Charter Communications: Cable Cash Flows - [Business Breakdowns, EP. 139]

This is Matt Reustle. Today we are breaking down the cable giant Charter Communications. Tony Coniaris and John Sitarz of Harris Associates join us for this deep dive on the cable market and Charter's business. We've spent a big portion of the first half of the conversation outlining the history of cable, the asset itself, what it does differently versus some of the alternatives, and then we flash forward to how the industry is operating today. The idea of cord cutting has become very consensus, but it's not very obvious in terms of how that actually impacts a business like Charter and its flagship product Spectrum. We go into some of the case studies that have recently occurred and then tie it all back in terms of the business model. There's so many different lessons that you can take out here thanks to Tony and John. Please enjoy this Business Breakdown on Charter Listen to Invest Like the Best: A Conversation with Charlie Munger & John Collison For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.  ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. Tired of running your own expert calls to get up to speed on a company? Tegus lets you ramp faster and find answers to critical questions more efficiently than any alternative method. The gold standard for research, the Tegus platform delivers unmatched access to timely, qualitative insights through the largest and most differentiated expert call transcript database. With over 60,000 transcripts spanning 22,000 public and private companies, investors can accelerate their fundamental research process by discovering highly-differentiated and reliable insights that can’t be found anywhere else in the market. As a listener, drive your next investment thesis forward with Tegus for free at tegus.co/patrick. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag| @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Show Notes (00:04:07) - (First question) - The role of Charter Communications in daily life (00:07:28) - Charter Communications as an infrastructure entity (00:08:15) - Mapping the cable market landscape (00:12:51) - Evolution of competition within the cable industry (00:14:01) - Tracing the origins of Charter Communications (00:19:18) - Initiating business restructuring (00:20:20) - Exploring the capabilities of cable assets (00:23:40) - Emerging challengers in the cable arena (00:29:58) - Examining mobile data trends (00:30:54) - Exploring the potential of fixed wireless access (00:33:48) - Conducting business analysis (00:36:10) - Assessing the impact of consumers 'cutting the cord' (00:42:16) - Comparing internet-only customers to full cable bundle subscribers (00:47:53) - The value of comprehensive service packages (00:49:08) - Identifying major cost factors in the industry (00:52:35) - Outlining the market structure for cable businesses (00:57:16) - Anticipating potential industry risks (00:58:03) - Understanding compute capacity and its implications (01:01:21) - Reflecting on insights gained from Charter Communications