The $45 billion buyout that Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) offered Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWC) chopped the legs right out from under Charter Communications Inc.’s (NASDAQ: CHTR) offer of around $37 billion. But Charter’s CEO said on Friday that the company is “still interested in wisely acquiring subscribers through M&A when the opportunity arises.”
So where will Charter look? The two largest pay-TV operators left are DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) and Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH), with about 20 million and 14 million subscribers, respectively. Charter has never talked about getting into the satellite TV business. So, neither of these seems to be a likely prospect. Besides, it may make more sense for the two satellite firms to merge because that would create a company roughly equal in size to the new Comcast.
Privately held Cox Communications Inc. with about 6.2 million subscribers is larger than Charter, which claims 4.2 million subscribers. The company, which was publicly traded between 1964 and 1985, continues to maintain that it is not for sale.
Another possibility is Cablevision Corp. (NYSE: CVC) which has about 3.2 million subscribers in New York City and New England. But the company is controlled by the founding Dolan family which holds more than 70% of the voting rights.
But Charter’s CEO says that its big opportunity is the 7 million homes that the company’s wires pass and that are not Charter subscribers. That may be, but a merger will give the company the growth it needs to remain competitive a lot more quickly and, arguably, more cheaply. Charter may also wait to see how regulators may lop off pieces of Comcast/Time Warner and try to pick up more subscribers that way.
Charter paid $1.6 billion for Bresnan Broadband from Cablevision last year, picking up about 375,000 new customers in the wide open spaces of the Rocky Mountain west. Gaining new customers in those areas will not be easy or cheap simply because of the distances involved.
Cable companies are getting larger in an effort to gain leverage with the content producers and rein in the higher fees these producers are demanding. Assuming the Time Warner deal wins regulator approval, the new Comcast will have a very strong hand, and the smaller players will get stuck making the numbers for the producers. Charter does not want to be among those small players.
Charter’s stock is down more than 9% since Feb. 12, just before the Comcast/Time Warner deal was announced. The stock closed Friday at $125.08, down $6.76, or 5.1% on the day. It has a 52-week range of $76.25 to $144.02.
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