WOW! Acquisition Closed
Digital Bridge and Crestview Partner took the cable operator private in a $1.5 billion deal.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2, 2026 – WideOpenWest (WOW!) has officially been taken private, the cable operator’s investment fund buyers announced Wednesday.
The company was acquired in a $1.5 billion deal by DigitalBridge Group and Crestview Partners in a deal first announced in August. Shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the deal last month.
Stockholders received $5.20 per share. Crestview, which was WOW!’s largest stockholder with about 37 percent of the company’s outstanding shares, rolled over its shares.
As a private company, WOW! Will no longer be traded on public exchanges and will no longer publicly report quarterly results.
The company counted about 457,000 broadband subscribers at the end of the third quarter of 2025. That includes about 50,000 fiber subscribers from WOW!’s network expansion efforts.
The company had been aiming to pass 400,000 new homes with fiber in the coming years, and counted about 223,000 fiber passings at the end of the third quarter.
Like other cable companies, WOW! Has been losing subscribers in recent years. But CEO Teresa Elder said in November the company felt good about its expansion markets, where it has been seeing subscriber gains.
“In greenfield, we actually have been on a tear,” she said. “Penetration keeps growing at a robust rate.”
Telecom M&A was frequent in 2025. Fellow cable operator Cox is being acquired by Charter, and the wireless carriers have each been buying up smaller fiber providers in efforts to expand their footprints.
That’s in large part an effort to sell bundled fixed and mobile broadband, which most of the major ISPs say keeps customers around longer. WOW! has a mobile service, but hasn’t been leaning into it as much as cable giants Comcast and Charter.
DigitalBridge is a major investor in the telecom space and owns companies like Zayo, Vantage, and Vertical Bridge. The investment firm is being acquired by Japanese conglomerate Softbank in a $4 billion deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2026.
“As a private company, WOW! will have strategic flexibility and resources to compete more effectively in its markets and pursue long-term growth,” Brian Cassidy, president and head of media at Crestview, said in a statement. “We believe this strategic infrastructure investment will allow us to bring advanced technology to these markets more quickly and will strengthen WOW!'s competitive position.”
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