IP Democracy: A Tale of Two Industries -- Cable Sinks and Telco Rises

In the wake of last week's bad news for the U.S. cable industry, and given the surprising golden glow surrounding the incumbent phone industry, I started playing around with stock charts to see just how badly cable has fared on the stock market and pictures do not lie.

Take a look. Over the past year, cable stocks have sunk by dramatic levels. Comcast's shares are off 36%, while Time Warner cable has dropped 37%. Even worse, Charter is down by 57%, Mediacom is down by 40% and even industry superstar, Cablevision Systems, has slipped by 9%.

Contrast these scary drops with the stock performance of the two top incumbent telcos, Verizon and AT&T.

Over the same time period, Verizon has jumped by 28% while AT&T has climbed by 10%. Not included in the chart is the phone industry's oddball, Qwest, which is handicapped by its limited geographic reach and undiversified business agenda. Qwest has dropped by about 8% over the past year, which is not good but still outperforms the top cable companies.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on December 10, 2007 12:58 AM to IP Democracy