If everybody could take seats, we'll get started with Altice. We're thrilled to have Dennis Mathew here. I think it is the first time.
First time.
Chairman and CEO, and Marc Sirota, CFO. So, welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Very excited to have you.
Yeah.
We'll start with you, Dennis. It's been almost two years to the date you were announced CEO of Altice USA. Marc, you joined the executive team relatively soon after that. Can you give us a quick overview of your efforts since joining Altice USA? What have been the priorities, and what's your current area of focus?
Yeah, happy to. It's been an incredible journey, and we really did need to start with laying the proper foundation and transforming the culture. There is and continues to be a big focus on making sure that our teammates are excited, energized, motivated, and every day giving 100%, breaking down silos, working together as one seamless organization, so as part of that journey, we've brought on 130-plus new VPs. Our existing leaders have taken on new and expanding roles. We've established an area structure where we can have much more local presence to be able to drive our local-level go-to-market strategy.
And so that's been a huge focus, and the cultural transformation is real and taking hold, and it's exciting to see, awards like being certified as a great place to work and just getting feedback, from our teammates that they are seeing the transformation. We're removing noise, removing friction, making it easier to serve our customers, making it easier to deliver great customer experience, which is our other focus. As part of laying a great foundation, we need to focus on EX and CX, and on the CX side, really putting the customer at the center of everything that we do, and not just in words, but in action. And so delivering quality products and quality network and quality service. And so for the first time ever, we're winning awards.
That needs to translate into business results, but it is nice to see companies like Ookla saying that we are the best ISP in the New York, New Jersey region. Companies like CNET and PCMag also awarding us, and ACSI just recently announced that we've had the most CX improvement since we've joined. Then all of that helps us translate into revenue, subscriber, and EBITDA growth, which I know we're going to talk a lot about, but the discipline that Marc and team have put in place to help us really drive a new level of rigor in our go-to-market strategies and the way we drive ARPU has been very exciting.
Since you brought up growth, as you look forward, how do you return Altice USA to subscriber and financial growth?
Yeah, so if we talk first on the revenue side, you know, I'm really excited about what we've, we put our minds to, and now we're starting to see a new level of performance. You know, a year ago, we launched mobile. It was in the portfolio. It really wasn't being leveraged properly, and now, you know, we're adding over thirty thousand subscribers, and we've transformed retail into a real sales center where we're able to drive retail, and we're going to continue to launch that across all of our channels, including channels like care and retention, where in our old lives, those were great channels to be able to talk to our customers and drive growth.
You know, we really do need to continue to expand the product portfolio, and so, not just mobile and B2C, but mobile and B2B. We launched that earlier this year, and B2B has a whole host of products that we're excited to really expand and launch. You know, historically, we focused on primarily SMB and primarily broadband, and we have an opportunity to really expand that portfolio to drive revenue growth, and even recently, you know, just really bringing products to our customers that they want. Products like Total Care, where you can provide care for all of your connected devices at $15 a month. Products like Entertainment TV, for those customers that really aren't looking for, you know, a full suite of products, and they have...
They're, they're very happy with the content that we can provide in Entertainment TV for $30 a month. And so there's a whole strategy around driving revenue and financials. And then, by the way, we need to sell all that not just to our new customers, but into our base, and standing up in a much more meaningful way our ability to drive those products into our base, which has not been done in the past, which we're now starting to get our sea legs under us. And then, in terms of subscriber growth, it really is all about stabilizing broadband, and that is all about having the right hyperlocal go-to-market strategy with our new OMS teams that can really help us compete more effectively, town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood. And we're seeing some stabilization.
We're continuing to see fiber overbuilders come into our territories, which is a bit of a headwind and the macroeconomic challenges, but we are showing up in a much different way and competing much more effectively.
We'll come back to broadband.
Yes.
Before that, Marc, you recently updated CapEx guidance to under $1.6 billion, which is below the previous range. What's the reason for the reduced guidance?
