By Patience Haggin
Streaming was supposed to kill cable. It just may prove to be legacy TV's lifeline.
For much of the past decade, cord-cutting ravaged the industry, with tens of millions of households abandoning traditional pay TV in favor of streaming services. Now, cable TV providers are making streaming apps part of their subscription packages, giving consumers a compelling reason to stay.
"Traditional distributors have gotten smarter about building offers that customers actually like," said Craig Moffett, co-founder and senior analyst at MoffettNathanson.
Charter Communications added 44,000 net video subscribers in the fourth quarter, its first uptick in that subscriber count since 2020. Comcast and Optimum Communications lost subscribers in the quarter, but they are seeing those losses narrow.
The gains validate a bold bet by Charter Chief Executive Chris Winfrey: that cable could survive, if no longer thrive, by embracing the apps that had begun to supplant the traditional TV bundle. During a 2023 contract dispute, as Disney sought to raise the fees it charges Charter to carry channels like ESPN and ABC, Winfrey pushed the media giant to give Charter's Spectrum TV subscribers access to Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ at no additional cost. Charter has since integrated those and other streaming apps into its cable packages.
"They have flipped the script," said Vikash Harlalka, an analyst at New Street Research. "Customers essentially pay for these bundles of apps and get live video for free."
Charter's fourth-quarter numbers got a boost when Disney channels were blacked out on YouTube TV for 15 days, leaving subscribers without ESPN in the middle of football season. Charter picked up more than 14,000 video subscribers from the blackout, a company spokeswoman said.
Charter has also been discounting to help lure customers -- fourth-quarter video revenue fell 10% from the year-earlier period, despite the gain in subscriber numbers. With streaming services continuing to raise their own prices, a hybrid bundle like the one offered by Charter's Spectrum is increasingly appealing.
Amjad Shehadeh, a 35-year-old autonomous-vehicle test driver in Huntington Beach, Calif., is one of Charter's new video subscribers. He said he prefers apps, but his parents want local news and sports. Late last year, Shehadeh switched from satellite provider DirecTV to a Spectrum bundle that includes the channels his parents want, the apps he prefers and their home internet. He estimated his household will save $1,226 a year.
Privately held DirecTV started adding apps to its cable bundle about a year after Charter, but doesn't yet offer as many. The company doesn't disclose subscriber figures.
Comcast began including its Peacock streaming app in its Xfinity TV bundles in 2020 and began offering an add-on discounted streaming bundle in 2024. In December, Comcast launched a storefront for add-on streaming apps and bundles. Comcast's video subscriber losses narrowed in the fourth quarter.
Optimum features new-customer promotions, offering free access to apps such as HBO Max for a period, and then providing them as an add-on for a fee afterward.
Cox Communications launched its first cable bundles that include streaming apps last month. Last year, Charter struck a deal to buy Cox, pending regulatory approval. Winfrey has said the Cox unit may grow video subscribers once its customers can access Charter's offers.
Meanwhile, satellite-TV provider Dish Network hasn't integrated streaming apps into its bundles. The company hasn't reported its fourth-quarter figures yet, but in recent quarters the losses have been narrowing. Moffett attributes the trend to Dish having "fewer and fewer subscribers left to lose."
Despite the recent improvements in subscriber trends, even Charter anticipates more declines in the future.
"Cord-cutting isn't over," Harlalka said. "It's just slowing down."
Write to Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 20, 2026 12:00 ET (17:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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