CABO
Cable OneDDocument history
Earnings documents stored for CABO.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-28Cable One (CABO): Buy, Sell, or Hold Post Q1 Earnings?
StockStory
Cable One (CABO): Buy, Sell, or Hold Post Q1 Earnings?
Cable One has gotten torched over the last six months - since November 2025, its stock price has dropped 53.4% to $54.66 per share. This was partly due to its softer quarterly results and may have investors wondering how to approach the situation. Is there a buying opportunity in Cable One, or does it present a risk to your portfolio? Get the full breakdown from our expert analysts, it’s free. Despite the more favorable entry price, we’re sitting this one out for now. Here are three reasons we avoid CABO, plus one stock we’d rather own. Revenue growth can be broken down into changes in price and volume (for companies like Cable One, our preferred volume metric is residential data subscribers). While both are important, the latter is the most critical to analyze because prices have a ceiling. Cable One’s residential data subscribers came in at 887,100 in the latest quarter, and over the last two years, averaged 3.9% year-on-year declines. This performance was underwhelming and implies there may be increasing competition or market saturation. It also suggests Cable One might have to lower prices or invest in product improvements to grow, factors that can hinder near-term profitability. We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) because it highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable. Sadly for Cable One, its EPS declined by 26% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 1.8%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded. ROIC, or return on invested capital, is a metric showing how much operating profit a company generates relative to the money it has raised (debt and equity). We like to invest in businesses with high returns, but the trend in a company’s ROIC is what often surprises the market and moves the stock price. Unfortunately, Cable One’s ROIC has decreased over the last few years. Paired with its already low returns, these declines suggest its profitable growth opportunities are few and far between. We see the value of companies helping consumers, but in the case of Cable One, we’re out. After the recent drawdown, the stock trades at $54.66 per share (or a forward price-to-sales ratio of 0.2×). The market typically values companies like Cable One based on their anticipated profits for the next 12 months, but there aren’t enough published estimates to arrive at a reliable nu...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-02Cable One (CABO) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript
Motley Fool
Cable One (CABO) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript
Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET Chief Executive Officer — James Holanda Chief Financial Officer — Todd Koetje Vice President, Investor Relations — Jordan Morkert Jordan Morkert: Good afternoon, and welcome to Cable One's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. We're glad to have you join us as we review our results. Before we proceed, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements relating to future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding future revenue, customer growth, connects, churn rates and ARPU, the future competitive structure of our markets, the anticipated benefits of our mobile service offering, new product rollouts, future customer retention trends, anticipated cost savings and other benefits to be derived from our billing system migration and our other investments in growth enablement platforms, our plans to expand our multi-gig capabilities in more markets, future cash flow and capital expenditures, potential uses for our cash flow, the upcoming MBI transaction, including the purchase price, MBI's future debt levels, integration timing, anticipated cost and tax efficiencies, combined leverage ratios and closing date, the anticipated timing for closing of the merger of Point Broadband with Clearwave Fiber and expected benefits from that transaction, future tax savings and our future financial performance, capital allocation policy, leverage ratios and financing plans. You can find factors that could cause Cable One's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed during today's call in today's earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our 2025 annual report on Form 10-K and our forthcoming first quarter 2026 quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Cable One is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, except as required by law, to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, today's remarks will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not presented in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. When we refer to free cash flow during today's call, we mean adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures as defined in our earnings release. Reconciliations of non-GAAP fina...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One Inc (CABO) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Navigating Revenue Declines Amid ...
GuruFocus.com
Cable One Inc (CABO) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Navigating Revenue Declines Amid ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Total Revenue: $353 million for Q1 2026, down from $380.6 million in Q1 2025. Residential Video Revenue Decrease: Approximately $10 million decrease year-over-year. Residential Data Revenue Decrease: $11.6 million or 5.1% year-over-year due to a 6.1% decline in subscribers. Business Data Revenue Decrease: $1 million or 1.8% year-over-year. Operating Expenses: $93.9 million, decreased 6% year-over-year. Selling, General and Administrative Expenses: $87.2 million or 24.7% of revenues, down from $95.4 million or 25.1% in Q1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA: $183.3 million or 51.9% of revenues, compared to $202.7 million or 53.3% in Q1 2025. Capital Expenditures: $68.4 million, a decrease of 3.8% year-over-year. Free Cash Flow: Approximately $115 million for Q1 2026. Debt Repayment: Paid down $90.6 million of debt during the quarter. Total Debt Balance: Approximately $3.1 billion as of March 31, 2026. Net Leverage Ratio: 4 times on a last quarter annualized basis. Cash and Equivalents: $165.6 million as of March 31, 2026. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with CABO. Is CABO fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: April 30, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Cable One Inc (NYSE:CABO) reported an improvement in first-quarter connects year-over-year, indicating early traction of their strategic initiatives. The company launched a mobile service offering, which has received an encouraging initial customer response. Cable One Inc (NYSE:CABO) generated approximately $115 million of free cash flow in the first quarter, reinforcing the durability of their business model. The Business Services segment showed improvements in performance, driven by targeted investments in sales enablement and go-to-market discipline. Approximately 53% of Cable One Inc (NYSE:CABO)'s markets are now multi-gig capable, with plans to expand this capability to most markets by year-end. Cable One Inc (NYSE:CABO) experienced a sequential loss of 12,600 net residential broadband customers in the first quarter. The company faced continued pressure in customer retention, particularly in more competitive markets. Total revenues for the first quarter of 2026 decreased to $353 million from $380.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, driven by lower res...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
