately 86% and 84% of our revenues for the years ended December 31, 2003 and 2002, respectively, are attributable to monthly subscription fees charged to customers for our video, high-speed data, telephone and commercial services provided by our cable systems. Generally, these customer subscriptions may be discontinued by the customer at any time. The remaining 14% and 16%, respectively, of revenue is derived primarily from pay-per-view and VOD programming where users are charged a fee for individual programs viewed, advertising revenues, installation or reconnection fees charged to customers to commence or reinstate service, commissions related to the sale of merchandise by home shopping services and franchise fee revenues, which are collected by us but then paid to local franchising authorities. We have generated increased revenues during the past three years, primarily through the sale of digital video and high-speed data services to new and existing customers, price increases on video services and customer growth from acquisitions. Going forward, our strategy is to grow revenues and improve margins by seeking to stabilize our analog video customer base and increase revenues per customer. To accomplish this, we are increasing prices for certain services and we are offering new bundling of services combining digital video and our advanced services (such as high-speed data service and high definition television) at what we believe are attractive price points. In addition, we are increasing our marketing efforts and budget in 2004

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to promote our high-speed data services, digital video services and advanced products and services such as digital video recorders, high definition television and telephony using VOIP to our existing customer base and to commercial customers. See “Business — Sales and Marketing” for more details.

Our success in our efforts to grow revenues and improve margins will be impacted by our ability to compete against companies with often fewer regulatory burdens, easier access to financing, greater personnel resources, greater brand name recognition and long-established relationships with regulatory authorities and customers. Additionally, controlling our cost of operations is critical, particularly cable programming costs, which have historically increased at rates in excess of inflation and are expected to continue to increase. See “Business — Programming” for more details. We are attempting to control our costs of operations by maintaining strict controls on expenses. More specifically, we are focused on managing our cost structure by renegotiating programming agreements to reduce the rate of historical increases in programming cost, managing our workforce to control increases and improve productivity, and leveraging our size in purchasing activities.

Our expenses primarily consist of operating costs, selling, general and administrative expenses, depreciation and amortization expense and interest expense. Operating costs primarily include programming costs, the cost of our workforce, cable service related expenses, advertising sales costs, franchise fees and expenses related to customer billings. For the year ended December 31, 2003, income from operations was $516 million and for the years ended December 31, 2002 and 2001, our loss from operations was $4.3 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively. Operating margin, which is defined as income (loss) from operations divided by revenues, was 11% for the year ended December 31, 2003, whereas for the years ending December 31, 2002 and 2001, we had negative operating margins of 95% and 32%, respectively. The improvement in income from operations and operating margin from 2002 to 2003 was principally due to a $4.6 billion franchise impairment charge in the fourth quarter of 2002 which did not recur in 2003 and the recognition of gains in 2003 of $93 million related to unfavorable contracts and other settlements and gain on sale of system. The increase in loss from operations and negative operating margins from 2001 to 2002 was primarily as a result of a $4.6 billion franchise impairment charge in the fourth quarter of 2002, partially offset by a decrease in amortization expense of $1.5 billion as a result of the adoption of SFAS No. 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets, which eliminated the amortization of franchises determined to have an indefinite life. Although we do not expect charges for impairment in the future of comparable magnitude to the fourth quarter 2002 impairment charge, potential charges could occur due to changes in market conditions.

We have a history of net losses. Further, we expect to continue to report net losses for the foreseeable future. Our net losses are principally attributable to insufficient revenue to cover our interest costs we incur because of our high level of debt, the depreciation expenses that we incur resulting from the capital investments we have made in our cable properties, and the amortization and impairment of our franchise intangibles. We expect that these expenses (other than amortization and impairment of franchises) will remain significant, and we therefore expect to continue to report net losses for the foreseeable future. Additionally, reported losses allocated to minority interest on the statement of operations will be limited to the extent of any remaining minority interest on the balance sheet related to Charter Holdco. Accordingly, commencing in 2004, we expect to absorb all, or substantially all, future losses before income taxes because minority interest in Charter Holdco was substantially eliminated at December 31, 2003. For the year ended December 31, 2003, 53.5% of our losses before income taxes were classified as minority interest.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Certain of our accounting policies require our management to make difficult, subjective or complex judgments. Management has discussed these policies with the Audit Committee of Charter’s board of directors and the Audit Committee has reviewed the following disclosure. We consider the following policies to be the most critical in understanding the estimates, assumptions and judgments that are involved in preparing our financial statements and the uncertainties that could affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows:

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In addition, there are other items within our financial statements that require estimates or judgment but are not deemed critical, such as the allowance for doubtful accounts, but changes in judgment, or estimates in these other items could also have a material impact on our financial statements.

