Transcript
Introduction
Matt
This is Matt Reustle and today, we are breaking down the cable giant, Charter Communications. Now if you've enjoyed our Business Breakdown on First Citizens Bank, we were lucky to have some of the Harris-Oakmark teammates, portfolio managers, Tony Coniaris and John Sitarz. Come join us for this deep dive on the cable market and Charter.
Now on Business Breakdowns, we do approach each episode a bit differently. And for Charter, we thought it was really, really important to understand the physical asset of cable. It is a piece of infrastructure that I think we can take for granted in our day-to-day lives. And Tony and John actually give some great food for thought in terms of how the cable market operates and how it acts as somewhat of a utility in our day-to-day lives.
So we spent a big portion of the first half of the conversation, actually outlining the history of cable, the asset itself, what it does differently versus some of the alternatives, both historically and the alternatives today. And then we flash-forward in terms of how the industry is actually 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. So we go into some of the case studies that have recently occurred, such as the ESPN negotiations, and then tie it all back in terms of the business model.