• by Wayne Friedman , August 9, 2017

With the possibility of more TV entertainment disruption to come, major media stocks took some hits in early Wednesday morning trading.

Discovery Communications was down 4.6% to $23.17, after incurring some losses a week ago on the news of its planned purchase of Scripps Networks Interactive.

Analysts are concerned about pure cable-network groups finding homes for all their channels on new "skinny" digital TV network platforms.

Walt Disney fell nearly 4.5% following its weak quarterly earnings/revenue network results on Tuesday, to $102.22. The company also announced a number of streaming services to meet the challenge of the slowing traditional pay-TV market.

At the same time, Netflix lost 3% to $173.17, partly as a result of news that Disney would not be making another streaming distribution deal for some of its new films.

Viacom also took a hit -- down 3.6% to $29.67 -- while 21st Century Fox went down 2.0% to $27.45. Some of the better-performing companies included CBS -- losing 1% to $64.60 -- and Sinclair Broadcast Group, down 1.6% to $31.25.

Charter Communications was one of the few companies to show gains -- up 2.2% to $398.11. There is speculation that new cable operator Altice USA, a subsidiary of the French-based telecommunications company, is looking at Charter as a potential acquisition target.

The broader stock market indexes fared much better. The Dow Jones Industrial index slipped 0.3% to 22,016. The Nasdaq was down 0.6% to 6,334, and the S&P 500 lost 0.3% to 2,467.