Latest news with #ChrisWinfrey
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Spectrum suffers major loss as customers pull the plug on service
Spectrum suffers major loss as customers pull the plug on service originally appeared on TheStreet. Spectrum, which is operated by Charter Communications () , is struggling to shake a growing consumer trend that is harming its business, and it is shifting gears to fix the problem. In Charter's second-quarter earnings report for 2025, it revealed that Spectrum lost about 117,000 internet customers during the quarter, which is almost 6% higher than the number of internet customers it lost during the same time period last year. 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰💵 The steeper customer loss follows Spectrum's decision to raise its monthly internet prices by $3 to $4, depending on the plan, in July last year, frustrating customers. It also warned customers last month that monthly rates for a few of its internet plans would increase by $2, a change that went into effect a few weeks recent internet price increases mirror a growing trend in the telecom industry. According to a recent survey from CNET, 63% of U.S. adults saw the monthly price of their home internet service increase last year. On average, they paid $195 more for internet service in 2024 than in 2023. Charter CEO addresses the elephant in the room: end of key discount During an earnings call on July 25, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey emphasized the company is operating in a 'competitive' environment. He also said that the number of Spectrum customers who have had their service cut off due to non-payment has increased year-over-year, partially due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). This was a government program that provided eligible households a discount of up to $30 a month for internet service. It was discontinued in February last year. 'The reason that non-pay has stepped up year-over-year is because twofold,' said Winfrey. 'One is you have former ACP customers who are economically challenged and have a higher non-pay rate systemically, without the benefit of the subsidy from a year-over-year standpoint. But in addition to that, from a year-over-year standpoint, you have newly acquired customers who would have qualified for the ACP. We don't have ACP today, and therefore, they have a higher non-pay rate than they would otherwise.'He also said that Spectrum doesn't have a 'pricing issue' due to the value it offers customers. 'So if you think about the short term and the top of the funnel for internet specifically, we don't have a product or pricing issue,' said Winfrey. 'We have the fastest speeds. We have the most reliable product, best WiFi, selling, particularly in bundle, $30 500 megabit per second internet, $40 gig. So it's not a product or pricing issue at the top of the funnel. It's the broader market that I talked about, some brand new competition.' Spectrum faces growing competition, impacting customer numbers Spectrum has recently faced heightened competition from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, which all offer fixed wireless internet. This service provides internet access to remote or underserved areas at a price that's usually lower than traditional internet services, which is why so many price-conscious consumers are switching to it. Comcast, one of Spectrum's main competitors, even flagged during an earnings call in April that it is seeing 'intense' competition from fixed wireless internet providers. 'I would tell you that the newer competitor in the last few years has obviously been fixed wireless,' said Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong during the call. 'They're adding 1,000,000 subscribers per quarter, so that's sort of the competitive intensity that we're seeing that's sort of incremental. We are competing aggressively with it.' A recent survey from Cord Cutters News revealed that only 40.2% of consumers rely on cable TV companies for their internet service, a significant decline from 45% in late 2024. Also, roughly 11% rely on 5G home internet, an increase from 8.4% just a year ago. Spectrum rolls out a new plan to win back customers To help combat this growing trend, Spectrum will focus on sharpening its value pitch to customers, clarifying through its marketing, time of sale and retention efforts how much money they can save by bundling their phone and internet services. More Telecom News: Verizon's push to make switching harder for customers hits a snag T-Mobile announces generous offer for conflicted customers Amazon pulls the plug on a free service for customers 'When you think about what is on your bill with T-Mobile or Verizon 5G home internet, the reality is, it's dramatically more expensive than what you would pay to Spectrum for an internet mobile product,' said Winfrey. He also said that Spectrum will upgrade its video packages (especially after it also lost 80,000 cable customers during the second quarter) to have more $100 worth of programmer apps, such as Max, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, etc., at no additional cost to customers, which it hopes will help it retain internet customers. 'That's gonna be the stickiest product,' said Winfrey. 'It's gonna be the best for customers and for programmers, us, and it's gonna be the best for our broadband churn as well.'Spectrum suffers major loss as customers pull the plug on service first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 28, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 28, 2025, where it first appeared.