Cable One Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
Revenue and profitability slide: Total revenue fell to $353 million in Q1 from $380.6M a year earlier and adjusted EBITDA dropped to $183.3 million (51.9% of revenue), while Cable One still generated ~$115 million of free cash flow in the quarter (~$500M over the last four quarters). Customer churn and retention focus: The company lost 12,600 net residential broadband customers sequentially with elevated churn concentrated in its most competitive ~15% of markets; management is deploying speed upgrades, stepped promotional roll-offs, AI tools, a new CRM and mobile offerings to stabilize ARPU and improve retention. Balance sheet and M&A update: Cable One repaid a $575 million convertible note, ended Q1 with about $165.6 million cash and ~$3.1 billion total debt (net leverage ~4.0x), and says the pending MBI transaction remains locked at $480 with closing expected early Q4 and assumed/refinanced MBI debt of ~$895–925 million. Interested in Cable One, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Cable One (NYSE:CABO) management said early operational changes are moving in the “right direction” but have not yet shown up consistently in results, as the company continues to face elevated churn in its most competitive markets and pressure on residential revenue. “Results reflect the broader economic backdrop and continued pressure in our more competitive markets, particularly in customer retention,” CEO Jim Holanda said on the company’s first quarter 2026 earnings call. Holanda, who said he has been in the CEO role for a little over 70 days, emphasized that retention is “the primary challenge,” while pointing to improved connects and early signs of traction from new initiatives. → Corning Beats Q1 Estimates but Drops 9% on Guidance Miss CFO Todd Koetje reported total revenue of $353 million for the first quarter of 2026, down from $380.6 million in the prior-year quarter. Koetje attributed the year-over-year decline primarily to lower residential video and residential data revenue. Koetje said residential video accounted for “approximately $10 million” of the decrease, while residential data revenue fell $11.6 million, or 5.1%, due primarily to a 6.1% decline in subscribers. Business data revenue decreased $1 million, or 1.8%, year over year. → Is Oracle Undervalued as Cloud Growth Accelerates? On profitability, Cable One posted adjusted EBITDA of $183.3 million, or 5...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One (CABO) Reports Q1 Earnings: What Key Metrics Have to Say
Zacks
Cable One (CABO) Reports Q1 Earnings: What Key Metrics Have to Say
Cable One (CABO) reported $352.96 million in revenue for the quarter ended March 2026, representing a year-over-year decline of 7.3%. EPS of $6.12 for the same period compares to $12.32 a year ago. The reported revenue represents a surprise of -1.89% over the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $359.75 million. With the consensus EPS estimate being $7.77, the EPS surprise was -21.24%. While investors scrutinize revenue and earnings changes year-over-year and how they compare with Wall Street expectations to determine their next move, some key metrics always offer a more accurate picture of a company's financial health. Since these metrics play a crucial role in driving the top- and bottom-line numbers, comparing them with the year-ago numbers and what analysts estimated about them helps investors better project a stock's price performance. Here is how Cable One performed in the just reported quarter in terms of the metrics most widely monitored and projected by Wall Street analysts: Residential PSUs - Data: 887,100 versus 891,700 estimated by two analysts on average. Residential PSUs - Video: 78,000 versus the two-analyst average estimate of 78,900. Residential PSUs - Voice: 53,600 versus the two-analyst average estimate of 53,300. Residential ARPU - Voice: $39.60 compared to the $36.99 average estimate based on two analysts. Residential ARPU - Data: $79.51 versus the two-analyst average estimate of $80.73. Residential ARPU - Video: $167.98 versus $173.53 estimated by two analysts on average. Total Residential PSUs: 1,019 versus 969 estimated by two analysts on average. Revenues- Residential Video: $40.77 million versus $42.18 million estimated by three analysts on average. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this number represents a -19.8% change. Revenues- Other: $21.58 million versus the three-analyst average estimate of $23.53 million. The reported number represents a year-over-year change of -8%. Revenues- Residential Voice: $6.51 million versus the three-analyst average estimate of $6.02 million. The reported number represents a year-over-year change of -7.6%. Revenues- Residential Data: $213.57 million versus the three-analyst average estimate of $216.72 million. The reported number represents a year-over-year change of -5.1%. View all Key Company Metrics for Cable One here>>> Shares of Cable One have returned +0.5% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One, Inc. Q1 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Moby
Cable One, Inc. Q1 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Performance attribution reflects a disconnect between internal strategic shifts and financial results, as broader economic headwinds and competitive intensity in 15% of the footprint continue to pressure customer retention. Management identifies inconsistent execution across the footprint as the primary internal opportunity, initiating a pivot toward standardized go-to-market discipline and simplified product sets. Connect trends showed year-over-year improvement, which management attributes to successful segmentation strategies targeting value-conscious customers and enhanced e-commerce and direct sales channels. The mobile service launch, now two months into its MSO-wide rollout, is positioned as a critical tool for deepening customer relationships and increasing lifetime value, though retention impacts are not yet quantifiable. Network superiority remains a core strategic pillar, with 53% of markets currently multi-gig capable and plans to reach the vast majority of the footprint by year-end to counter fiber and fixed wireless competition. Business services are undergoing a rapid transition from assessment to execution under new leadership, focusing on sales enablement and training to drive performance in fiber and enterprise channels. ARPU is expected to remain broadly stable for the full year, as downward pressure from targeted retention offers and promotional pricing is offset by migrations to higher speed tiers and value-added services. Management anticipates a multi-year adjustment period for the 'back book' of existing customers, estimating a potential $2 to $5 impact over time to achieve competitive price-value parity. The MBI acquisition remains on track for a Q4 2026 close, with integration planning underway and an updated anticipated debt assumption range of $895 million to $925 million. Retention initiatives will increasingly rely on technical levers, including a new CRM platform, AI-driven engagement tools, and more gradual promotional roll-offs to mitigate churn. Capital allocation will remain focused on aggressive debt reduction, utilizing substantial free cash flow to strengthen the balance sheet ahead of refinancing needs over the next 2-3 years. Completed the sale of certain fiber-to-the-tower contract rights for $42 million in cash, resulting in a $26.6 million gain and a modest reduction in business data revenue. Repaid $575 million in...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One Reports First Quarter 2026 Results