Capitalization of labor and overhead costs. The cable industry is capital intensive, and a large portion of our resources are spent on capital activities associated with extending, rebuilding, and upgrading our cable network. As of December 31, 2003 and 2002, the net carrying amount of our property, plant and equipment (consisting primarily of cable network assets) was approximately $7.0 billion (representing 33% of total assets) and $7.7 billion (representing 34% of total assets), respectively. Total capital expenditures for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001 were approximately $854 million, $2.2 billion and $2.9 billion, respectively.

Costs associated with network construction, initial customer installations, installation refurbishments and the addition of network equipment necessary to provide advanced services are capitalized. Costs capitalized as part of initial customer installations include materials, direct labor, and certain indirect costs. These indirect costs are associated with the activities of personnel who assist in connecting and activating the new service and consist of compensation and overhead costs associated with these support functions. The costs of disconnecting service at a customer’s dwelling or reconnecting service to a previously installed dwelling are charged to operating expense in the period incurred. Costs for repairs and maintenance are charged to operating expense as incurred, while equipment replacement and betterments, including replacement of cable drops from the pole to the dwelling, are capitalized.

Direct labor costs directly associated with capital projects are capitalized. We capitalize direct labor costs associated with personnel based upon the specific time devoted to network construction and customer installation activities. Capitalizable activities performed in connection with customer installations include:

We capitalized internal direct labor costs of $88 million, $173 million and $171 million, for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001, respectively. Capitalized internal direct labor costs decreased in 2003 compared to 2002 primarily due to the substantial completion of the upgrade of our systems and a decrease in the amount of capitalizable installation costs.

Judgment is required to determine the extent to which indirect costs (“overhead”) are incurred as a result of specific capital activities, and therefore should be capitalized. We capitalize overhead using an overhead rate applied to the amount of direct labor capitalized. We have established the overhead rates based on an analysis of the nature of costs incurred in support of capitalizable activities and a determination of the portion of costs that is directly attributable to capitalizable activities. The primary costs that are included in the determination of the overhead rate are (i) employee benefits and payroll taxes associated with capitalized direct labor, (ii) direct variable costs associated with capitalizable activities, consisting primarily of installation and construction vehicle costs, (iii) the cost of support personnel, such as dispatch, that directly assist with capitalizable installation activities, and (iv) indirect costs directly attributable to capitalizable activities.

While we believe our existing capitalization policies are appropriate, a significant change in the nature or extent of our system activities could affect management’s judgment about the extent to which we should capitalize direct labor or overhead in the future. We monitor the appropriateness of our capitalization policies, and perform updates to our internal overhead study on a periodic basis to determine whether facts or circumstances warrant a change to our capitalization policies. We capitalized overhead of $86 million, $162 million and $134 million, respectively, for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001.

Useful lives of property, plant and equipment. We evaluate the appropriateness of estimated useful lives assigned to our property, plant and equipment, and revise such lives to the extent warranted by changing facts and circumstances. Beginning in January 2000, we commenced a significant initiative to rebuild and upgrade portions

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of our cable network. We reduced the useful lives of certain assets with a book value of $1.1 billion in 2000 and an additional $125 million in 2001. These assets were expected to be replaced and retired through that process in approximately one to three years, representing management’s best estimate of the expected pattern of the retirement from service of such assets. A significant change in assumptions about the extent or timing of future asset usage or retirements could materially affect future depreciation expense.

Depreciation expense related to property, plant and equipment totaled $1.5 billion, $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion, representing approximately 34%, 16% and 24% of costs and expenses, for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002 and 2001, respectively. Of these amounts, approximately $183 million and $352 million for the years ended December 31, 2002 and 2001, respectively, relates to network assets which were replaced and retired over the three-year period of the rebuild initiative. Depreciation is recorded using the straight-line method over management’s estimate of the estimated useful lives of the related assets as follows:

Impairment of property, plant and equipment, franchises and goodwill. As discussed above, the net carrying value of our property, plant and equipment is significant. We also have recorded a significant amount of cost related to franchises, pursuant to which we are granted the right to operate our cable distribution network throughout our service areas. The net carrying value of franchises as of December 31, 2003 and 2002 was approximately $13.7 billion (representing 64% of total assets) and $13.7 billion (representing 61% of total assets), respectively. Furthermore, we recorded approximately $52 million of goodwill as a result of the acquisition of High Speed Access in February 2002.

