March 7, 2025
Charter Communications, the No. 2 high-speed internet provider in the country with more than 30 million customers, remains bullish on using third-party streaming video apps to bolster its broadband business across homes and on portable devices.
Speaking this week at the Morgan Stanley 2025 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, CEO Chris Winfrey said offering consumers a more compelling broadband package that includes mobile as well video, drives broadband sales and retention.
Winfrey said that without getting access to third-party video apps, including he ad-supported versions of Max, Disney+, Peacock Premium, Paramount+, ESPN+, AMC+ Discovery+, BET+ and VIX, Charter was considering dropping video service.
“We had actually crossed the point where video was at risk of no longer being an asset to the broadband relationship, it was potentially going to become a liability, because of programmer rate increases, and the lack of flexibility to create packages that were meaningful for customers,” Winfrey said.
Compounding the issue, according to Winfrey, was the reality that programmers were selling direct-to-consumer video packaged at lower cost with less advertising and more VOD library, which made it difficult to compete with that.
“We are either going to be in the video business, or we are not going to be in the business,” he said. “Having a video product we can be proud to put on the bill of a broadband customer, or we will be out of the business.”
The executive said cooperation with content providers was made easier by the fact that the DTC focus had been built into new distribution agreements with programmers.
“I do think we have a constructive relationship now where we are into driving video to benefit broadband, and we’re selling their products and we want them to get behind us and sell as well,” he said.
Winfrey says it will take for customers to activate direct–to-consumer apps, where they are easy to use, easy to upgrade to the ad-free version, and easy to sell to broadband customers.
“You are starting to see programmers get behind us and promote the fact that their apps are available as part of our video service,” he said.