NBC News
31-07-2025
- Business
- NBC News
The death of cable TV may be the birth of streaming sports aggregation
For about a decade, media executives have heavily invested in live sports as the primary value proposition for consumers to keep subscribing to traditional pay television. While tens of millions of Americans have ditched cable for a variety of streaming services, ESPN's marquee live sports have remained exclusive to cable subscribers. The broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox) have been able to charge increasingly high fees to pay TV operators because they've invested in NFL games and college football, the most-watched American programming. When ESPN launches its direct-to-consumer service (likely next month), for the first time ever, Americans will be able to consume all major sports without having to subscribe to cable. (By the way, Disney — ESPN's majority owner — reports earnings next week. Sources suggest to me and my colleague Mike Ozanian that would be a logical time for ESPN to announce not only the DTC launch date but also the finalized details of its deal for NFL Media assets, which I reported on in last week's newsletter. Spokespeople for the NFL and ESPN declined to comment.) The changes in the pay TV landscape have led to one question that's dominated the strategic choices of the biggest media companies for the last decade: Will traditional pay TV die off completely, or will it level out and exist for decades to come as a profitable, albeit smaller, business? There was an interesting data point last week in Charter Communications' earnings report that suggests the answer could be the latter. Charter's earnings results weren't good. The stock fell 18% after the company reported it lost 117,000 internet customers during the quarter. Companies like Charter and CNBC's parent company, Comcast, have largely traded on residential broadband additions (or subtractions) for many years. Still, a bit hidden in the Charter numbers, the second-largest U.S. cable company reported a decline of just 80,000 video customers in the quarter. A year ago, that number was 408,000 in the same quarter. That's a five-fold improvement. There may be two reasons for plateauing losses. First, Charter has aggressively added 'free' access to streaming services for customers who pay for the full bundle of cable networks. It's, of course, not actually free — consumers are still paying for it, but it's included in the cost of the bundle. This has probably made cable subscribers less likely to cancel their plans. Now, if a customer cancels cable, that household is also giving up access to Disney's Disney+ and Hulu, NBCUniversal's Peacock, Paramount Global's Paramount+, and Warner Bros. Discovery's (soon to be just Warner. Bros.) HBO Max. When ESPN's direct-to-consumer application launches in the coming weeks, a cable customer would also lose access to that. Charter CEO Chris Winfrey noted in last week's earnings conference call that those offerings add up to 'over $100 worth of programmer apps.' 'That's going to be the stickiest product,' Winfrey said. 'It's going to be the best for customers and for programmers, us, and it's going to be the best for our broadband churn as well.' Second — and this one's the biggie to look out for — it's at least possible that pay TV losses are finally subsiding after more than a decade of losses. Comcast posted its earnings release Thursday morning and reported video customer losses of 325,000, an improvement over 419,000 losses in the year-earlier period. It's possible most of the U.S. households that want to cancel cable have now canceled, and the ones remaining plan to stick around for a little while. If that's the case, cable TV may effectively morph into the primary aggregation video service for sports. You may remember Venu, the never-launched sports streaming application from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. For $42.99 per month, Venu planned to give customers all sports owned by Disney/ESPN, Fox and WBD's Turner Sports. Experts estimated the offering included about 60% of all sports on TV. Over time, Venu hoped to add Paramount Global and NBCUniversal to the mix, according to people familiar with the matter. That would have given consumers most sports, outside of regional sports networks and the NFL and NBA packages on Amazon. Venu's value proposition was its price — $42.99. I highly doubt we'll see a service like Venu come to market at that low of a price. Fox is getting ready to launch its new streaming service, Fox One, which will give non-cable customers access to all of Fox's pay TV programming. While Fox hasn't revealed the pricing for the service yet, it won't be cheap. 'Pricing will be healthy and not a discounted price,' Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in May. Fox doesn't want you to cancel cable TV, so it won't incentivize churn by coming to market at a low price. 'We do not want to lose a traditional cable subscriber to Fox One,' Murdoch said, bluntly. Other pay TV operators have debuted skinny bundles of sports, such as DirecTV. Its MySports offering costs $69.99 per month, but it includes more than Venu would have. Comcast followed this year with a $70-per-month version of its own. The future of cable TV may slowly morph into something that resembles these skinny sports bundles. Sources tell me that once Skydance formally merges with Paramount Global next month, incoming CEO David Ellison plans to heavily invest in sports because pay TV economics still justify the spending. If video subscription losses are flattening, broadcast networks can continue to raise retransmission fees as long as they have premium programming — and sports are the most premium programming. How will he balance spending on sports when he's already promised more than $2 billion in cuts when the merger closes? What's likely to go is spending on anything that isn't sports or hit primetime (between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET) programming. See: 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' as Exhibit A, which fits the strategy even if Skydance wasn't involved in that decision. Maybe we should all stop thinking about cable TV as doomed to death and start viewing it in a new way — the next-generation aggregation service for sports. In this lens, it's not surprising NBCUniversal is thinking about developing a new cable sports network even while it plans to spin off almost all of its other cable networks (including CNBC). The battle may be between the cable companies, YouTube TV and ESPN's direct-to-consumer app as the go-to destination to access all sports. To quote esteemed cable analyst Craig Moffett from his note to clients last month, 'Maybe, just maybe, we're finding the long-imagined bottom for traditional pay TV, where sports and news fans are all that's left.'