We adopted SFAS No. 142 on January 1, 2002. SFAS No. 142 requires that franchise intangible assets that meet the indefinite life criteria no longer be amortized against earnings but instead must be tested for impairment annually or more frequently as warranted by events or changes in circumstances. In determining whether our franchises have an indefinite life, we considered the exclusivity of the franchise, the expected costs of franchise renewals, and the technological state of the associated cable systems with a view to whether or not we are in compliance with any technology upgrading requirements. We have concluded that as of January 1, 2002, December 31, 2002 and December 31, 2003 more than 99% of our franchises qualify for indefinite life treatment under SFAS No. 142, and that less than one percent of our franchises do not qualify for indefinite-life treatment due to technological or operational factors that limit their lives. Costs of finite-lived franchises, along with costs associated with franchise renewals, will be amortized on a straight-line basis over 10 years, which represents management’s best estimate of the average remaining useful lives of such franchises. Prior to the adoption of SFAS No. 142, our franchises were amortized over an average useful life of 15 years. Franchise amortization expense related to franchises not qualifying for indefinite life treatment totaled $9 million for each of the years ended December 31, 2003 and 2002. Franchise amortization expense was $1.5 billion, representing approximately 29% of costs and expenses, for the year ended December 31, 2001. We expect amortization expense on franchise assets will decrease to approximately $4 million annually based on our ability in 2003 to renew franchise agreements we previously classified as having finite lives without substantial costs. Actual amortization expense to be reported in future periods could differ from these estimates as a result of new intangible asset acquisitions or divestitures, changes in useful lives and other relevant factors. Our goodwill is also deemed to have an indefinite life under SFAS No. 142.

SFAS No. 144, Accounting for Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets, requires that we evaluate the recoverability of our property, plant and equipment and franchise assets which did not qualify for indefinite life treatment under SFAS No. 142 upon the occurrence of events or changes in circumstances which indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. Such events or changes in circumstances could include such factors as changes in technological advances, fluctuations in the fair value of such assets, adverse changes in relationships with local franchise authorities, adverse changes in market conditions or poor operating results. Under SFAS No. 144, a long-lived asset is deemed impaired when the carrying amount of the asset exceeds the projected undiscounted future cash flows associated with the asset. Furthermore, we were required to evaluate the recoverability of our indefinite life franchises, as well as goodwill, as of January 1, 2002 upon adoption of SFAS No. 142, and on an annual basis or more frequently as deemed necessary.

Under both SFAS No. 144 and SFAS No. 142, if an asset is determined to be impaired, it is required to be written down to its estimated fair market value. We determine fair market value based on estimated discounted future cash

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flows, using reasonable and appropriate assumptions that are consistent with internal forecasts. Our assumptions include these and other factors: penetration rates for analog and digital video and high-speed data, revenue growth rates, expected operating margins and capital expenditures. Considerable management judgment is necessary to estimate future cash flows, and such estimates include inherent uncertainties, including those relating to the timing and amount of future cash flows and the discount rate used in the calculation. We utilize an independent third-party appraiser with expertise in the cable industry to assist in the determination of the fair value of intangible assets.

During the first quarter of 2002, we had an independent appraiser perform valuations of our franchises as of January 1, 2002. Based on the guidance prescribed in Emerging Issues Task Force (“EITF”) Issue No. 02-7, Unit of Accounting for Testing of Impairment of Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets, franchises were aggregated into essentially inseparable asset groups to conduct the valuations. The asset groups generally represent geographic clusters of our cable systems, which management believes represent the highest and best use of those assets. We determined that our franchises were impaired and as a result recorded the cumulative effect of a change in accounting principle of $206 million (approximately $572 million before minority interest effects of $306 million and tax effects of $60 million). As required by SFAS No. 142, the standard has not been retroactively applied to results for the period prior to adoption.

We performed our annual impairment assessment as of October 1, 2002 using an independent third-party appraiser and following the guidance of EITF Issue 02-17, Recognition of Customer Relationship Intangible Assets Acquired in a Business Combination, which was issued in October 2002 and requires the consideration of assumptions that marketplace participants would consider, such as expectations of future contract renewals and other benefits related to the intangible asset. Revised estimates of future cash flows and the use of a lower projected long-term growth rate in our valuation, led to recognition of a $4.6 billion impairment charge in the fourth quarter of 2002.

