Charter slows TV churn
July 24, 2026
Charter, the US telco, lost 172,000 Internet customers in Q2 2026, compared with 117,000 Internet subscribers shed during the year-earlier period amid stiff competition from fixed wireless and fibre connection services. Charter narrowed its loss of TV customers to 21,000, against 80,000 TV customers dropped in the same period of 2025, as subscribers did more upgrades for entertainment products added.
CEO Chris Winfrey commented: “We expect to stabilise and return to broadband growth over time, with our better converged connectivity product and pricing.”
Winfrey addressed media reports Charter was in talks with SpaceX to use Starlink satellites for its mobile services, noting: “It’s natural for us, we talk to many industry players … I don’t think it makes any sense to get into the details of any of those conversations that we have with many industry players,”
Continuing subscriber losses in traditional broadband and video services in the quarter led to shares in Charter falling 5 per cent.
The video and Internet losses were offset by Charter adding 406,000 mobile wireline subscribers, down from adding 500,000 total mobile wireline subscribers in the year-ago period. The latest customer losses came as legacy cable giants face increasing competition from YouTube and other streaming-era competitors and the decline of traditional TV to reach and retain video viewers.
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 12.52 million pay-TV customers at the end of the second quarter, down 0.8 per cent from a year-earlier 12.6 million.
Overall revenue at Charter slipped 0.7 per cent to $13.5 billion (€11.8bn), while net income shareholders rose 5.7 per cent to $1.29 billion in the second quarter.
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