Business Wire
Cable One Reports First Quarter 2026 Results
PHOENIX, April 30, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cable One, Inc. (NYSE: CABO) (the "Company" or "Cable One") today reported financial and operating results for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. "What’s become clear to me early on is that Cable One has all the right building blocks in place, including a resilient business model, a high-capacity network, strong local market positions and the ability to generate meaningful cash flow," said Jim Holanda, Chief Executive Officer of Cable One. "Our focus now is on sharpening execution across the business, particularly in how we go to market, retain customers and simplify our product offering, to translate these strengths into improved performance and long-term value creation." First Quarter 2026 Summary: Total revenues were $353.0 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $380.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, with $10.0 million of the decrease attributable to a decline in residential video revenues. Residential data revenues were $213.6 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $225.1 million in the first quarter of 2025, a decrease of $11.6 million, or 5.1%, year-over-year. Residential data revenues declined $6.1 million, or 2.8%, on a sequential quarterly basis. Business data revenues for the first quarter of 2026 were $56.3 million, a decrease of $1.0 million, or 1.8%, year-over-year. Net income was $35.8 million and $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2026 and 2025, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA was $183.3 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $202.7 million in the first quarter of 2025. Net profit margin was 10.1% and Adjusted EBITDA margin was 51.9% in the first quarter of 2026. Net cash provided by operating activities was $118.2 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $116.3 million in the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures was $114.9 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $131.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. The Company completed its previously announced fiber-to-the-tower contract sale for $42.0 million in cash, the proceeds of which were used to accelerate debt repayment. The Company paid down an aggregate $90.6 million principal amount of debt during the first quarter of 2026, consisting of repurchases of $33.7 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes, $27.4 million of term loan prepayments, $25.0 million of rev...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Apple Earnings Become Sideshow With New CEO Ready to Grab Reins
Bloomberg
Apple Earnings Become Sideshow With New CEO Ready to Grab Reins
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. reports quarterly earnings after the close on Thursday, but investors will be largely looking past the numbers and seeking clues to incoming Chief Executive Officer John Ternus’ strategic plans. Most Read from Bloomberg US Seeks to Deploy Hypersonic Missile for the First Time Against Iran North Korea Confirms Suicide Rule for Soldiers Ukraine Captures Two NJ Malls Separated by Just Four Miles — and Very Different Fates Junior Bankers Sick of Grunt Work Build $2 Billion AI Tool to Do the Job Meta Shares Plunge on Rising Concern About AI Spending Spree The iPhone maker announced last week that Ternus, its current head of hardware infrastructure, will take over for CEO Tim Cook on Sept. 1. That makes Apple’s fiscal second-quarter earnings report, outlook and conference call the first significant opportunity for Wall Street to get a reading on the new leader’s priorities. It isn’t clear if Ternus will appear on the call, and a company spokesperson declined to comment. “It isn’t really about the numbers,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise. “We want to know what the CEO transition looks like.” Ternus is taking over at a complex time for one of the world’s biggest companies, which is expected to debut a number of major products in upcoming months — notably a foldable iPhone. But while growth trends are improving, Apple has been grappling with skyrocketing costs for key components like memory chips and a volatile macro backdrop driven by the war in Iran and advances in AI that have minted stock market winners and losers. “Investors have reason to be excited about Ternus since he was an overseer of some of Apple’s most successful recent products, but his strategy will be a long-term story,” said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, which has about $14 billion in assets and holds Apple in a variety of portfolios. “In the short term, the impact of component costs will be the focal point.” Apple shares are up less than 1% this year after a relatively disappointing 8.6% gain in 2025. By contrast, the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index is up 8.3% in 2026 and the S&P 500 Index has gained 4.9%. Apple’s stock was up 1.2% on Thursday afternoon. While the company is accelerating development of AI-powered hardware devices and features, it has also seen a number of delays with its own artificial intellig...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One (CABO) Q1 Earnings and Revenues Lag Estimates
Zacks
Cable One (CABO) Q1 Earnings and Revenues Lag Estimates
Cable One (CABO) came out with quarterly earnings of $6.12 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $7.77 per share. This compares to earnings of $12.32 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -21.24%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this telecommunications company would post earnings of $7.6 per share when it actually produced a loss of $1.35, delivering a surprise of -117.76%. Over the last four quarters, the company has not been able to surpass consensus EPS estimates. Cable One, which belongs to the Zacks Cable Television industry, posted revenues of $352.96 million for the quarter ended March 2026, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.89%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $380.6 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Cable One shares have lost about 20.2% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 4.2%. While Cable One has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Cable One was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) st...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01Cable One: Q1 Earnings Snapshot
Associated Press
Cable One: Q1 Earnings Snapshot
PHOENIX (AP) — PHOENIX (AP) — Cable One Inc. (CABO) on Thursday reported first-quarter net income of $35.8 million. The Phoenix-based company said it had net income of $6.12 per share. The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $7.77 per share. The telecommunications company posted revenue of $353 million in the period, also missing Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $359.7 million. Cable One shares have fallen 19% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $91.49, a drop of 66% in the last 12 months. _____ This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CABO at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CABO
TranscriptFY2026 Q12026-04-30FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 80 paragraphs
FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, welcome to Cable One's first quarter 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Jordan Morkert, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and welcome to Cable One's first quarter 2026 earnings call. We're glad to have you join us as we review our results.