Yeah, I mean, it goes back to what Dennis was mentioning, just, instituting a culture of discipline, and, we've been able to really look deep into the capital envelope and figure out ways to make it expand further and make the dollars go much further, so a much more efficient way. If you think about it, in 2022, we spent $1.9 billion. 2023, we brought that down to $1.7 billion of capital, and now we're on pace to deliver something less than $1.6 billion. And it's, there's a whole host of examples. I'll give you a few. As we look at how do we recapture bandwidth in our HFC network, we're doing this in a low-cost manner using mid-split and high-split technology.
We've redesigned the processes around node splits, and so now we're able to deliver equal amount of node splits at a fraction of the cost. Even things like upgrading retail stores, we now can do it for half the cost we used to do it. So it's every facet of the capital envelope is under scrutiny, and we're able to just extend those dollars going further, so-
Yeah, I'm really proud of the team of, you know, delivering the impact while doing it in a much more efficient fashion, and that's the discipline and the rigor.
Yep
That the team has implemented, which, we're excited about.
So how do you weigh continuing to push out on fiber builds and budgeting higher CapEx versus generating more free cash flow and reducing leverage by paying down debt? And maybe why is it necessary to continue to build out fiber while your leverage remains elevated?
Yeah, I think our focus is really on the customer, taking care of the customer, investing for long-term growth, but doing it in a capitally efficient manner, disciplined manner. So I think you've seen us make a pivot around our initial fiber strategy, which was to fiberize the entire footprint. We've pulled back on that. More of our focus now is getting the customers we pass with our existing fiber onto this incredible network, and so that's what we're really focused on. Certainly, we have a lot of life in our HFC network, and so we continue to enhance that. We're still all in on fiber, and we'll continue as we build out our network and expand our footprint about 2% a year.
We'll do that in a very fiber-rich way, and so we're still bullish on fiber, but now it's really trying to get more and more of our customers onto the network because it performs so well.
Can you give us your early thoughts about what you're thinking about, I mean, as you kind of look forward to 2025 CapEx?
Yeah, sure. We're confident that we'll continue to find ways to deliver capital in an efficient manner. So I'm optimistic that we'll continue to bring down capital intensity in 2025. Certainly, we won't give guidance here today, but we will update you certainly when we get through the official budget process.
Just continuing with maybe the balance sheet with you, Marc, for a second. There's a lot going on with the capital structure, and on recent calls, you've talked about being proactive in managing debt maturities and how best to ensure the capital structure supports long-term goals.
Exactly.
Can you give us any updates about how you're thinking about your options or any color on discussions with creditors, and how you plan to eventually.
Mm-hmm
Reduce leverage?
Yeah, I mean, obviously, we are focused on the balance sheet. We're pleased with the activities we've had to date. We're well-positioned now. We have cleared maturities until 2027, and we are focused proactively on all options to address the balance sheet. Nothing specific we'll give today, but certainly more to come on that front.
So you continue to target positive free cash flow for the current year. Some of the puts and takes include cash taxes of $250-$300 million.
Mm-hmm.
CapEx, as discussed earlier, below $1.6 billion. In 2023, cash taxes were $200 million. So any thoughts you can provide about free cash flow for 2024 and... I'm sorry, for 2025, and the right cash tax number to think about?
Yeah, we won't go into specifics on the 2025 guidance at this point. Just know that our focus is on generating free cash flow growth for this year and years beyond, but nothing specific to call out today.
Okay.
Tried.
Altice has a small ACP customer base relative to peers, but it still represents something like 3% of your subs. Can you give us an update on your retention efforts around ACP subs, and if you're seeing any pressure on customers' ability to pay?
Yeah, for ACP and for our customers in general, and in retention, you know, we've really evolved our strategy and provided our teammates with tools that help ensure that we are providing our customers with the maximum value. That was a huge challenge for us, where they just didn't have tools, spreadsheets with lots of lines, and.