Miami Herald
28-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Spectrum suffers major loss as customers pull the plug on service
Spectrum, which is operated by Charter Communications (CHTR) , is struggling to shake a growing consumer trend that is harming its business, and it is shifting gears to fix the problem. In Charter's second-quarter earnings report for 2025, it revealed that Spectrum lost about 117,000 internet customers during the quarter, which is almost 6% higher than the number of internet customers it lost during the same time period last year. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter The steeper customer loss follows Spectrum's decision to raise its monthly internet prices by $3 to $4, depending on the plan, in July last year, frustrating customers. It also warned customers last month that monthly rates for a few of its internet plans would increase by $2, a change that went into effect a few weeks ago. Related: Verizon hopes a new tactic will fix fleeing customer problem Spectrum's recent internet price increases mirror a growing trend in the telecom industry. According to a recent survey from CNET, 63% of U.S. adults saw the monthly price of their home internet service increase last year. On average, they paid $195 more for internet service in 2024 than in 2023. During an earnings call on July 25, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey emphasized the company is operating in a "competitive" environment. He also said that the number of Spectrum customers who have had their service cut off due to non-payment has increased year-over-year, partially due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). This was a government program that provided eligible households a discount of up to $30 a month for internet service. It was discontinued in February last year. "The reason that non-pay has stepped up year-over-year is because twofold," said Winfrey. "One is you have former ACP customers who are economically challenged and have a higher non-pay rate systemically, without the benefit of the subsidy from a year-over-year standpoint. But in addition to that, from a year-over-year standpoint, you have newly acquired customers who would have qualified for the ACP. We don't have ACP today, and therefore, they have a higher non-pay rate than they would otherwise." Related: Spectrum struggles to reverse alarming customer behavior He also said that Spectrum doesn't have a "pricing issue" due to the value it offers customers. "So if you think about the short term and the top of the funnel for internet specifically, we don't have a product or pricing issue," said Winfrey. "We have the fastest speeds. We have the most reliable product, best WiFi, selling, particularly in bundle, $30 500 megabit per second internet, $40 gig. So it's not a product or pricing issue at the top of the funnel. It's the broader market that I talked about, some brand new competition." Spectrum has recently faced heightened competition from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, which all offer fixed wireless internet. This service provides internet access to remote or underserved areas at a price that's usually lower than traditional internet services, which is why so many price-conscious consumers are switching to it. Comcast, one of Spectrum's main competitors, even flagged during an earnings call in April that it is seeing "intense" competition from fixed wireless internet providers. "I would tell you that the newer competitor in the last few years has obviously been fixed wireless," said Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong during the call. "They're adding 1,000,000 subscribers per quarter, so that's sort of the competitive intensity that we're seeing that's sort of incremental. We are competing aggressively with it." A recent survey from Cord Cutters News revealed that only 40.2% of consumers rely on cable TV companies for their internet service, a significant decline from 45% in late 2024. Also, roughly 11% rely on 5G home internet, an increase from 8.4% just a year ago. To help combat this growing trend, Spectrum will focus on sharpening its value pitch to customers, clarifying through its marketing, time of sale and retention efforts how much money they can save by bundling their phone and internet services. More Telecom News: Verizon's push to make switching harder for customers hits a snagT-Mobile announces generous offer for conflicted customersAmazon pulls the plug on a free service for customers "When you think about what is on your bill with T-Mobile or Verizon 5G home internet, the reality is, it's dramatically more expensive than what you would pay to Spectrum for an internet mobile product," said Winfrey. He also said that Spectrum will upgrade its video packages (especially after it also lost 80,000 cable customers during the second quarter) to have more $100 worth of programmer apps, such as Max, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, etc., at no additional cost to customers, which it hopes will help it retain internet customers. "That's gonna be the stickiest product," said Winfrey. "It's gonna be the best for customers and for programmers, us, and it's gonna be the best for our broadband churn as well." Related: Amazon quietly plans to offer customers a convenient new service The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Charter Stock Falls Sharply In Wake Of Q2 Earnings Miss; CEO Chris Winfrey Calls Streaming A Boon To Pay-TV Bundle
