Mediacom's 2Q: Lowered Guidance Lowers Share Price

Mediacom’s lowering of full-year revenue growth guidance to 7-8% from 8-9% sent shares down nearly 7% at close Tues. The revision came even though 2Q numbers came in above the MSO’s guidance. "We looked at the month of June and felt it was lighter than we had expected, and pretty much everything trends off the month of June when you take out the seasonality," explained CFO Mark Stephan. "Hopefully, we can buck the trends and outperform this guidance." He said acquisitions and divestitures contributed to about half of a percentage point to the revision. Mediacom sold a system in Le Mars and Orange City, IA, to Premier Comm for $9.5mln (deal’s expected to close in 3Q). The MSO lowered full-year AOIBDA to 6-7% from 7-8% growth, and its basic subs declined to 18K in the Q from 22K a year ago. Digital was up by 2K, data grew by 13K and phone rose by 21K. It ended the Q with 18K RGU adds sequentially, with revenue increasing 7.4% to $324.7mln. Mediacom’s net loss grew to $6.6mln from net income of $5.7mln a year ago. The HD Debate: With DirecTV gearing up to offer its much ballyhooed slate of high-def channels, what are cable ops going to do? Mediacom evp, ops John Pascarelli said the op expects to be able to deliver as many as 40 HD channels if they’re needed. "If DirecTV is able to launch and get as many channels up there as they’ve been stating, we’re going to have to have a percentage of those channels to be able to meet that demand," he said. The MSO said it has the HD advantage because local-into-local DBS HD offerings are "still a small piece of our footprint." Video results for the Q did disappoint execs, who plan tackle churn with better messaging for subs coming off special promo deals. Also notable: Mediacom is testing a single line commercial phone offering and expects to test a multi-line offering in 4Q.