Here is a summary of earnings reports for selected cable and satellite TV companies and what they reveal about the industry's prospects:
Oct. 20: AT&T Inc. says it added 176,000 TV subscribers to U-Verse, the lowest number in three years. The phone company has been taking on cable companies, but doesn't plan to offer TV everywhere it offers landline phone service. It ended the quarter with 3.6 million video subscribers.
Oct. 21: Verizon Communications Inc. says it added 131,000 FiOS TV subscribers. Verizon ended the quarter with 4 million FiOS TV subscribers.
Oct. 27: Time Warner Cable Inc. says it lost 126,000 video subscribers to end the quarter with 12.1 million.
Oct. 28: Cablevision Systems Corp., which operates primarily in the New York area, says it lost 19,000 video customers to end the quarter with 3.3 million.
Tuesday: Charter Communications Inc. says it lost 69,100 TV customers to end with 4.4 million.
Wednesday: Comcast Corp. lost 165,000 TV subscribers, less than the 275,000 that defected in last year's third quarter. It ends the quarter with 22.4 million, making it the largest pay-TV company. It still trails Netflix Inc. in the number of subscribers. Netflix has 23.8 million, despite the loss of 800,000 in the latest quarter because of a price increase and a botched attempt to spin off its DVD-by-mail service.
Thursday: DirecTV Inc. added a net 327,000 U.S. subscribers, the best third-quarter result in at least five years. Including Latin American operations, net gains were 901,000, the best for any quarter. DirecTV ended the quarter with 19.8 million U.S. subscribers, making it the second-largest provider of pay-TV service after Comcast. In Latin America, it had 7.3 million subscribers.
Coming up:
Monday: Dish Network Corp.