The independent third party appraiser’s valuations as of January 1, 2002, October 1, 2002 and October 1, 2003, yielded total enterprise values of approximately $30 billion, $25 billion and $25 billion, respectively, which included approximately $2.4 billion, $3.1 billion and $3.2 billion, respectively, assigned to customer relationships. SFAS No. 142 does not permit the recognition of intangible assets not previously recognized. Accordingly, the impairment included approximately $572 million and $3.1 billion, before tax effects, attributable to customer relationships as of January 1, 2002 and October 1, 2002, respectively. The valuation completed at October 1, 2003 showed franchise values in excess of book value and thus resulted in no impairment. Additionally, as a result of the sale of Port Orchard, Washington cable system on October 1, 2003, net carrying values of franchises were reduced by $42 million.

The valuations involve numerous assumptions as noted above. While the economic conditions at the time of each valuation indicate that the combination of assumptions utilized in the appraisals are reasonable, as market conditions change so will the assumptions with a resulting impact on the valuation.

Income Taxes. All operations are held through Charter Holdco and its direct and indirect subsidiaries. Charter Holdco and the majority of its subsidiaries are not subject to income tax. However, certain of these subsidiaries are corporations and are subject to income tax. All of the taxable income, gains, losses, deductions and credits of Charter Holdco are passed through to its members: Charter, Charter Investment, Inc. and Vulcan Cable III, Inc. Charter is responsible for its share of taxable income or loss of Charter Holdco allocated to it in accordance with the Charter Holdco limited liability company agreement (“LLC Agreement”) and partnership tax rules and regulations.

The LLC Agreement provides for certain special allocations of net tax profits and net tax losses (such net tax profits and net tax losses being determined under the applicable federal income tax rules for determining capital accounts). Pursuant to the LLC Agreement, through the end of 2003, net tax losses of Charter Holdco that would otherwise have been allocated to Charter based generally on its percentage ownership of outstanding common units were allocated instead to membership units held by Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. (the “Special Loss Allocations”) to the extent of their respective capital account balances. After 2003, pursuant to the LLC Agreement, net tax losses of Charter Holdco are to be allocated to Charter, Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. based generally on their respective percentage ownership of outstanding common units to the extent of their respective capital account balances. The LLC Agreement further provides that, beginning at the time Charter Holdco generates net tax profits, the net tax profits that would otherwise have been allocated to Charter based generally on its percentage ownership of outstanding common membership units will instead generally be allocated to Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. (the “Special Profit Allocations”). The Special Profit Allocations to Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. will generally continue until the cumulative amount of the Special Profit Allocations offsets the cumulative amount of the Special Loss Allocations. The amount and timing of the Special Profit Allocations are subject to the potential application of, and interaction with, the

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Curative Allocation Provisions described in the following paragraph. The LLC Agreement generally provides that any additional net tax profits are to be allocated among the members of Charter Holdco based generally on their respective percentage ownership of Charter Holdco common membership units.

Because the respective capital account balance of each of Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. was reduced to zero by December 31, 2002, certain net tax losses of Charter Holdco that were to be allocated for 2002, 2003 (subject to resolution of the issue described in “Certain Relationships and Related Transactions — Transactions Arising Out of Our Organizational Structure and Mr. Allen’s Investment in Charter and Its Subsidiaries — Equity Put Rights — CC VIII”) and possibly later years to Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. will instead be allocated to Charter (the “Regulatory Allocations”). The LLC Agreement further provides that, to the extent possible, the effect of the Regulatory Allocations is to be offset over time pursuant to certain curative allocation provisions (the “Curative Allocation Provisions”) so that, after certain offsetting adjustments are made, each member’s capital account balance is equal to the capital account balance such member would have had if the Regulatory Allocations had not been part of the LLC Agreement. The cumulative amount of the actual tax losses allocated to Charter as a result of the Regulatory Allocations through the year ended December 31, 2003 is approximately $2.0 billion to $2.6 billion pending the resolution of the issue described in “Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions — Transactions Arising Out of Our Organizational Structure and Mr. Allen’s Investment in Charter and Its Subsidiaries — Equity Put Rights — CC VIII.”

As a result of the Special Loss Allocations and the Regulatory Allocations referred to above, the cumulative amount of losses of Charter Holdco allocated to Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. is in excess of the amount that would have been allocated to such entities if the losses of Charter Holdco had been allocated among its members in proportion to their respective percentage ownership of Charter Holdco common membership units. The cumulative amount of such excess losses was approximately $3.1 billion through December 31, 2002 and $2.0 billion to $2.5 billion through December 31, 2003, depending upon the resolution of the issue described in “Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions — Transactions Arising Out of Our Organizational Structure and Mr. Allen’s Investment in Charter and Its Subsidiaries — Equity Put Rights — CC VIII.”

