For the first quarter since 2020, Charter Communications added more pay TV customers than it lost.
Granted the Q4 net additions of 49,000 residential video subscribers isn’t a particularly large number but compares to net losses of 123,000 in Q4 2024.
It’s also quite notable considering Charter hasn’t seen positive quarterly video subscriber metrics since Q2 and Q3 2020 – when amid the pandemic the operator reversed trends of decline to add 102,000 and 53,000 video customers respectively. But that was short lived as the company’s video subscribers returned to losses every following quarter until now.
The latest Q4 result follows video improvements earlier in 2025 when Charter successfully stemmed pay TV bleeding (losing 64,000 in Q3 and 73,000 in Q2) on the back of its reimagined SVOD bundling strategy and pricing and packaging revamp.
It’s worth noting that despite better video subscriber metrics, Charter previously emphasized the goal is not to return video to growth nor save the larger declining – albeit not dead yet - traditional pay TV ecosystem.
Charter ended 2025 with 12.07 million residential video customers. It lost a total of 255,000 net pay TV subscribers for the full year, representing a marked improvement from the 1.2 million video customers lost in 2024 and nearly 1 million lost in 2023.
And while video is no longer a growth business, on Friday’s earnings call Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said improvements made to the video product over the past two years – which ultimately aim to improve relationships for the company’s higher-value connectivity services like broadband and mobile – “are having an impact.”
The quarterly pay TV additions come as Charter faces increased competition in broadband and mobile, amid an environment in which Winfrey said “getting back to positive net additions is a game of inches.”
Charter lost 119,000 broadband customers and added 428,000 mobile lines in the quarter.
Still, the operator’s move to include a menu of ad-supported versions of major SVODs (such as Disney+, ESPN, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Fox One and more) in Spectrum TV Select plans and introduce simplified pricing and packaging helped it hold on to more customers.
In fact, Winfrey categorized its video product and platform as now “a killer app” - which also encompasses Xumo and what Charter dubs Seamless Entertainment, alongside the suite of included streaming apps valued at approximately $117 per month.
“When our video customers activate their included apps, video and broadband churn improvement is meaningful,” Winfrey said, adding that the video product can become another unique selling tool.
Charter CFO Jessica Fischer on Friday’s earnings call said that new connects and upgrades to the fully featured pay TV package with streaming apps included were up year-over-year, but the customer improvement was primarily driven by lower yoy churn. She attributed better retention to the new pricing and packaging introduced in 2024 and product improvements, including SVOD bundling.
The operator also saw a small video subscriber benefit in Q4 related to a carriage dispute between YouTube TV and Disney last fall that saw channels go dark around the start of the football season.
And stronger uptake of skinnier pay TV packages helped drive net additions and lowered Charter’s quarterly programming expenses in the period by 8.4% yoy. However, that same higher take of lower-cost skinny packages drove a 7.7% yoy decline in average revenue per user (ARPU) for video customers.
Charter Q4 video revenue totaled $3.25 billion in the period, down 10.3%. Revenue includes $165 million of allocated costs for programmer streaming apps in the quarter. Impacts to residential revenue related to allocation of costs for bundled streaming apps are expected to grow over time.
“As more customers authenticate into our streaming app offers it could be as much as $1 billion for the full year 2026,” Fischer said, but noted the allocation adjustments are ultimately neutral to EBITDA as an equal and offsetting benefit is applied to Charter’s reported programming expenses every quarter.
Charter’s also in the process of working to acquire operator Cox in a $34.5 billion deal, which if approved, would expand the Spectrum footprint to cover over 70 million households. Given Cox’s low video penetration and Charter’s capabilities “we expect to grow video in the Cox footprint for a period of time as well,” Winfrey said.
2025 also marked the peak year of capital expenditure for Charter, where it expects investment to decline significantly after 2026 and free cash flow to grow.
It anticipates capital intensity to return to 13-14% of revenue by 2028 as a standalone company – a target Winfrey thinks it can likely still achieve even with an integration of Cox.
Charter’s total fourth quarter revenue of $13.6 billion was down 2.3% yoy driven by lower residential video and political advertising revenues. Q4 Adjusted EBITDA was $5.7 billion, down 1.2% yoy.
Full year 2025 revenue of $54.8 billion was down 0.6% yoy, while Adjusted EBITDA totaled $22.7 billion.