Mm-hmm
J ust really hard when somebody calls, just for that, for that teammate to be able to figure out, how do we address this customer's concern? And so for ACP customers and customers in general, you know, folks like to talk about AI, but we are excited about AI and how we're able to implement it to transform the business. And we were able to launch this tool in our retention channels earlier this year, that really allows us to provide the right offers for the customer's individual needs, and that includes our ACP customers. So as they call in, getting them into the right speeds, getting them into the right product set, and it's actually been very helpful in terms of retaining those customers.
The churn has been nominal, nothing to speak of, in terms of over the business as usual baseline churn. Churn, generally, is actually, you know, has improved, continues to improve because we are able to rightsize these customers in terms of speed, in terms of price, in terms of product set. The ACP customers are no different. We also have, you know, additional products for those that may need products that are more cost-effective. We have a $25, 100 meg product, but we're finding that folks are able to slot into our hero products, and that in combination with mobile and some of our new video solutions, like Entertainment TV, is really resonating with our base.
Mm-hmm. And then what kind of ACP churn, ACP-driven churn are you seeing from your competitors, and have you been able to capitalize on that?
Yeah, I mean, honestly, we haven't seen internally significant churn from the ACP group with our business, and we're not actually seeing it with the competitors where we overlap each other. We do see pressure, though, in the low-income segment. It appears that customers' willingness to sign up for broadband with the subsidy, that has changed without the subsidy, and so we do see pressure on gross adds in the low-income segment that we experienced in the second quarter, and we continue to see it in the third.
On that topic of just general, but now let's move away from ACP, but just on Q3, Q4, like, what kind of broadband subscriber trends are you seeing? Well, not Q4, but in Q3, in both East and West Coast footprints?
Yeah, I mean, on, on third quarter subscribers, we definitely, as we just talked about, muted, gross add activity really at the low-end segment, the low-income segment. Really pleased with the stable churn and the discipline we've had around... Even with the introduction of a more disciplined approach around erosion and retention, we've actually been able to keep churn at an all-time low. So pleased around that. The real pressure is on gross adds. In the East footprint, we're competing well against Verizon, so we feel pretty good and stable in that environment. In the West is where we see pressure, a lot of fiber overbuild activity happening there, very, low prices, entry points that they're introducing. And so we do see a bit of pressure on gross adds in the West footprint.
Fixed wireless certainly is still a formidable competitor, but we're starting to see signs where the win share is starting to move in the right direction for us, but still, more work to do there. Overall, when you kind of bundle it up from what we're seeing this quarter, with the increase overbuild, the pressure on the low-income segment still, we're anticipating about a similar quarter to what we had in the second quarter and the third quarter at this point.
Dennis, you've described the competitive environment as fierce as ever.
Yeah
W hich seems pretty obvious with fiber build-out and fixed wireless. How do you think the competitive environment evolves from here, and at what level will fiber passings ultimately peak in your footprint? And, you know, how many more years do you think fixed wireless remains a shared gainer?
Yeah, so, you know, East and West are kind of a tale of two cities here. You know, when you look at the East, you have about 70% fiber overbuild, primarily by Verizon. In the West, it's been growing. Since I've joined, you know, it's grown from, you know, I want to say somewhere in the 15%-20% to 40% and continues to grow. And so I think we are very well-positioned in our product portfolio to be able to compete against the more mature fiber providers, these fiber overbuilders, fixed wireless. First and foremost, we've evolved the way we go to market. You know, historically, when I joined, we had kind of this one on and off switch, and it was for the entire country.
And now we're able to compete, market by market based on the competitive environment so that it's not this huge on/off switch. And it's gonna take being able to compete town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood, based on who the competitive competitor is. And as folks are turning up competitive intensity, we can now literally take a phone call and adjust our offers to be able to compete more effectively in those markets. We are seeing, as Marc mentioned, that in the West, as these new fiber overbuilders come in, they're coming in competing on price. They have nothing else to compete with. They have no brand. They have no product portfolio. And I feel very strongly that we will be able to compete very effectively in the long term.
