Whenever there’s a big stock market slide, some analysts will call it a “market correction.” It appears that media stocks which have taken a tumble over the last couple of weeks are still undergoing that correction.
Media companies such as 21st Century Fox, CBS, Comcast, Disney and Time Warner have fallen since investors began selling off the stock two weeks ago. Even Netflix which seemed immune from the sell off at the start of the media slide took a tumble this week.
Disney which owns ESPN closed Thursday at its lowest stock price in six months, according to a Motley Fool review. Time Warner, the parent of TBS and TNT, closed at its nadir in 2015 on Thursday as well.
A lot of the sell off is due to worries that the cable networks aren’t growing like they used to. Earlier this month, analysts noted that while Disney had good second quarter earnings, ESPN’s revenues from subscribers and advertising were down due to cord cutting.
And other media companies which have had similar downturns on their cable networks also paid the price Thursday. As CNN’s Brian Stelter notes, as many as 625,000 households dropped cable in the 2nd quarter and that is a record.
Analysts are worried that the number of households that will decide to stop paying for cable bundles will rise. And as of this writing, media stocks are continuing to take a tumble on Friday.
If the cord cutting eases or decreases, then that might assuage investors’ fears, but for now, media stocks appear to be on a huge downward spiral until companies find a way to stop the slide.