In certain situations, the Special Loss Allocations, Special Profit Allocations, Regulatory Allocations and Curative Allocation Provisions described above could result in Charter paying taxes in an amount that is more or less than if Charter Holdco had allocated net tax profits and net tax losses among its members based generally on the number of common membership units owned by such members. This could occur due to differences in (i) the character of the allocated income (e.g., ordinary versus capital), (ii) the allocated amount and timing of tax depreciation and tax amortization expense due to the application of section 704(c) under the Internal Revenue Code, (iii) the potential interaction between the Special Profit Allocations and the Curative Allocation Provisions, (iv) the amount and timing of alternative minimum taxes paid by Charter, if any, (v) the apportionment of the allocated income or loss among the states in which Charter Holdco does business, and (vi) future federal and state tax laws. Further, in the event of new capital contributions to Charter Holdco, it is possible that the tax effects of the Special Profit Allocations, Special Loss Allocations, Regulatory Allocations and Curative Allocation Provisions will change significantly pursuant to the provisions of the income tax regulations. Such change could defer the actual tax benefits to be derived by Charter with respect to the net tax losses allocated to it or accelerate the actual taxable income to Charter with respect to the net tax profits allocated to it. As a result, it is possible under certain circumstances, that Charter could receive future allocations of taxable income in excess of its currently allocated tax deductions and available tax loss carryforwards.

In addition, under their exchange agreement with Charter, Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. may exchange some or all of their membership units in Charter Holdco for Charter’s Class B common stock, be merged with Charter, or be acquired by Charter in a non-taxable reorganization. If such an exchange were to take place prior to the date that the Special Profit Allocation provisions had fully offset the Special Loss Allocations, Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. could elect to cause Charter Holdco to make the remaining Special Profit Allocations to Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. immediately prior to the consummation of the exchange. In the event Vulcan Cable III, Inc. and Charter Investment, Inc. choose not to make such election or to the extent such allocations are not possible, Charter would then be allocated tax profits attributable to the membership units received in such exchange pursuant to the Special Profit Allocation provisions. Mr. Allen has generally agreed to reimburse Charter for any incremental income taxes that Charter would owe as a result of such an exchange and any resulting future Special Profit Allocations to Charter.

As of December 31, 2003 and 2002, we have recorded net deferred income tax liabilities of $417 million and $519 million, respectively. Additionally, as of December 31, 2003 and 2002, we have deferred tax assets of $1.7 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively, which primarily relate to financial and tax losses allocated to Charter from Charter

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Holdco. We are required to record a valuation allowance when it is more likely than not that some portion or all of the deferred income tax assets will not be realized. Given the uncertainty surrounding our ability to utilize our deferred tax assets, these items have been offset with a corresponding valuation allowance of $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion at December 31, 2003 and 2002, respectively.

We are currently under examination by the Internal Revenue Service for the tax years ending December 31, 1999 and 2000. Management does not expect the results of this examination to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or our liquidity, including our ability to comply with our debt covenants.

Litigation. As described in “Item 3. Legal Proceedings,” numerous allegations have been made against us. These legal contingencies have a high degree of uncertainty. No reserves have been established for these matters because we are unable to predict the outcome. When a contingency becomes estimable and probable, a reserve is established. We have established reserves for certain other matters. If any of the litigation matters described in “Item 3. Legal Proceedings” is resolved unfavorably, such resolution could have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or our liquidity, including our ability to comply with our debt covenants.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth the percentages of revenues that items in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations constitute for the indicated periods (dollars in millions, except per share and share data):

Year Ended December 31, 2003 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2002

Revenues. Revenues increased by $253 million, or 6%, from $4.6 billion for the year ended December 31, 2002 to $4.8 billion for the year ended December 31, 2003. This increase is principally the result of an increase of 427,500 high-speed data customers, as well as price increases for video and high-speed data services, and is offset partially by a decrease of 147,500 and 10,900 in analog and digital video customers, respectively. Included within the decrease of analog and digital video customers and reducing the increase of high-speed data customers are 25,500 analog video customers, 12,500 digital video customers and 12,200 high-speed data customers sold in the Port Orchard, Washington sale on October 1, 2003. Our goal is to increase revenues by mitigating our past analog video customer losses, implementing limited price increases on certain services and packages and increasing revenues from incremental high-speed data services, digital video and advanced products and services such as digital video

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recorders, high definition television, VOD and telephony using VOIP to our existing customer base and commercial customers.

Average monthly revenue per analog video customer increased from $56.91 for the year ended December 31, 2002 to $61.92 for the year ended December 31, 2003. Average monthly revenue per analog video customer represents total annual revenue, divided by twelve, divided by the average number of analog video customers.

Revenues by service offering are as follows (dollars in millions):