Of course, when a new competitor comes in, they're going to take a portion of share. Historically, we've done nothing about that. We've let them come and take all the share. Now we are competing in a much different way, to the point where we're winning back some of that share, and we are moderating that initial share take when folks come in new. As Marc mentioned, on the Verizon side, you know, we're finally starting to compete much more effectively because we're doing that town by town, because even in the East, Connecticut is very different than North Jersey, which is very different than Brooklyn. And that just wasn't part of our ethos in the past. Fixed wireless, you know, they continue to provide a very compelling product, especially to DSL switchers.
You know, cable historically has been able to drive growth via DSL switchers, and they are primarily taking that segment. There's less people moving, and less people are switching when they move, but when they do switch, folks, because of the macroeconomic challenges, are looking at low-cost options. That being said, we are evolving our strategy to be able to compete at all levels, and I am confident that we have the right value proposition. We are starting to see some customers come back. It meets some customer needs, doesn't meet others. If you are a very streaming-heavy home with many, you know, family members, it may not be the right product for you. That's where we have to tell our story most effectively and win those customers when that jump ball appears.
Right. I mean, obviously, you've done a lot of work on pricing and packaging. So you've guided to ARPU trends moderately improving in 2024.
Correct
V ersus a 1.5% decline last year. So while ARPU appears to be stabilizing, it's still, you know, still in a decline.
Mm-hmm.
When and how can you return to ARPU growth?
Yeah. Really pleased, honestly, with the stabilization that we've had in the business. When I first showed up, it was certainly going in the wrong direction, so we've stabilized that, and so excited about that. The pressure on the business is really coming from the video space. As we lose video customers, that is dragging down overall total residential ARPU. So despite those challenges, we're still able to maintain ARPU, which is, which is great to see. We're doing it in a few manners. We're selling in more advanced services, like mobile and higher speed tiers. We're passing along more of the programming cost increases we see from our programmers. Then Dennis mentioned it. On the AI front, we are guiding every single conversation we have with a customer with our AVA tool that we've launched.
We have over 200 data scientists now in the business that are really helping all of those interactions go smoothly. And before, it was a pick list of: How do you save the customer at all costs? And it was really one size fits all. Now we have three or four tailored offers to the actual customer who's on the phone, and that has really stabilized the rate of erosion that we see in care, the rate of erosion we see in retention. So all of those things, in addition to try to drive more product sell-in, is really what's gonna help us, I think, in the long run, drive ultimately ARPU growth. But we won't give a specific date on that at this point. We're just gonna take a balanced approach to drive and maximize revenue sold, rate and volume.
Yeah. What I'll, you know, just kinda underscore is the product portfolio. We had very limited products historically. We launched mobile last year, and we increased gross add attach of mobile by 3X, and continuing to grow. We're starting to sell in mobile into the base, which was not even an activity historically, and we're starting to see meaningful, you know, penetration there. But now we've got. We just recently launched products like Total Care and Entertainment TV in the last, you know, few weeks and months, and we're seeing thousands of customers take those products without any marketing, just starting to get it into the channel. And so now we're gonna have a real disciplined approach of selling products at the point of sale, selling products throughout the customer journey.
We have an incredible venue in our retail centers to interact with our existing customers, to upsell speed and upsell these products, which will really help us accelerate ARPU stabilization and ultimately ARPU growth.
Yep.
Just maybe one more on going back to your comments on AI. What are some of the potential ranges for cost efficiencies that could be realized over the next, let's say, three to five years from AI?
Yeah, we're really excited. We've gone all in. We've centralized, as I talked about. We have now brought the team together, over 200 real data science engineer, data engineers into the ecosystem using advanced analytics. And we're not just talking about it, we're actually deploying it. So we talked about our AVA tool that we have for all of our call center reps to really assist them on really managing that individual customer interaction. We're using it in marketing. We now use GenAI to help with even just the creative and what direct mail piece to send to what customer. We're using AI in that fashion, and we're actually using it to decide where not to send direct mail. So we're really getting efficient on how we're actually driving creative in that regard.
