Altice To Buy More, Pay Less

The European telco, Altice, plans to buy more cable properties as it grows its footprint in the United States.  At the same time, they have already stated that they expect to pay less to keep costs low and margins high.  According to Deadline Hollywood, that they will pay less for channels or drop those that don't perform.  At the same time, he cites some high wage earners in the company that may not be a part of their future.

Given Altice's desire to become a bigger force in cable operations, challenging both Comcast and Charter for system ownership, more deals could come in the next year or so once the FCC approves the Altice purchase of Cablevision and Suddenlink.  That means that Cox Cable could also be in their sights, as well as Mediacom, WOW!, and CableOne. 

Consolidation might also lead to Verizon watching how well AT&T is doing with their DirecTV purchase.  If they start to see success, Verizon might want to kick the tires on Dish Network.  Of course, there is always Google and their slow fiber expansion across a few cities.  Perhaps Verizon is tired of supporting their FIOS brand and willing to get out of the wired business completely to refocus on wireless broadband. 

The media landscape looks to get more interesting given the involvement of Altrice into the mix.  And new cost structures could lead to a quantum change in channels and services being offered.