Cable giant Charter Communications, with John Malone’s Liberty Broadband as a major stakeholder, has continued to shed video subscribers.
The company, led by CEO Chris Winfrey, revealed that it lost 393,000 residential pay TV subscribers in its latest quarter, compared with a loss of 189,000 customers in the year-ago period. Video revenue totaled $3.9 billion in the second quarter, down 7.7 percent year-on-year as Charter ended the latest financial period with 13.3 million overall video customers, down 9.5 percent from a year earlier.
Charter and Comcast, which similarly shed video customers amid a pivot by consumers to streaming platforms, have rolled out their Xumo streaming platform to retain TV content subscribers. During the second quarter, Charter residential Internet customers fell in number by 154,000, due mainly to the end of the ACP government subsidies.
Second quarter overall revenue rose 0.2 percent to $13.7 billion, as increased residential mobile service – Charter added 557,000 residential and business mobile lines – and residential internet revenues in part offset lower residential video revenue.
“We remain fully focused on driving customer growth, with a unique, high quality product set that continues to evolve, creating long term value for shareholders,” Winfrey said in a statement as Wall Street eyes the rate of customer decline at the cable giant in the face of streaming competition.
Charter’s net income attributable to shareholders came to $1.23 billion, just up from a year-earlier $1.22 billion.