Before we proceed, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements relating to future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding future revenue, customer growth, connects, churn rates in ARPU, the future competitive structure of our markets, the anticipated benefits of our mobile service offering, new product rollouts, future customer retention trends, anticipated cost savings and other benefits to be derived from our billing system migration and our other investments in growth enablement platforms, our plans to expand our multi-gig capabilities in more markets, future cash flow and capital expenditures, potential uses for our cash flow, the upcoming MBI transaction, including the put purchase price, MBI's future debt levels, integration timing, anticipated cost and tax efficiencies, combined leverage ratios and closing date.
The anticipated timing for closing of the merger of Point Broadband with Clearwave Fiber and expected benefits from that transaction, future tax savings and our future financial performance, capital allocation policy, leverage ratios and financing plans. You can find factors that could cause Cable One's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed during today's call in today's earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our 2025 annual report on Form 10-K and our forthcoming first quarter 2026 quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Cable One is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, except as required by law, to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, today's remarks will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not presented in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP.
When we refer to free cash flow during today's call, we mean adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures as defined in our earnings release. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release or on our website at ir.cableone.net. Joining me on today's call is our CEO, Jim Holanda, and CFO, Todd Koetje. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim.
Thanks, Jordan, and good afternoon, everyone. We really appreciate you joining us today. I've now been in the role for a little over 70 days, which has given me the opportunity to spend meaningful time with our teams, get closer to our markets, and develop a clearer view of where we are performing well and where we need to improve. At a high level, I'd say the work underway across the business is moving in the right direction, but those efforts are not yet showing up consistently in the results. Today, I want to spend my time on three things. What we're seeing in the business, what I've learned since stepping into the role, and our focus and priorities going forward. Starting with the quarter, we're not yet seeing the full benefit of the changes we were making in the business.
Results reflect the broader economic backdrop and continued pressure in our more competitive markets, particularly in customer retention. While we have already begun to make changes in these areas, it remains early, and those efforts are not yet meaningfully reflected in our results. At the same time, first quarter connects improved year-over-year, which we view as an early indication that elements of our strategy are beginning to gain traction. In addition, we are roughly two months into our MSO-wide mobile launch, and while it is too early to draw conclusions around retention or lifetime value, initial customer response has been encouraging. We continue to believe mobile can become an important component of the broader relationship over time.
Even with these challenges, the business is generating substantial free cash flow, reinforcing both the durability of the model and our ability to continue to execute on our debt reduction, strengthen the balance sheet, and create long-term shareholder value. In the first quarter, we generated approximately $115 million of free cash flow and $500 million over the past four quarters, providing meaningful flexibility to allocate capital in a disciplined manner. Turning to residential services, I want to spend a bit more time on what we're seeing in the business. In the first quarter, we reported 12,600 net residential broadband customer losses on a sequential basis. While this reflects continued pressure in certain areas of the business, there are several underlying dynamics that help frame how we are thinking about the trajectory going forward.
Over the course of my career, I've seen firsthand what has and has not worked in operating environments like this, and those lessons are shaping how we are approaching the business today. First, churn was elevated in the quarter but remained primarily concentrated within our more competitive markets, which allow us to concentrate our retention efforts where they can have the greatest impact. At the same time, new connects improved year-over-year, driven in part by value-conscious customer segments. These customers represent an important part of our segmentation strategy and remain focused on adding them in an accretive way. We also saw year-over-year improvement across certain go-to-market channels, including e-commerce and direct sales, reinforcing our focus on meeting customers where they prefer to engage and expanding on our connect opportunities. From a retention standpoint, we are implementing targeted initiatives to better identify and engage at-risk customers.
These include speed upgrades, more gradual stepped promotional roll-offs, AI-driven tools, and a new CRM platform expected to go live later this year. We are also deepening multi-product customer relationships through offerings such as mobile, whole-home Wi-Fi, enhanced online security, and comprehensive technical support for the connected home, all while continuing to invest in the network to further strengthen the consistent, reliable experience our customers expect. While still early, these are the types of operational actions we believe can improve retention trends over time. Looking at ARPU, results in the quarter reflected downward pressure from go-to-market initiatives and targeted retention offers, partially offset by continued sell-in to higher speed tiers and the broader multi-product offerings just mentioned. While we may see some variability from quarter to quarter, we continue to expect ARPU trends to remain broadly stable for the year.
