Charter Loses 51,000 Pay TV Subscribers in First Quarter
The cable and internet giant has used new packaging and pricing efforts to better retain residential video subscribers amid competition from YouTube and streaming rivals.
Cable and broadband giant Charter Communications narrowed its losses of pay TV customers as it reported its first-quarter results Friday.
The company, led by president and CEO Chris Winfrey, shed 51,000 residential video subscribers during the first quarter, compared to a loss of 167,000 residential video customers during the same period last year. Charter had posted a rare gain of 44,000 pay TV subs during the fourth quarter of 2025 amid continued cord-cutting across the industry.
The company earlier added programmers’ streaming applications in Spectrum’s expanded basic packages to lower churn and had a slight bump in signups when Disney channels were unavailable for YouTube TV subscribers during a recent carriage dispute. Charter had 12.5 million pay-TV customers at the end of the first quarter, down 1.3 percent from a year-earlier 12.7 million.