Charter Communications stock was down sharply in mid-day trading Friday after the company reported second-quarter earnings well below Wall Street expectations. The Spectrum cable and broadband provider said its second-quarter adjusted earnings came in at $9.18 a share and revenue hit almost $13.8 billion. While revenue met analysts' consensus expectation, the profit figure fell way short of the Street's consensus forecast of $9.58. More from Deadline 'Dexter: Resurrection' Premiere Creeps To 4.4M Cross-Platform Viewers In 7 Days, Up 25% Over 'Original Sin' 'Jurassic World Rebirth' Injects New Life Into Universal's Dino Franchise On Peacock With 'Dominion' Viewing Up 186% 'Zombies 4: Dawn Of The Vampires' Premiere Cements DCOM Franchise As One Of Disney+'s Most Popular Shares in Charter were down 18% midway through Friday's session, on more than quadruple their normal trading volume. In addition to the profit miss, many investors are concerned about the risks of Charter's pending $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications. John Malone's Liberty Broadband owns 26% of Charter, but the latter company last year announced a plan to acquire the former in a transaction projected to close later this summer. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Condé Nast parent Advance/Newhouse also are also Charter shareholders. CEO Chris Winfrey defended the Cox deal during a conference call with analysts, saying the company has a 'proven' history of successfully integrating large-scale companies it has acquired, among them Time Warner Cable. Asked about the state of Charter's video business, which reached a crossroads two years ago ahead of a landmark distribution agreement with Disney, Winfrey said it remains a key strategic priority. While the company is offering select 'skinnier bundles' in response to customer price sensitivity and the unraveling of the traditional pay bundle, the exec said the company is now providing $100 a month in added value by integrating various subscription streamers into TV and broadband packages. What is 'most beneficial to us and programmers and, we think, to consumers is to have the full-fledged, expanded video product, because it has the most content in there, at the best value,' Winfrey said. Charter reported a decline of 80,000 video subscribers during the quarter, far fewer than the decline of 408,000 in the year-ago period. Winfrey said the company is seeing lower churn rates and more customers upgrading to higher tiers in order to get bundled streaming access. The company has also worked to get more sophisticated in trying to upsell customers at the moment they are interested in viewing particular programming, Winfrey maintained. 'A good example of that would be the inclusion of Peacock now that they're going to have 50 exclusive games' when NBCUniversal's NBA rights deal kicks in this coming season,. he said. The Spectrum app and program guide 'allows them to either activate a Peacock subscription, which is included for expanded video, or to upgrade into the full, expanded package from a skinny package.' Similar app and guide pushes are already implemented with HBO Max, Hulu and Disney+, he added. Best of Deadline 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery Everything We Know About Season 3 Of 'Euphoria' So Far Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Charter Communications shares tumble after earnings miss
-- Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR), Inc. reported second-quarter earnings that fell short of analyst expectations, sending shares down 6.8% as investors reacted to the earnings miss and continued customer losses. The cable and internet provider posted adjusted earnings per share of $9.18, missing the analyst consensus of $9.58, while revenue came in at $13.77 billion, matching analyst estimates and representing a modest 0.6% increase year-over-year. The revenue growth was primarily driven by residential mobile service revenue, which surged 24.9%, and residential Internet revenue, which grew 2.8%. Charter continued to face challenges with customer retention, losing 117,000 Internet customers during the quarter, though this marked an improvement from the 149,000 decline in the same period last year. The company's total customer relationships decreased by 162,000 to 31.2 million. "Our converged connectivity revenue grew by over 5% in the second quarter, with a long runway for growth," said Chris Winfrey, President and CEO of Charter. "Our seamless connectivity products offer the fastest speeds at the best price." The company's mobile business remained a bright spot, with 500,000 new mobile lines added during the quarter, bringing the total to 10.9 million lines, a 23.7% increase YoY. Video customer losses also showed improvement, with a decline of 80,000 compared to 408,000 in the year-ago quarter. Second quarter Adjusted EBITDA grew 0.5% YoY to $5.7 billion, while free cash flow decreased 19.3% to $1.0 billion, primarily due to unfavorable changes in mobile device working capital and the timing of cash taxes and interest payments. Charter also lowered its full-year 2025 capital expenditure forecast to approximately $11.5 billion from $12.0 billion, citing timing of network evolution spending and lower commercial and rural line extension expenditures. Related articles Charter Communications shares tumble after earnings miss Victoria's Secret Exposed: The Warning Sign Behind the Stock's 52% Collapse Apollo economist warns: AI bubble now bigger than 1990s tech mania Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
