Charter Sees DBS Losses as Its Subscriber Gain
Direct broadcast satellite's ongoing subscriber losses, as well as virtual MVPDs having to raise their rates after apparently selling below cost, bode well for Charter Communications' video subscriber trends, CEO Tom Rutledge said on an earnings call Friday. AT&T reported…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
a Q3 loss of 346,000 DirecTV subscribers (see 1810240049) while Dish Network hasn't yet reported results. Rutledge said many content companies are going direct to consumer, but their lack of experience in being video distributors means they're often not effectively securing their content, the result being widespread password sharing. Rutledge said Charter's Spectrum Mobile service, launched after Labor Day, ended the quarter with about 21,000 subscriber lines, and that in coming months the company will introduce allowing subscribers to transfer their existing handsets and means for making it easier to switch an entire household's mobile service. For the quarter, Charter said it had revenue of $10.9 billion, up 4.2 percent year over year; 23.3 million residential internet subscribers, up 4.9 percent; 16.1 million residential video subscribers, down 1.6 percent; and 10.2 million residential voice subscribers, down 1.8 percent. Charter shares closed Friday down 6.29 percent to $295.01.