This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.
Founded in 1952 in Coudersport, Penn., Adelphia's name came from the Greek word for brother. The company went public in 1986 and grew by acquisition -- buying up smaller cable providers.
The company went bankrupt in 2002 after disclosing $2.3 billion in debt that was kept off the balance sheet. Federal prosecutors charged the Rigases and other officers of looting the company of an estimated $100 million, much of it spent on ridiculous excess -- like spending $6,000 to have Christmas trees flown in to New York.
Both Rigas men were found guilty and in 2007 started serving time in a Federal prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) bought up Adelphia's cable business in 2006, splitting up the customers by region.
Let us know in the comments what you miss about Adelphia. And be sure to check out other Companies That Have Vanished.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-15-2008 @ 4:25PM
Paul Tan said...
how apt... adelphia... philadelphia experiment, vanish!
6-18-2008 @ 8:08AM
James Jones said...
For the other side of the Rigas-Adelphia saga that you didn't read in the big time media, see this article http://solomonswords.blogspot.com/2008/05/press-secretarys-lend-credibility-to.html in "Solomon's words', an online newspaper in Rigas's
hometown, which includes a link to James Rigas's testimony http://solomonsads.blogspot.com/2008/05/james-rigas-statement-to-court-on.html in the current re-sentencing hearing.
6-18-2008 @ 10:05AM
bizgal said...
Ms. Stone, If you did a little digging rather than simply regurgitating (and linking to) other inaccurate articles, you would know that during the trial, it was clear the $6k Christmas tree saga didn't happen - testimony shows that the tree was a 'package' on a plane that had passengers destined for NYC on it. This is another example of prosecutors throwing out one liners that the press likes to repeat to grab attention. And while, yes, prosecutors alleged that the Rigases "looted" Adelphia, the Rigases were NOT convicted of looting. It's sad that this company disappeared. The Rigases did something the gov't seems to be unable to do with all of their frivolous programs....bring prosperity to small town USA
6-30-2008 @ 11:03PM
MJ said...
Sorry, but I do not miss this company. I had them as my cable company, and I even went to them for a job years ago. Not only was the cable out on certain channels just about every dang day, my cable bill was high for just a few channels I had (now I know why), but the morons couldn't see a quality customer service rep. if it bit them in the you know where when I walked through the door. The workers always acted like their you know what didn't stink.
7-01-2008 @ 7:03PM
sumrsurf said...
Hey bizgal,
While it may be true that Adelphia did bring prosperity to a small town, it also caused alot of problems to that small town. Having grown up there and still having family living there, the locals saw a different side to what Adelphia was doing to the town. While the company did employ several local people, most of the management came from larger cities which gave these people the higher paying jobs. It caused the housing market to grow to such an extent that when Adelphia did finally go under and several people lost there jobs, the area being rural did not have the means to re-employ people. Many houses went into forclosure because the management employees who had to go back to where ever they were from could not sell there homes. It's a small town people could not pay the high prices that were being asked. It left the local residents to deal with many empty buildings, pay higher taxes because Adelphia was no longer there to pay there share (I don't believe they ever really did anyway). The downtown area became a congested mess when they were there, instead of purchasing land on the outskirts of town, they chose to put all of there business right inthe middle of a basically 3 block area and the town, with its 2 redlights could not handle the extra traffic let alone find somewhere to park. Now I'm not completely negative about Adelphia, they did provide jobs to a much needed small town, but since there down fall that small town has gotten alot smaller and several local business have had to close. They should have been smarter, once they went public you can't use the business as your own personal piggybank!!!
7-22-2008 @ 11:35AM
jw4050 said...
I worked for Adelphia for 2 years and the excesses and poor planning were rampant. I have first hand knowledge of the 100k conference tables, family based deals on company cars and furniture and know it all engineers who in the end really knew nothing more than how to spend all the company money!!! The upper management constantly fed us lines like 'John Rigas is a god fearing honest man you can trust'. Many of us believed that crap right down to our stock hitting $0.
8-24-2008 @ 11:34PM
smoothfess said...
well I do agree that Adelphia was a pain in the *%$#@ but now "the land/area" belongs to TWC and they are not that good either.. I know I have worked for them for 2 yrs and I don't agree with many things that are happening what can I do, all I can say is that we/TWC should not have bought out Adelphia with a following like that.