Charter Communications continues to lose video and broadband customers as legacy cable giants face increasing competition from YouTube and other streaming-era competitors and the decline of traditional TV to reach and retain video viewers.
The company, led by CEO Chris Winfrey, during the second quarter to June 30, 2025 lost 117,000 Internet subscribers and shed 80,000 TV customers, while adding 500,000 total mobile wire line subscribers. Charter, which does business under the Spectrum brand name, served 31.2 million customers in the second quarter, excluding mobile-only costumers.
The latest financial quarter, while indicating continuing churn for Internet and video subscribers, was actually an improvement for Charter. The company lost 408,000 video subscribers and 149,000 Internet customers in the same year-earlier period, in part due to the end of Affordable Connectivity Program government subsidies for low-income households.
That wasn’t enough for investors, with continuing customer losses having sent shares in Charter tumbling by $42, or 11 percent, to $338 in pre-market trading on Friday. Charter continues to face stiff competition from fiber TV providers and satellite and streaming services as they bite into the market share of traditional cable TV providers already facing cord-cutting and cord-nevers.
Charter served 12.6 million total video customers at the end of the second quarter. Overall revenue at Charter was flat, having grown 0.6 percent to $13.76 billion, while net income attributable to Charter shareholders rose 5.7 percent to $1.3 billion in the second quarter. TV video revenue fell 10 percent to $3.5 billion in the second quarter, which was offset by Internet revenue growing 2.8 percent to $6 billion.
The latest results for Charter follows the announcement of a $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications create a cable behemoth, with enormous scale in both broadband internet connectivity and video.
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