WideOpenWest Q3 2025 Earnings Call - Maintaining Challenger Status with Strong Growth Despite Pending Acquisition
Summary
WideOpenWest’s Q3 2025 earnings call was marked by silence on detailed results amid a pending acquisition by DigitalBridge Investments and Crestview Partners. CEO Teresa Elder highlighted that the company continues to hold its ground as a challenger brand against cable giants Comcast and Charter in legacy markets, while aggressively expanding its greenfield footprint with over 15,000 new homes added this quarter. Despite stiff competition from fixed wireless and new fiber entrants, WOW maintains near record low churn and robust household penetration rates, anchored by its no-contract, no-data-caps value proposition and simple pricing. The narrative underscores a company balancing steady competitive momentum with the strategic uncertainty of ownership change.
Key Takeaways
- WideOpenWest is under acquisition by DigitalBridge Investments and Crestview Partners, halting detailed commentary on Q3 results.
- Company maintains its challenger brand status, primarily competing against Comcast and Charter in legacy markets.
- In legacy markets, WOW sees strong high-speed data rate (HSDR) pool growth and near record low customer churn.
- Greenfield operations continue expansion with over 15,000 new homes added in Q3, totaling 106,000 greenfield homes.
- Greenfield market penetration holds steady at 16% amid rapid home additions.
- Legacy market expansions added 3,700 new homes this quarter, with 2025 vintage nearing 30% penetration.
- WOW competes not just with cable incumbents but also fixed wireless and new fiber entrants in greenfield and legacy markets.
- WOW’s value proposition centers on no contracts, no data caps, a reliable network, high speed, and simplified all-in pricing with optional price locks.
- Competition from Comcast and Charter includes a strong mobile marketing push but WOW emphasizes simplicity and clarity in its pricing and service offerings.
- CEO Teresa Elder credits the company’s employee base for continuing to deliver value and service that resonates with customers despite competitive pressures and company uncertainties.
Full Transcript
Unidentified Moderator/Investor Relations, WideOpenWest: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter of 2025 earnings call. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release with our financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2025, which is now available on our Investor Relations website. We also published a trending schedule with additional historic and financial and operating metrics. On August 11, 2025, we announced that WideOpenWest entered into a definitive agreement under which affiliated investment funds of DigitalBridge Investments and Crestview Partners will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Common Stock of WideOpenWest, not already owned by Crestview and its affiliates. In light of this pending transaction, we will not be making any comments on our results this quarter. However, we will take questions related to this morning’s earnings release.
I am joined this morning by our CEO, Teresa Elder, and our CFO, John Rego, who are here to answer questions. I would like to remind everyone that we may make some forward-looking statements about our expected operating results, our business strategy, and other matters relating to our business. These forward-looking statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual operating results, financial position, or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We disclaim any obligation to update such forward-looking statements.
For additional information concerning factors that could affect our financial results or cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including risk factors section of our Form 10-K and most recent Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, as well as the forward-looking statement section of our press release. In addition, please note that on today’s call and in the press release we issued this morning, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for our historical reported results can be found in our earnings releases and our trending schedules, which can be found on our website.
Operator, are there any questions in the queue?
Operator: Yes, we do have one question from Frank Luthon at Raymond James.
Frank Luthon, Analyst, Raymond James: Great. Hey, thank you. When you guys are looking out in the market, where are you seeing competition from? Who’s kind of reared up? Is it more fixed wireless? Is it the cable companies or fiber? I mean, how should we think about who you guys are up against? I’m talking more about in your legacy markets versus the greenfield builds. Thanks.
Teresa Elder, CEO, WideOpenWest: Thank you, Frank. Yes, this is Teresa. In our legacy markets, we have been, since the day we first started at WOW, a challenger brand. We really challenge the cable companies. Comcast and Charter are our primary competitors in our legacy markets. We certainly also have competition from fixed wireless. What we have seen, though, in this last quarter is that we’ve been able to have strong HSDR pool growth, and our churn is near record lows. We are very pleased with how we continue to compete in our markets. In greenfield, we actually have been on a tear. We are also competing with the traditional cable companies, new fiber entrants, as well as fixed wireless. In those markets, we’ve added over 15,000 homes in this last quarter, bringing our total greenfield homes to 106,000. The penetration keeps growing at a robust rate.
We’re maintaining that 16% in greenfield, even though we’re adding so many homes. Also, in legacy, of course, we have long had an edge-out strategy, and we added another 3,700 homes in our legacy markets. The 2025 vintage is already near 30%, and the former vintages also continue to perform extremely well. That information is in our trending schedule. It is somewhat the same mix of characters, but I think customers really resonate with our no contract, no data caps, reliable network, high speed, and the very best value with our simplified pricing. That mix has continued to work for us.
Frank Luthon, Analyst, Raymond James: All right. Great. Are Charter and Comcast really leaning into their mobility product? I mean, is that their main thrust of their marketing in your territories, or is it something different that’s having them get a little bit more traction?
Teresa Elder, CEO, WideOpenWest: You probably have to ask them. I would just say it looks like they’re doing a lot of national advertising that’s consistent within our markets as well, emphasizing mobile. We have found that the simple approach that we’ve had with all-in pricing with an optional price lock has really cut through. Customers don’t have to be confused by how many mobile lines versus this versus that they have to have with WOW. You always get that same clear value at high speeds without having a bunch of other strings attached.
Frank Luthon, Analyst, Raymond James: Great. Okay. Thank you very much.
Teresa Elder, CEO, WideOpenWest: Okay.
Operator: There are no further questions.
Teresa Elder, CEO, WideOpenWest: Perfect. Thank you so much. As always, we appreciate all of you joining our call. As always, I would like to thank the people of WOW who continue to wow our customers every day and provide the value to our customers. I appreciate the time on this call this morning. Thank you.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
