Charter's network reaches 70 million homes and businesses and sells services to about 37 million of them, which leaves nearly 35 million passed by the network and buying nothing.
Cable executives usually argue that the broadband threat from fixed wireless and satellite is overstated. Chris Winfrey conceded the competition is real in the short term and said the fix Charter controls is its own marketing, not the technology.
"Yeah. No, look, this is a levered equity play. And so we're reducing leverage which creates value for equity shareholders. So a small change in the valuation of the company can have an outsized impact on the share price."
Winfrey is Charter's president and chief executive, has just closed the acquisition of Cox Communications, and — as David Faber pointed out with the share-price chart on screen behind him — has watched the stock fall 63.5% since he took the job.
I listened to the full interview so you can skip it.
Here are the 7 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Chris Winfrey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Charter Communications, which operates under the Spectrum brand
🎙️ Host: David Faber, Co-Anchor of Squawk on the Street on CNBC, interviewing from Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference
📰 Published: 9 September 2026 on CNBC
🔴 CNBC | ⏱️ 8 min
Key Takeaways
The growth case is not new customers on a new network but the 35 million homes the existing network already reaches and does not serve
The offer is a guaranteed $1,000 a year of savings on two mobile lines
Every Cox customer becomes a Spectrum customer next week, with a free mobile line for a year
Video is a retention product now, and he says the value of it as a standalone business is long gone
Customers who take video and use the included streaming apps churn 40% less
The problem he says the industry can actually fix is marketing, not the network
He has hired a new chief operating officer for customer service scores and go-to-market
He does not regret the buybacks, only their timing
Charter trades at less than three times next year's free cash flow against a cable-industry history of seven and a half to eight times
His own equity grant pays nothing until the stock reaches $564
1. Cox Closes, 45 States
Faber opened on the deal, which closed a couple of weeks earlier after a long approval process he said California in particular can make difficult, and asked which operating metrics investors should watch to judge whether it worked. Faber put Spectrum's reach after the deal at 45 states.
Winfrey's answer was a claim about position rather than a metric: "You know, we're now the leading internet and video provider in the country with the fastest mobile growth in the country, with the fastest mobile service."
He put the network's coverage at 70 million homes and businesses and the customer base at about 37 million of them
Faber's own framing of the moment: "Actual cable company or at least what we used to call one." Winfrey agreed, and had opened the interview by saying it was like old times
Asked what the combined company is for, he said the job is to delight the customers it already has and expand into the coverage it already owns, across both residential and business customers
2. 35M Homes Not Buying Yet
The number Winfrey came back to is the one that measures the gap between reach and revenue.
"But the real opportunity is that you've got nearly 35 million customers who aren't taking any of our services today," he said
His pitch to them is a price claim built on selling internet and mobile together: "So the opportunity is to go take the best network in the market with the best products, save them lots and lots of money by combining a wireline network and a wireless network in a way that none of our competitors can do."
A wireline network is the cable running into the house; the wireless network is the mobile service sold alongside it, and combining the two is what he says produces the saving
The saving is a guarantee rather than a promotion: "We guarantee savings of $1,000 per year if you take two mobile lines with us." He repeated the figure later in the interview, alongside the claim to the fastest mobile service in the country
3. Rebranding Cox Next Week
Asked whether the go-to-market plan is ready and running, Winfrey said it starts within days.
"So starting next week, we're going to rebrand all of Cox to Spectrum. We'll introduce Spectrum pricing and packaging, starting with a free mobile line for an entire year," he said
The rest of the package is the guaranteed $1,000 saving, faster speeds and a lower broadband price when bought with mobile, then the video product
On what the television service now includes: "We've transformed the video space where you now get $130 of programmer app value included as part of your television service."
That figure is the retail price of the streaming apps bundled into the package — the programmers' own subscription services, included rather than bought separately
He was careful about the audience for it: "Not for everybody, but to the extent that you want video, this is the best place to go get it."
He called the Spectrum TV app "the most widely viewed, highest ranked app in the country"
4. Video Is A Retention Tool
Faber noted that video losses improved sharply last quarter and said video revenue was down 9.7%, then asked whether video can be a growth product or is only a way of keeping customers.
Winfrey took the second option without argument: "I think it's a retention tool. So the value in video for a cable provider is really long gone."
What it is worth is what it does to the broadband business: "The value as a standalone product, the value in the video product is the ability to acquire more broadband and converged wireless customers and retain more customers."
The number behind that: "And when we have a video customer who utilizes these apps, which are now included in the service, the churn rate or the retention is 40% better when they have the video service with us and activate those apps."
Churn is the share of customers who leave in a period, so a 40% improvement is a 40% smaller rate of loss on that group
On what he tells the companies whose channels he carries: "But you know, what I always tell the programmers is we're no longer in this for the video business. It's about the broadband business and it needs to work for our broadband business."
