CableClix USA Inc (CCLX)

[midas716]

Cableclix needs to get their arses in gear or they will be left behind. Cable is losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers a year and what is Cableclix doing about it... NADA.

Internet TV platforms expected to soften cord-cutting blows for media in third quarter
MARKETWATCH 3:37 PM ET 10/19/2017
An estimated 480,000 new internet TV subscribers should help offset pay TV's expected 850,000 subscriber losses

Cord-cutting is expected to remain in the spotlight as media companies prepare to open their books for third-quarter earnings, which begin reporting next week.

The media sector underperformed the S&P 500 index in the quarter, as investor sentiment continues to be soured by fears of cord-cutting and worry about the health of the TV advertising market.

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Evercore analyst Vijay Jayant expects subscriber losses in the traditional pay-TV industry to total roughly 850,000, according to a recent note. The third quarter is often the second-weakest quarter for subscribers behind the second quarter.

Losses in the traditional TV sector, however, should be offset by an estimated 480,000 subscribers being added to the industry via what are called virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPD), or internet TV services.

Last quarter, when the pay TV was expected to lose around 1 million subscribers, a roughly 360,000 subscriber addition contribution from new internet TV services cut overall industry losses to 610,000.

Read:Pay TV avoids losing more than a million subscribers with advent of new streaming services (http:// www.marketwatch.com/story/pay-tv-avoids-losing-more-than-a-million-subscribers-with-advent-of-new-streaming-services- 2017-08-17)

"With DirecTV Now seeing some uptake since its launch and with Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and new services from YouTube and Hulu -- both launched during the second quarter -- adding customers, we expect this young space could have added 480,000 in the quarter," Jayant wrote. "As TV network owners continue to form deals with new vMVPD platforms, a key industry theme moving forward will center on the economics underlying these arrangements."

Ratings declines hurt investor sentiment too. The National Football League, for example, has seen a nearly 8% decline in viewership so far this season, compared with the same period last year, according to Nielsen numbers.

According to Jayant, cable network ratings declined modestly during the summer quarter, averaging mid-single-digit declines.

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"On the broadcast side, live viewership was down substantially in the quarter, as viewership continued to shift somewhat to time-shifted media and as last year's Rio Olympics on NBC caused an extremely difficult comparison," he wrote.

As for the advertising worries, Jayant expects that excluding political and Olympic comparisons, cable network advertising should be up about half a percent compared with last year. Broadcast advertising is expected to be up nearly 2% and advertising for local TV stations is expected to be up close to 3%.

An encouraging upfront season should set the fourth quarter up well for continued advertising revenue growth through the end of the year.

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"Third quarter media underperformance is not a new trend, and fourth quarter outperformance has often followed weak September quarters over the last 10 years," Jayant wrote of the overall market heading into earnings.

"In fact, a group of large cap U.S. media conglomerates has underperformed the market in six of the last eight September quarters but has outperformed in six of the last eight fourth quarters."

-Trey Williams; 415-439-6400; [e-mail]