WideOpenWest reported a 7.3% decline in fourth-quarter revenue to $292.8 million, missing analysts’ consensus forecast by about $5.75 million.
Revenue from subscription services declined by 6.6% year over year in Q4 to $227.4 million, despite a 0.6% uptick in customers.
In the fourth quarter, WOW lost 10,100 video customers but picked up 2,700 residential high-speed internet users.
“WOW went into 2017 with very aggressive goals,” said Teresa Elder, recently appointed WOW's CEO, in the company’s earnings statement. “While we met many of our objectives, we are disappointed to report that we fell short in some key customer and financial metrics, which is unacceptable. We ended the year, however, with good momentum and have a strong plan in place to build on our rich heritage of putting the customer first and to drive growth in 2018. We will rededicate ourselves to delivering an exceptional customer experience that is more reliable, easy and pleasantly surprising by investing in sales and marketing, our customer care organization, the online experience and expansion of our product portfolio.”
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Net income for the Englewood, Colorado-based cable operator in Q4 was $84.2 million, thanks to an income tax benefit of $116.1 million from the Republican led corporate tax bonanza.
For all of 2017, WOW posted a 4% revenue decline to $1.18 billion. Net profit, however, was up from $26.3 million to $159.5 million, due in part to the sales of the company’s Chicago fiber network for $225 million and its Lawrence, Kansas, cable system.