Charter loses 393,000 video subscriptions in Q2

Cable giant Charter Communications, whose main shareholder is John Malone’s Liberty Broadband, continues to lose video subscribers.

The company, led by CEO Chris Winfrey, revealed it lost 393,000 pay-TV subscribers in the latest quarter, down from a loss of 189,000 customers in the same period a year earlier. Video revenue totaled $3.9 billion in the second quarter, down 7.7 percent year over year, as Charter ended the latest fiscal period with 13.3 million video customers, down 9.5 percent from a year earlier.

Charter and Comcast, which have similarly shed video customers as consumers shift to streaming platforms, have launched streaming platforms Xumo to retain TV subscribers. Winfrey said on a morning call with analysts that video customers are making choices “based on affordability.”

Charter’s home internet customers fell by 154,000 in the second quarter, largely due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program, a federal subsidy that allows low-income households to save money on monthly packages. Winfrey said Charter is working to retain internet subscribers where possible after they no longer received a discount of up to $30 on a monthly internet package after the ACP ended.

“The real question is whether customers will be able to pay not only now but in the long term,” he added, as market churn and problems with acquiring new internet subscribers are likely to intensify and the loss of ACP benefits is likely to impact the current fiscal quarter.

“There will certainly be more unpaid disconnects in the third quarter,” Winfrey warned, without providing an actual projection for subscriber trends. “Ultimately, this ACP impact is one-time. That said, we are very focused on really isolating the ACP impact internally and evaluating our performance and retaining those customers because we want them to be connected,” he added.

Total revenue in the second quarter rose 0.2 percent to $13.7 billion, as growth in residential mobile services — Charter added 557,000 residential and business mobile lines — and residential internet revenue partially offset lower revenue from residential video services.

“We remain fully focused on growing our customer base by offering a unique, high-quality product set that continues to evolve to create long-term shareholder value,” Winfrey said in a statement ahead of a call with analysts, as Wall Street watches the cable giant’s rate of customer decline amid competition from streaming and ACP’s subscriber losses.

Charter’s net income attributable to shareholders was $1.23 billion, up from just $1.22 billion a year earlier.