AT&T’s stock got slammed Thursday after the telecom reported it lost 90,000 video subscribers in the third quarter.
The decline in video subscribers renewed industrywide fears of cord-cutting and drove down the shares of other paid-TV distributors as well.
AT&T said it lost 390,000 traditional video subscribers but that 300,000 subscribers were added to DirecTV Now, its recently launched less-expensive streaming service, according to a regulatory filing.
“No one should have expected AT&T’s video subscriber results to be good,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said in an e-mail. “But we doubt anyone expected them to be this bad.”
“The issue is in the acceleration in cord-cutting and the prevalence of [over-the-top],” Moffett wrote. “It is reasonable to expect a weak quarter for the whole pay-TV industry.”
Investors reacted to AT&T’s numbers, contained in the unusual pre-announcement, by sending the stock down 6.1 percent, to $35.86.
The AT&T decline also weighed on other pay-TV companies, which are not only battling over-the-top competitors like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix but also competing with their own skinny bundles.
Dish shares fell 5.1 percent, to $49.03, after touching a 52-week low in the session, Comcast declined 3.9 percent, to $35.95, Altice USA was off 2.8 percent, to $25.15, after it, too, hit a 52-week low in the session, and Charter gave up 2.6 percent, to $355.71.
Investors will have to wait two weeks to get the full extent of the quarter’s weakness. AT&T is scheduled to report its results on Oct. 24, followed by Comcast on Oct. 26.