Taken together, while retention remains the primary challenge, we believe the underlying trends in connects and multi-product offerings provide a constructive foundation as we work to improve customer outcomes and drive more consistent performance. Turning to business services, overall performance showed improvements through the back half of the quarter. Under Ed Butler's leadership since early January of this year, the business services organization has moved quickly from assessment into execution. Targeted investments in sales enablement, go-to-market discipline, and a new sales training program showed improved results across our fiber, carrier, and enterprise channels. While still early, these trends are encouraging and reinforce our confidence in the actions underway. Todd will address some discrete items in the quarter in more detail. Clearly, competitive intensity persists. However, we believe our network capacity, reliability, and local operating presence position us well, and we continue to invest for improved performance.
Today, approximately 53% of our markets are multi-gig capable, and we expect to expand that capability to most markets by year-end, reinforcing our ability to meet growing customer demand across the footprint. Against that backdrop, over the past several weeks, it has become clear that our biggest opportunity is improving the consistency of execution across the footprint. Many of the underlying dynamics are consistent with patterns I've seen in prior operating environments. As a leadership team, we've aligned around a focused set of priorities where disciplined execution can drive the most meaningful improvement. These priorities center on strengthening retention and conversion, simplifying our product set, and ensuring greater consistency in how we go to market across the footprint.
We've already begun to take action in each of these areas with the objectives of improving the customer experience, the price-value equation, and therefore the customer trends and the financial performance over time. The work we're doing today will still take some time to show up in our results, and we would not expect it to fully translate into the numbers within a single quarter. Our focus right now is on improving overall execution of the array of operating strategies at our disposal and continuing to strengthen the balance sheet. Stepping back, I remain confident in our long-term opportunity. The durability of our cash flow allows us to continue prioritizing debt reduction while maintaining the flexibility to invest in the business and support long-term shareholder value creation.
That confidence is grounded in the strength and the capacity of our network, as well as the clear opportunity we see to improve execution within our existing footprint. With that, I'll turn it over to Todd, who will provide a recap of our financial performance.
Thanks, Jim. Starting with the top line, total revenues for the first quarter of 2026 were $353 million versus $380.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, with the year-over-year decrease driven primarily by lower residential video and residential data revenues. Residential video accounted for approximately $10 million of the decrease. Residential data revenues decreased $11.6 million or 5.1% year-over-year, due primarily to a 6.1% decline in subscribers. Business data revenues decreased $1 million or 1.8% year-over-year. Operating expenses of $93.9 million for the first quarter of 2026 decreased 6% compared to the first quarter of last year, due primarily to a reduction in programming costs associated with our video business.
OpEx was 26.6% and 26.2% of revenues in Q1 of 2026 and Q1 of 2025, respectively. Selling general and administrative expenses totaled $87.2 million or 24.7% of revenues in the first quarter of 2026. Compared to $95.4 million or 25.1% in the first quarter last year. The decrease in SG&A was driven by lower labor costs and a reduction in billing system conversion costs. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 of 2026 was $183.3 million or 51.9% of revenues, compared to $202.7 million or 53.3% of revenues in Q1 of 2025. Capital expenditures were $68.4 million in the first quarter, a decrease of 3.8% year-over-year. During the quarter, we invested $5.1 million of CapEx for new market expansion projects. We continue to track towards 2025 levels for full year CapEx.
Adjusted EBITDA less CapEx totaled $114.9 million for Q1 of 2026, compared to $131.6 million in Q1 of last year. In March, our $575 million convertible notes matured and were repaid in full with a $575 million revolver draw. Throughout the quarter, we paid down a total of $90.6 million of debt, of which $86.1 million was voluntary. We opportunistically paid down our senior notes by $33.7 million and term loans by $27.4 million at very attractive discounts, along with a $25 million repayment under our revolver at quarter end. Such payments demonstrate our continued commitment to debt reduction.
As of March 31st, we had $165.6 million of cash and equivalents on hand. Our total debt balance was approximately $3.1 billion, consisting of approximately $1.7 billion of term loans, $550 million of revolver draws, $548 million of unsecured notes, $345 million of convertible notes, and $3 million of finance lease liabilities. We also had $700 million of undrawn capacity under our $1.25 billion revolving credit facility at quarter end, providing us additional committed capital. Our net leverage ratio on a last quarter annualized basis was four times. As Jim mentioned, we are focused on strengthening our balance sheet.
While we have the committed capital in place and sufficient excess operating liquidity to affect the MBI acquisition at closing in Q4 2026, as we have stated before, we will remain proactive in our balance sheet management initiatives and continue to evaluate the markets with a focus on optimizing our longer-term capital solutions. Turning to our investment partnerships, we posted updated information about our unconsolidated investments on our investor relations website. For the fourth quarter of 2025, these businesses generated approximately $542 million of LQA revenue and $262 million of LQA adjusted EBITDA, representing year-over-year growth of roughly 17% and 36% respectively. These businesses also grew broadband customers by approximately 22,900 or 7.9% and added over 80,000 new fiber passings during the year. This summary excludes the financial results of MBI as we provide additional detail within our quarterly filings.
Additionally, CTI Towers, Ziply, and MetroNet are no longer reflected in this table following the monetization of those investments, each of which generated attractive returns. We believe these outcomes, including both the operating performance of these businesses and the monetization of certain investments, reflect the strength of these assets and the value created over time. Finally, I'll touch on a couple of items related to a recent transaction, along with an update on a pending one. In mid-March, we completed the sale of certain fiber-to-the-tower contract rights for $42 million in cash. We recognized a $26.6 million gain on the sale. Such contracts generated $9 million of business data revenues in 2025 and $2.1 million in Q1. The sale reduced first quarter business data revenue by approximately $300,000.
