In response to a question from analyst Jessica Reif Cohen about the extent to which interactive ads have made a difference in the company’s overall ad revenues, Rutledge said it was too soon to tell. “Total ad revenue was up sequentially 6 percent over Q2, something that is not usually true. As for interactive advertising, it’s a factor, but there seems to be some economic rebound.” Rutledge didn’t shed any light on the pricing of interactive ads versus regular spots. “The interesting thing we have is we can determine the effectiveness of the advertising and price accordingly.”

SEE ALSO: Cablevision Beats Estimates, As Profits Triple, Revenues Rise

Rutledge largely dismissed the challenge from FiOS by saying that the economy is still having more of an impact on revenues. “We still see rising unemployment and that is affecting our growth to some extent. We did report what the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) FiOS footprint is and its about 1.7 million homes passed in our 4.7 million home footprint.” He claimed that FiOS is expanding less rapidly than it has in prior years and that the greenfield marketing opportunity for FiOS is declining in Cablevision’s primary service area and perhaps nationally.