We're starting in a meaningful way to really utilize it in our field operations, and so how do we avoid a truck, not only doing network detection around go do maintenance before a customer even knows there's an issue? We're actually guiding our call center agents on when to send a truck, when not to send a truck, and so we're just getting going, which is really exciting. So I do think, there's a lot of optimism around how leveraging automation, AI, AI deflection, can really change the course of our cost structure for the business. Certainly, we'll talk about programming coming up here shortly, but we're using AI and advanced analytics to really help us renegotiate every single programming renewal we have.
We know the point of indifference, and that's how we go into these negotiations, fully aware of who's watching what, and that really helps shape the conversation.
Yeah. What I would say is, without AI, with a focus on quality and, digital and a little bit of automation, for the last two years, we've pulled out a million-plus calls out of our ecosystem, hundreds of thousands of truck rolls, just by operating with discipline, putting the customer at the center, focused on quality. I'm very optimistic that now providing... Leveraging AI, it will further accelerate our transformation, help us drive down our operating expense, which will help us ultimately grow EBITDA. As we've stabilized OpEx over the last two years at that $2.6 billion-ish level, we were able to drive efficiency and then drive reinvestment to help improve the customer experience and quality.
As we move forward, we will be able to further accelerate efficiencies and be able to drive EBITDA as we move into the years to come.
I'm gonna go back to one last question on broadband, which is fiber migration. Dennis.
Yes.
On your most recent earnings call, you talked about having a renewed focus on migrations.
Yes.
Can you talk about the improvements you've made to that process and the way that will impact your financials?
I mean, it's so exciting. I'm like emotional about it. Like it it. Because I was crying when I started because of how horrible it was, and now I'm crying because it's like I'm so happy.
Happy tears.
I'm happy. But we've identified we resolved over 20+ technical issues. Our completion rate on fiber was in the low 70s when we did a migration.
Now it's in, you know, the low 90s. Yeah. I mean, that is a massive improvement, and the NPS on a fiber migration has improved significantly. And so now we're embedding. Before, everybody was hesitant. Nobody wanted to talk about migrating to fiber, which was insanity because it's, like, this amazing product, but all of our teammates were so gun-shy because we knew it would take hours, and maybe it would not work. And now it's like 90%+ of the time, it will work, and it's an amazing experience. And so now we will be talking about it in every opportunity and every interaction, whether you're in the retail center, whether you're calling us in care or retention, of course, on the sale. And I'm confident.
You know, we've been in the 40,000-plus range of fiber net adds historically peaking, I think, at 50,000-plus in Q1, and I'm confident that we can eclipse those numbers now that we've streamlined and fixed these broken processes. We had some other issues. You know, 50% of our base takes video, and so we didn't have a video product equivalent to our product that was on HFC. And so when you're talking about moving a customer over to fiber and then taking them backwards in terms of total product experience, it's like, why are you even having this conversation? You want to go forward, not backwards.
And so now, with the Stream product and with these new packages, we can much more confidently not only move you over on broadband, but then also make sure we keep you whole and actually get, deliver you a better video experience as we move forward.
And the economics are real. We're seeing double-digit churn survivability after twelve months, double-digit ARPU improvement for customers signing up for fiber. NPS scores are 2 better now, and so there's really meaningful reasons to drive customers. That's why a larger part of our capital envelope is pointing towards this versus building out new upgraded passings. Let's get our existing customers onto this incredible network, 'cause they don't have to call. The thing works, and so it's really in our advantage and certainly a benefit for our customers.
So changing subject slightly to mobile, can you just talk about your overall strategy on mobile?
Yeah. So when I joined, I don't think it's a secret, there was no strategy. So we started by building a strategy, which was to include that in our product portfolio, include that in our packages and offers, incentivize our sales folks to actually sell it, transforming our retail centers that we were building without any plan of what to do with them to become mobile-first sales centers. And that whole strategy is really coming to life in a very meaningful way, and 90% of the traffic coming into retail is our existing customers, and they're learning about mobile and, you know, considering mobile in a way they have never considered before. But we didn't wanna stop there.
