• by Wayne Friedman , July 28, 2017

Altice USA, the fourth-largest U.S. cable TV operator, in line with other traditional pay TV cable operators, has endured substantial losses among video subscribers.

Altice USA -- which bought up Cablevision Systems and a majority interest in Suddenlink over the past two years -- lost a total of 37,000 subscribers in the second quarter.

Cablevision’s Optimum unit lost 12,000, while Suddenlink dropped 25,000.

On Friday, mid-day trading of Altice USA stock was down 2.6% to $32.99.

For its earnings call with analysts, Dexter Goei, CEO of Altice USA, said: “We are not seeing an acceleration of video subscriber losses. We are trending at two percentage points on video subscriber losses, just like last year.”

Somewhat better results were found in its broadband residential business: Optimum grew 23,000, with Suddenlink down 8,000.

Total revenue rose 3.2% to $2.33 billion, while net losses more than doubled -- increasing to $474.8 million. A year ago on a pro forma basis -- accounting for its Cablevision and Suddenlink acquisitions -- there was a net loss of $166.0 million.

Local cable advertising sales improved 2% to $92.7 million.

In June 2016, Altice closed its $17.7 billion buy of Cablevision Systems. In December 2015, it closed its $9.1 billion purchase for 70% of Suddenlink.

Altice has a total of 4.3 million residential cable video customers.