In the second quarter, Charter Communications narrowed its revenue loss, improved on the number of basic video subscribers it had lost over the previous quarter a year ago and added 29,000 new data subscribers.
As the nation’s fourth-largest cable operator, it takes a lot to turn the ship around, but Charter CEO Tom Rutledge has made progress at the helm ever since he took over in February. Charter emerged from bankruptcy in late 2009, and Rutledge brought over some of his former colleagues from Cablevision to revitalize Charter’s management team.
College students disconnecting their video services in the second quarter have traditionally impacted basic video subscriber numbers, and Charter lost 66,000 subscribers, which was an improvement over the 79,000 it lost a year ago. Video revenue was down slightly from $912 million to $911 million in the recently completed second quarter.
Charter pulled in 29,000 new data subscribers compared to 18,000 a year ago. The cable operator’s high-speed data revenue increased by 11 percent.
Charter added 6,000 voice customers in the second quarter, which trailed the 7,000 it added last year. Phone revenue increased by almost 2 percent in the second quarter.
Charter finished out the quarter with DOCSIS 3.0 enabled in 95 percent of its footprint and switched digital video deployed in 88 percent.
Charter has made a concerted effort to expand its commercial services offerings and was rewarded with a 22 percent revenue increase in the second quarter.
Charter posted a loss of $83 million, or 84 cents per share, from a year-ago loss of $107 million, or 98 cents per share. The company’s revenue increased 5.2 percent to $1.88 billion. Analysts had projected an average loss of 37 cents per share on revenue of $1.87 billion.
“We delivered solid second-quarter performance while implementing key aspects of our growth strategy,” Rutledge said. “In addition to enhancing our product set and launching new pricing and packaging, we’re putting into action a number of operational changes to best align the organization with our growth objectives. These actions will make us more competitive, deliver a powerful customer experience and increase our long-term growth potential. We have compelling products and services, a highly capable network and great people, and a strategy to create value for our customers and shareholders.”