Only in consumer, we launched mobile in our B2B channel, in our B2B business unit as well. It's kind of a phase one with some limited number of lines, and we're gonna expand, and we're gonna be able to grow from, you know, five lines to 20 lines to, you know, whatever number the market demands. And then offering a much broader set of products. We have much more compatibility across devices. We have insurance products now. We have the proper accessories, tablets, and we have a roadmap where we're gonna continue to lean in. And really, the strategy continues to expand by broadening it across all of our channels.
So retail is a huge focus, inbound as well, and door-to-door, but also in care and retention and any touch point. We wanna be able to have this conversation because we're seeing real churn benefit, but then we're also seeing real satisfaction. The customers who take our connectivity products for in the home and outside of the home are more satisfied and more loyal customers, and we have opportunities to continue to grow that relationship over time from one line to two lines to multiple devices, especially as we now move into tablets and other products.
So you mentioned SMB business. Can you just talk about current trends you're seeing there?
Yeah. I'm very excited about our B2B business. Historically, we've been, you know, kind of narrowly focused on SMB and narrowly focused on just broadband. And we have what I view as tremendous opportunity as we expand the product portfolio, launch new products beyond broadband, like mobile, like managed security, like WiFi solutions, like backup solutions, and we're starting to do that in the months to come. We've already launched mobile. We've expanded voice across the footprint. We didn't even have voice in all of our markets. We fixed our Pro WiFi solution. It was also a sad state of affairs, similar to fiber, where 85% of the time, if we sold in our WiFi solution, there was an error in the install. We've eliminated that, and now 100% of the time it works. And so we're gonna relaunch that product, and we think and we know that that will resonate meaningfully.
We also stood up a new focus beyond SMB with national accounts and enterprise, an enterprise focus, and so historically, we just didn't have a focus on those segments and even industry-level segments. For example, healthcare is a great example. Most recently, we won a deal with a Fortune 100 healthcare provider, you know, about $500,000 a win, but that's just one of dozens of opportunities that are now in the funnel, which we're confident, with the right focus, we'll be able to continue to build out that business in a way we just haven't done in the past.
We're also just ahead, we're seeing real acceleration in our Lightpath business. They're really starting to post meaningful revenue growth. That's really around salesmanship, selling more solutions to our customers. Really pleased on the trajectory of the mid-market space as well.
Okay. Did we have to move on?
Okay.
We still have a lot of ground to cover.
It's a good space.
So advertising, which is, you know, obviously a very high-margin business, could you talk about your expectations in coming quarters?
Mm-hmm.
W hat you're seeing in the market, how much you think you'll benefit from political?
Yeah, we're optimistic. As we mentioned in the second quarter earnings, we're still anticipating double-digit revenue growth for the full year. The sales teams are executing at the highest level. Certainly, there was a bit of a pressure with the interest rate environment, but hopefully, that's gonna get unlocked here in September, so we think that's gonna be a tailwind. Certainly, we're anticipating that this political season, this presidential race will be one of the biggest for us, and we'll be in a good position to take advantage of that. So we're still very optimistic around double-digit full-year news and advertising growth, coming off a pretty tough, troubling year last year, so we're feeling pretty optimistic about our position.
And just continue with advertising for a second. There's been a major push to drive more targeted advertising.
Mm-hmm
A cross the industry for years, and with the advent of AVOD, it appears there will be a massive increase in inventory for the foreseeable future, which will also be able to handle local advertising. How are you thinking about this and the impact that it could have on your local ad business?
Yeah, we think we're in a good position. We have really strong sales teams, really strong relationships. We're bringing together B2B and news and advertising like we've never done before. And so for us, it's really around: How do we surround these customers with the right solutions? Still a pretty small piece of the business for us, but we feel like we're well-positioned, we have the right focus, and we feel like we can handle the competition.
