• by Wayne Friedman , February 2, 2018

Charter Communications bucked the trend of many pay TV providers over the last few quarterly periods -- showing a net gain in traditional video customers.

Charter gained 2,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2017 -- versus a 51,000 loss in the same period a year before. Video revenues were up 3.1% to $4.2 billion.

Overall, it now has 16.54 million video subscribers -- making it the third-largest U.S. pay TV provider, after Comcast (21.34 million) and DirecTV (20.61 million).

Charter also witnessed still higher growth with its Internet consumer business -- up 5.5% to 22.54 million subscribers. Revenues grew 9.8% to $3.6 billion. Its voice business also grew 1% to 10.4 million subscribers, with 18.3% lower revenues of $587 million.

Total fourth-quarter Charter revenues were up 3.2% to $10.6 billion.

Charter’s local cable advertising business sank 17.3% to $419 million, due to lower political advertising versus the election year in 2016.

Net income attributable to Charter ballooned to $9.6 billion from $454 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 -- all due to a big tax benefit from the recent federal tax reform changes made in December.