Results were also modestly impacted by lower revenue from EchoStar as they continue to decommission portions of their 5G network build-out, representing approximately $50,000 in the quarter and roughly $200,000 on an annualized basis, which we believe represents substantially all of our remaining exposure to this activity. Meanwhile, the merger of our Point Broadband and Clearwave Fiber strategic investments remains on track to close during Q2, subject to customary closing conditions. We continue to work proactively on our pending acquisition of MBI. The Cable One and MBI teams are preparing for an efficient integration of MBI's operations when the transaction closes, which is expected at the beginning of Q4. Before we open it up for questions, I'd reiterate that while the current environment remains competitive, the business continues to generate strong cash flow, and we remain focused on disciplined execution and capital allocation.
We are continuing to prioritize debt repayment while investing thoughtfully in the business. We believe the changes underway position us to deliver improved performance over time. With that, we are ready to take your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Sebastiano Petti with JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking the question. Real quick, I guess just trying to think about the connects being up year-over-year. I think, Jim, you talked about contribution from the value conscious segment. Maybe help us think about how much of that, I mean, maybe a little bit of a difficult question to answer, but how much of that is from just improved offer strategy or maybe improvements or expansion of your distribution channels? Then relatedly, as you I think talked about defending the base last quarter, help us think about, you know, maybe, you know, how much ARPU or was there perhaps some dilution in the quarter relative to, you know, win back retention efforts that I think some of your peers are also kind of enacting to try to defend the base. Thank you.
Sebastiano, thank you for the questions. Appreciate it. This is Jim Holanda everyone. You know, yeah, connects, I think it's kind of twofold, both to your, to your points. You know, the expansion of the direct sales channel and the improvement in the e-commerce channel results I think certainly contributed to that, along with, again, our now very targeted segmented offers across how we've chosen to segment the base and being more aggressive and not afraid to be doing price locks in especially those hyper-competitive markets that we find ourselves in 15% of the footprint.
I think all of that helped contribute to it, and I think there's still a lot of meaningful room for improvement in regards to executing across all of those channels and all of those strategies. Certainly on the ARPU side, you know, along with more aggressive go-to market offers as certain areas get more competitive, certainly being more aggressive on the retention side where we feel those competitive pressures has been a focus. Again, I think we're still early on. We saw a little bit of those results then impacting the ARPU numbers in Q1.
Great. Thanks, Jim.
Your next question comes from the line of Frank Louthan with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. As you're looking for, you know, to save customers and so forth and that kind of activity, what kind of pressure do you expect on ARPU in your back book? Then can you give us some color on how MBI is tracking from subscribers in a financial perspective? I assume there's, you know, that might impact the price. Do you expect that to be any materially different from what you've kind of signaled is gonna be the cost when you close? Thanks.
Well, I'll let Todd go ahead and answer the MBI question real quick.
Hey, Frank. On MBI, their first quarter, which we put in the Q, net adds were south of 2,000, so they lost 2,000. That's a meaningful improvement from the run rate at which they were last year. There are some timing related adjustments in the first quarter for MBI. I think if I understood your question correctly, there are not adjustments in the purchase consideration. That is a locked in and disclosed number at $480 as we talked about last quarter. That's currently the plan.
We did adjust, just to address it, the anticipated debt that we will assume or be looking to refinance in conjunction with it into a new range of $895-$925. It's slightly higher than what we had had as a range before, just due to the impacts of, you know, their performance last year and slightly lower free cash flow between now and closing.
On the ARPU pressure piece, Frank, you know, clearly bringing in customers at lower promotional rates and seeing continued kind of elevated churn in the back book continues to put pressure on ARPU. Certainly, my read of the analyst community from our last earnings call is such that that's a good thing. In terms of that, again, we do have targeted retention offers in our more competitive markets that lower rates, but we're also simultaneously focused, as we've talked about, on adding a ton of value in terms of those higher ARPU existing customers.
Again, whether that's with TechAssist, whether that's been with eero, whether that's been with security product, we now have mobile in our arsenal, as it relates to that as well as continuing to give people more speed at no incremental cost in terms of the network's capabilities. Those are all things we continue to be very focused on and get out there, quite frankly, as quickly as possible.
How much of your back book do you think you're going to need to adjust and kind of lower the pricing when it's all said and done?
Well, as all said and done is a very wide question. I don't know if you're meaning by the end of this year or the end of a three or five-year cycle.
Well, a multi-year cycle. I mean, ultimately to get kind of competitive parity you know, your back book's pretty high. What would you expect that to have to adjust to?
I think overall in the $2-$5 range over time, and I think is realistic and doable given the value adds, that we have at our disposal for our existing customer base.
Frank, it's Todd. I'll jump in just real quick to keep in mind, if you think about the history, you know, Cable One was very one size fits all. It wasn't this deeply discounted promo with a high step up that would result in a wide variation of a front book, back book as you're referring to it. When you think about, you know, I think you said the back book is really high, which we don't disclose that, it's not a major delta to, you know, what we're looking at from new selling.
All right, great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Greg Williams with TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is just on satellite broadband. We're hearing a couple big announcements the last few weeks. I'm just curious, how you view the satellite competition, particularly in your rural areas. Second question, Todd, you mentioned a little bit about refis and you just paid down the converts. I'm curious about next steps on the balance sheet and when you'd be looking to the debt markets and eventually turn that out. Thanks.
