Charter CEO Tom Rutledge
Cable operator Charter Communications, in which John Malone's Liberty Broadband owns a big stake, on Friday reported that it lost fewer pay TV subscribers in the fourth quarter than in the year-ago period.
Its broadband user gains continued amid the coronavirus pandemic, but slowed compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, while mobile remained a key growth driver.
Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge lauded the firm's performance during 2020, including overall user trends, saying: "We added nearly two million customer relationships in 2020 - 800,000 more than we added in 2019 - and demand for our connectivity products remains strong."
Charter lost 66,000 residential pay TV subscribers in the final quarter of 2020, compared with a loss of 105,000 in the year-ago period. Including small- and medium-sized business clients, where it recorded gains, it lost 35,000 customers, a swing from a year-ago loss of 101,000. As of the end of 2020, Charter had more than 15.6 million residential and 16.2 million total video customers.
Charter's broadband business once again was a key growth area, recording 216,000 residential internet subscriber net additions, down from 313,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019. Including small- and medium-sized business clients, the gain of 246,000 compared with 339,000 in the year-ago period.
Charter's mobile business also continued to grow, with accelerated momentum. The firm added 315,000 mobile lines in the fourth quarter, up from 288,000 in the year-ago period. As of Dec. 31, it served a total of nearly 2.38 million mobile lines.
Rutledge recently said that entertainment companies' growing focus on direct-to-consumer services could make paying for content bundles untenable over time.