Password sharing, which streaming giant Netflix is trying to crack down on, is undermining the value of content in the media industry, Tom Ratley, president and chief executive officer of cable operator Charter Communications, said on Friday.
“We knew it was a problem,” the chief executive said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call. “It’s not just a problem for one company not to control their passwords, it’s a problem for everyone in the industry, because all content that is used without paying anyone affects the supply and demand of all content.” He added that it consequently “reduces the value of content for everyone, which is what we’ve been trying to explain for years.”
Rutledge made the comment after Charter, in which John Malone’s Liberty Broadband owns a large stake, announced first-quarter results.
It lost 112,000 pay-TV subscribers last quarter, down from a year earlier, when its customer base shrank by 138,000. Asked on Friday why Charter outperformed its peers in terms of video subscribers, Ratledge said: “Because we’re a little distinctive, you know, we strive for one thing. and we tried [add] Cost where we can, for the customer”. He added: “There is still opportunity in the video. And one of the things we’ve been successful at is creating additional packaging and a mix of video products that we actually sell to consumers.”
Charter’s CEO concluded, “It was difficult because historically video was packaged in this very fat and expensive package caused by the cost of sporting rights.” But the company “has been able to remove some of the content from that ecosystem and implement it, and we’re selling it successfully.”
Charter’s broadband customer growth slowed as it added 185,000 users in the first quarter, down from 355,000 a year ago. Cable operators’ stocks have been hit hard by the slow growth of broadband consumers in recent months.
At the end of March, it had almost 30.3 million total broadband users and over 15.7 million total video subscribers.
The letter also added 373,000 mobile phone lines in the first quarter, compared with 300,000 a year earlier. March ended with over 3.9 million mobile lines.
“We remain focused on our primary objective: growing our mobile broadband and customer base,” Rutledge said in the company’s earnings report. “We continue to expand our business by offering highly convergent union products. And our new joint venture with Comcast will allow us to bring you the next generation streaming platform that delivers new and differentiated products directly to the customer to meet demand in a rapidly changing video environment.
The two cable giants on Wednesday unveiled a 50:50 joint venture “to develop and deliver the next-generation streaming platform for various branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