Yeah, I'll go ahead and take the satellite and then turn it over to Todd. You know, obviously we're an avid user of Opensignal and have pretty accurate and telling data in regards to the competitive landscape of our footprint across the United States. While satellite shows up in very low circumstances and quantities, it certainly continues to go up. We keep our eye on it very closely. You know, we're not gonna let what happened kind of with FWA happen on the satellite front or even going back to my Dish and DirecTV days back in the early nineties. I think they are formidable competitors that could flush out over time. Yet to be determined.
There is no consistency from at least the two and a half months that I've been here in terms of their offers and their installation costs and their monthly pricing is widely varied territory to territory, market to market. We have not seen any consistency yet across our footprint in terms of their go-to-market strategy, which I think they will figure out a technological way to overcome at some point in the future, should they choose to allocate their resources and bandwidth there.
We'll continue to keep an eye on it, but at the same time, as you're fighting off one, two or three FWA carriers and fiberized LECs and in 15% of the footprint, fiber overbuilders, we feel we have a good playbook to run in order to defend the base that we have and to figure out how we continue to grow the connect side of our business simultaneously.
Greg, on the balance sheet side, as Jim alluded to, and I commented also in my prepared remarks, meaningful repayments have continued as we attack the numerator. You know, that was over $400 million in 2025, $90 million here this last quarter. Most of those were voluntary and repurchases at attractive discounts on both our term loans and our unsecured notes. That's an intentional approach as it relates to how we want to think about the balance of the capital structure.
As I've mentioned several times, diversity of, you know, duration, because we are actively evaluating longer term capital solutions and optimizing the balance sheet, to ensure we have the flexibility to continue to reinvest in the business, but also the flexibility to continue to repay debt at attractive levels going forward. We're also very focused on the diversity of the structure, and ensuring that we have both, you know, secured that's more attractively pre-payable, as well as more foundational capital on the unsecured side. Then, you know, as it relates to, you know, preparation, I think you even asked about timing. I've kind of been pretty consistent for the last few quarters, but we do have our contingency plan in place.
That's not a primary plan. We actively evaluate the markets. We're looking at it through the lens of ensuring we have the right disclosures in place. We've started putting more disclosures on MBI as that acquisition will be effective in early Q4 of this year. You know, we are aware of obviously the refinancing that we need to do over the course of the next two to three years and very actively planning around how we address that.
Got it. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Nispel with KeyBank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for taking the questions. A couple if I could. Seems like a pretty consistent theme we're seeing across the space is that there's an inverse correlation between ARPU and subscriber growth. I'm curious how you guys are expecting to get, you know, better performance on the subscriber side while keeping ARPU flat this year. If I remember right, you know, historically the, your guys' footprint tends to perform best seasonally in the first quarter from a connect standpoint and the third quarter. If we're looking at trends getting worse in the first quarter here, how are you, how should we be thinking about sort of second quarter from a net add standpoint? Thanks.
I'll start, you know, I'm new, so I can't speak to historical Q1s. I know my experience in my other locations is nothing historical patterns upheld through the pandemic and going forward in a new competitive environment, generally speaking. That one's probably harder to gauge. You know, having said that, I think we're pretty clear on last quarter's earnings call that in the third quarter of 2025, we saw the spike associated with some very large work done in the back office and with our systems in terms of a billing system consolidation across the family brands that made up Cable One that really put pressure there. We're not going to have those pressures at all this year.
I think that becomes an opportunity. Like I say, I think the opportunities in terms of all the go-to-market strategies that we've been talking about on these last two calls are really the things that can help, you know, start to change what have been otherwise historical trends there. As we think about kind of ARPU versus sub growth, you know, the interesting thing about Cable One and one of the reasons I came here is, you know, in 40% of our footprint, we're still the only gig provider, and there's not a lot of cable operators out there that can say that.
While we certainly expect that intensity to grow over time and have modeled that out and are thinking in those terms, we also have clear visibility in terms of as ILEC start to fiberize or third party overbuilders start to come in with a fiber build. You know, we see that coming well in advance, and we think we've built a pretty good playbook in terms of how to defend against that. I don't think as you compare us to others, I think we have just a little bit more flexibility in terms of our timing.
I think we have a little bit more opportunity in terms of, again, getting higher speeds and getting a whole host of value-added services into our customers' kitchens and living room to help us as we go forward across those retention pressures.
Got it. Thanks for the thoughts, Jim. Todd, if I could just follow up with one for you. I don't think you provided it or an update here, but, you know, with the higher debt that you guys are planning to take on with Mega, the trends there, and then the EBITDA trends that you guys are seeing, is there an updated thoughts on your closing leverage target once you do close Mega? Thanks.
Brandon. The range is pretty modest relative to the overall debt stack, so that doesn't move, you know, that much. Obviously with, you know, the trends from 2025 for both Cabo and MBI on a customer basis and how those translate into the effective denominator of that leverage ratio and EBITDA, that will be, you know, higher than what we previously stated, which was, you know, in and around four times. Still very manageable in our opinion, as it relates to where we close and how quickly we can get that down relative to the ongoing initiatives to focus on debt repayment, as well as, of course, stabilize and change the trajectory of the EBITDA base.
Got it. Thank you for the thoughts.
Thanks for the questions.
Your next question comes from the line of Sam McHugh with BNP. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Awesome. Thanks, guys. Two questions if I can. One on the gross add connect side. Do you have a sense of how many of your gross adds are coming from DSL? As DSL kind of just disappears in the next years, kind of what's the plan to make up that gap? Secondly, on the tower divestment, Todd, you've given us the revenue number. I wonder if you would give us an EBITDA number for how much that might just take out of EBITDA for this year. Thanks.