So video, finally. It's been under pressure for years. It's amazing that you said half your base still. I mean, you probably have the highest penetration of any operator, still, but gross margins, while slightly improving in recent quarters, remain around 20%. Can you just talk about the importance of having a video offering, how you're adjusting your offerings? Because you kind of alluded to that earlier, and, you know, trying to... In an attempt to offset the decline that we're seeing around the industry.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, video is very important to us, and it's really putting the customer at the center and having products and packages that meet their needs. And historically, unfortunately, as an industry, across the board, we haven't done that. And I've mentioned in the past that the video business model is horribly broken. And so as we think about the path forward and as we have conversations with our partners, we wanna put the customer at the center. We wanna curate and put the right packages for the right price, and that's what we're hoping to do as we move forward. We were able to launch a package called Entertainment TV, which I think is a really nice example of that, where we had partners come alongside.
You know, 20% of our customers don't tune in to broadcast and don't tune in to sports and some of this high premium content, and so they wanted a package that fit their needs. And we have several other packages that we'll be launching in the coming months that are similar in nature, where we can provide them the right content at the right price. We need our partners to come alongside and be on this journey together so that we this isn't like a win-lose. This needs to be a win-win-win.
Win for us as distributors, win for the programmers, and of course, the biggest winner should be the customer, not paying for content that they don't watch. You know, we had a negotiation. My friend Keith led that conversation and his team with Diamond, and you know, unfortunately, Bally Sports is no longer being carried by Optimum. The fees were not reasonable. We didn't even know what programming was gonna be available, and so you're asking me to pay a price without any knowledge of what content. Less than 15% of customers even tune in.
Yep.
But I'm being asked to charge 100% of customers! Like, why would we do that?
Right.
And so we negotiated in good faith, and we tried to get to a reasonable solution, and unfortunately, there was not a level of reasonableness in the discussion, and so we decided we were not able to come to an agreement. We did something. We communicated with our customers. We told them what was happening.
We took care of them.
We took care of them. We provided them options, and we had no call volume, and so, you know, that's the conversation.
Very.
We're gonna continue to have and put the customer at the center.
So this may go back to the comment you made earlier, about AI and know what people watch, but when you're in these negotiations, like, what are you trying to maximize for in the.
We just wanna get the value equation right. We know the... Based on viewing behaviors, we know the point of indifference, and we can predict how many customers we think we could lose if we do nothing. We're not gonna do nothing like we did with Bally Sports. We did something about it, and so we can even bend the curve there, and so there's a point of indifference that we measure to. We wanna make sure it's a fair and right price for our customers. Like Dennis said, 100% of our customers are being burdened when you have very few customers actually engaging in the content, and so we can see that, and that's how we manage it, so we're putting the customer first.
Last question, 'cause you kind of alluded to this in different ways, but the, you know, you talked about, like, new packages and still more to come. How much benefit do you think still exists in the video business from having these various packages, this mix shift?
You know, we're seeing a 20%+ attach of our new Entertainment TV package, so there is a market, there is a value, there's a retention benefit, there's a.
Mm-hmm
D emand for the product. It's the number.
Without advertising.
Yeah, without advertising. And it's the number one consumed service on broadband. So there's definitely a need for solutions, streaming solutions, as well as, you know, there's a demand still for sports and broadcast and all these other offerings, but we have to get the value equation right, and we have to do things differently, and it might be a bit uncomfortable, but we want to partner with our partners and our teams to bring the right solutions to our customers.
Just giving them, give customers options to choose how... They know how they view their content, and give them options to meet that need.
Yeah, yeah. We wanna present the options. If we have options, we will present them, and we will sell them in. Like, we, we like to do that, but we need options. We can't present options that no one wants to buy or that feel unreasonable.
Yeah.
So are you seeing customers come back to video who had previously dropped it?
You know, we'll have to look at the data, but that's a great question. As we're just weeks into this Entertainment TV, I wanna look at, you know, who are we selling this into, and who are the folks that are these types of products are resonating with?
I think customers want easy solutions to consume the content that they wanna consume, and that's what we're trying to provide. We'll be launching a mobile-like platform in the coming months that's gonna really enable customers to have an easy interface to do business with. I don't think customers wanna be bouncing in and out of all of their solutions, so pretty optimistic that we can provide options for our customers. So we think there is a path to maintain a healthy relationship on the video side.
Great. With that, we're out of time, but thank you so much.
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you so much.