In Line: Charter Results Similar to Peers

Charter was typical of cable this earnings season, achieving rev expansion mainly through the power of VoIP and HSD services. Both combined to contribute 65% of the MSO’s 8.3% overall rev growth. But even as Charter narrowed its quarterly loss and delivered rev growth across all services, its debt load and concerns over financial viability beyond ’09 continue to rein notable gains in the MSO’s stock price. As shares of Cablevision (31%), Comcast (7%) and Time Warner Cable (9%) have all enjoyed rises since AT&T reported disappointing 2Q numbers on Jul 23, Charter shares are down 5%. Even so, pres/CEO Neil Smit is bullish on his company’s operations. "I always use churn and [customer] bad debt as lead indicators of the health of the business, and we’re pleased with the results there," said Smit. COO Mike Lovett added that the MSO’s "very favorable" churn indicators continued into July. Rev for video rose 3% to $874mln, HSD 10% to $339mln, phone 68% to $134mln, and commercial 17% to $96mln—despite a 64% footprint overlap with AT&T, 20% with Verizon. Ahead is "meaningful growth" in HSD, said Smit, noting that customer take rates for broadband speeds of 10Mbps+ more than doubled sequentially. Early data from trialing a low-end phone/HSD bundle are also promising, he said. Other 2Q metrics: 45K basic losses, 34K digital adds, 21K HSD adds and 91K phone adds. Charter shares closed at $1.09 Tues, down 4.4%.