Yeah, thank you for those questions. On the, you know, in terms of the connect side, how many are coming from DSL, again, with only 40% of the footprint left that where the ILECs are unupgraded, you know, you'll over-index slightly in terms of that connect performance. If it's 40% of the potential and 50% of the connects, I think that's pretty consistent rule in terms of the Opensignal data that helps us kind of support that structure and thought.
Having said that, it's interesting you brought that up because I think that is an opportunity for us to exploit that even further. You know, given these bigger announced acquisitions by the ILECs, and the integration work that they have to do and so forth, I think that gives us some window to hopefully potentially take advantage of that in a bigger way going forward.
Sam, I'll just say, of course, as we've talked about in the past, where the LEC has not upgraded to fiber, and especially where that LEC has a fixed wireless access product for home broadband, they've been very aggressive on attempting to keep the customers they already have as their initiatives are not only focused on the customer side, but decommissioning that high-cost copper. That has moved that DSL population down at a more accelerated pace than what it was, you know, naturally because of those fixed wireless saves. As it relates to the fiber-to-the-tower contract sale that we effected in the first quarter, it was $42 million of gross proceeds, pretty comparable because of the tax efficiencies that we had from a net proceeds perspective. We used those proceeds to accelerate our debt reduction.
The revenue we did disclose, as you alluded to, that's a high single-digit multiple, and margins that are slightly higher than what you see from an enterprise side of the equation. That should get you to a pretty directionally accurate, you know, cash flow number as that rolls through on a GAAP basis throughout this year.
Your final question comes from the line of Julie Zhu with MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, team. Last quarter you had mentioned approaching an equilibrium on fixed wireless competition. I was wondering if you could comment on any updated thoughts there. I know that we saw that Verizon's fixed wireless net adds sharply slowed, but T-Mobile stopped reporting it, and given they're your largest overlap, would love any insight into year-to-date activity and view into the future. If I can squeeze a follow-up in about the satellite LEO competitors. Jim, I think you had mentioned that it's sort of a haphazard strategy on go-to-market for them. How does that affect how you and the team think about competing in more rural areas? Do you have a, an updated point of view in terms of the structural market share of satellite connectivity and fixed wireless across your footprint?
Wow, that's a lot for two questions, Julie. I wouldn't expect anything less.
Thanks
... by the way. Thank you. You know, on the, on the satellite piece, and they're somewhat intertwined given the fact that roughly 80% of our footprint now has one or more FWA competitor, which is the latest and greatest information we have from Opensignal. So we're already in a mode where we are competing fiercely, in terms of retaining customers that we have and going after the low end, where those product sets are more appealing.
Even as they might have the capacity to come to a more consistent go-to-market strategy, you know, at some point if you're competing against two or three FWAs and one or two other wireline competitors, doesn't matter whether there's six or seven, you know, players in a particular market, we're focused on the things that we can control and the value and the customer experience differentiators that we can bring to market and the localism that our network and our people bring to communities in the way that we support them day to day, you know, throughout the year. We'll continue to try and take advantage of all of those opportunities to the best of our ability and see how that develops and unfolds.
I think your narrative is accurate. I think, you know, we haven't seen, according to our data, a whole lot of incremental expansion out of the Verizon FWA product, but we do continue to see and expect T-Mobile and AT&T deployment within the market. I would call theirs slow and steady, but not, you know, they're not turning on huge additional SWAs from the information we've gotten so far.
Julie, on the structural market share, we did discuss last quarter, you know, it's an estimate. It's a view. You know, it's a thesis as it relates to, you know, what the future, you know, looks like. You know, when you think about, you know, wired broadband, we believe that longer term from an equilibrium perspective, wired broadband based on the capacity needs, the speed needs, and the utilization that you see constantly increasing across our both residential and business customer base, that will be in more of that 80% area. I would view the 20% as whether it's wireless only, whether it's mobile fixed wireless access, or it's satellite that really, you know, comprises that other 20% factor when you think about an adoption being nearly ubiquitous for internet connectivity.
Gotcha. Appreciate the fulsome answers. I think maybe just a quick follow-up. Is it fair to characterize the rate of change for T-Mobile and AT&T fixed wireless as slowing when you say slow and steady?
No. Consistent.
Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Julie.
That's all we have time for today. I will now turn the call back to Jim for closing remarks.
Thank you, Alexandra. Before we wrap up, I just want to thank all of our associates across the country for welcoming me into the Cable One family and for their continued focus on our customers and each other. Over my first roughly 70 days, I've had the opportunity to meet many of our associates, customers, and investors, and I look forward to continuing to engage with our key stakeholders in the quarters ahead. Thank you everyone on the call today for your time and your continued interest in Cable One.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-04-24Charter Communications (CHTR) Misses Q1 Earnings Estimates
Zacks
Charter Communications (CHTR) Misses Q1 Earnings Estimates
Charter Communications (CHTR) came out with quarterly earnings of $9.17 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.97 per share. This compares to earnings of $8.42 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -8.05%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this cable provider would post earnings of $10.4 per share when it actually produced earnings of $10.34, delivering a surprise of -0.58%. Over the last four quarters, the company has not been able to surpass consensus EPS estimates. Charter, which belongs to the Zacks Cable Television industry, posted revenues of $13.6 billion for the quarter ended March 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.49%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $13.74 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Charter shares have added about 15.8% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 3.8%. While Charter has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Charter was unfavorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to underperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stoc...