Faber raised the Disney carriage dispute of some years back as the moment the paradigm changed. Winfrey's answer was one line: "They've been a great partner since."
5. Fixed Wireless And Starlink
Faber attributed most of the share-price decline to the growth of fixed wireless broadband, which he said some had argued would not be an issue, and to worries about Starlink, whose performance in suburban and urban areas he said is still unknown.
Winfrey split the answer into a long term and a short term. Long term: "Long term, we have the best network, the fastest speed, gigabit, symmetrical multi-gig capabilities everywhere we operate combined with mobile."
Symmetrical means the upload speed matches the download speed, which is the specification fixed wireless and satellite services generally do not match
His demand case now includes AI: "And if you believe that demand for data is going to continue to increase, which it always has, and now with AI is actually increasing." Asked by Faber whether it will increase a lot more, he said: "I do, and then, you know, our network has the best capabilities. We save customers lots of money. We have 100% US-based service."
He refused to make waiting the strategy, and named marketing as the industry's own failure rather than a competitive one: "What we have to do as an industry in starting with Spectrum, is we need a better go to market strategy."
He said cable has been good at operating networks and not at marketing the value and utility of what it sells
On customer service, he conceded the reputation rather than defending it. Cable has not always had a good one, he said: "Now some of that's deserved."
The response is a hire: "We recently hired a new chief operating officer who has a lot of experience in both of those two categories, improving what we call net promoter score and go to market"
Net promoter score is a survey measure of how likely customers are to recommend the service, used as a proxy for satisfaction
On the competitors themselves: "These other platforms fixed wireless access and Starlink. They serve a purpose for a segment of the population." His view is that converged demand favors his network: "But I think as demand for data continues to increase, as people look to converge products where you have internet, wherever you go, it's only our network that's really going to be able to provide that."
6. No Regret On The Buybacks
Faber said the last four years have been painful for shareholders and that Charter bought back a lot of stock through them, and asked whether Winfrey regrets it.
His answer separated the decision from its timing: "Do I wish I had done it a little bit later in time. Yes. But I think in the end, the stock that we bought back will be very accretive to shareholders."
Accretive here means the repurchase leaves each remaining share with a larger claim on the company's earnings than it had before
Faber then turned to Winfrey's own pay, pointing out that his equity grant starts paying only when "you don't start making money until the stock hits $564 a share", and asked what he had done to himself. Winfrey confirmed the hurdle
The answer is the mechanism the whole interview rests on: "Yeah. No, look, this is a levered equity play. And so we're reducing leverage which creates value for equity shareholders. So a small change in the valuation of the company can have an outsized impact on the share price."
Charter carries debt, so paying it down transfers enterprise value to equity holders, and a given move in the value of the business produces a larger percentage move in the shares
7. Under 3x Free Cash Flow
The rest of the answer was a valuation argument that does not depend on the broadband subscriber growth he had just described.
"If you take a look at where Charter's trading today and you think about even without Cox and even without the transaction synergies of Cox, you know, we're trading as something lower than three times free cash flow of next year," he said
He expects the cash flow itself to jump: "We have tremendous free cash flow today. It's about to explode next year as one time investments that we've made, you know, start to subside."
The benchmark he offered is cable's own history: "I'm not going to sit here and predict share price, but if somebody took a look and said, if this company were trading at the historical average of cable at seven and a half to eight times, which is not crazy"
He said the sector traded higher than that in the past, and that those were different times, in Faber's phrase
His closing claim is symmetry: "But if you take a look at our free cash flow and EBITDA, the ability to go up as fast as it came down is still there."
EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — the profit measure cable multiples are usually quoted against
Bonus Insights
Winfrey said he believes his own broadband growth case, and then argued the stock does not require it: an investor unwilling to wait can value the existing free cash flow instead
He restated the $1,000 mobile guarantee twice in eight minutes, once as the acquisition offer for Cox customers and once as the reason video customers stay
Faber said the California approval in particular can be difficult in a deal like this, and that the Cox close took some time
Winfrey's bottom line is that Charter's video business exists now to hold broadband customers rather than to make money, and that with the Cox network integrated and one-time spending ending, the shares are priced at less than three times next year's free cash flow whether or not the growth plan works.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Charter Communications (Winfrey's company, which he says trades at less than three times next year's free cash flow)
Spectrum (The brand Charter sells under, now being extended across the Cox footprint with new pricing and a free mobile line for a year)
Cox Communications (The acquisition that closed a couple of weeks before the interview and takes Spectrum's reach to 45 states)
Spectrum TV app (Winfrey called it the most widely viewed and highest ranked app in the country, and the delivery point for the included streaming apps)
Starlink (Named with fixed wireless as the competitive threat; Winfrey said it serves a purpose for a segment of the population)
The Walt Disney Company (The carriage dispute Faber raised as the moment the video paradigm changed; Winfrey said Disney has been a great partner since)
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