Contrasting ITV (OTC:ITVPY) and WideOpenWest (NYSE:WOW)

WideOpenWest (NYSE:WOW) and ITV (OTC:ITVPY) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

87.8% of WideOpenWest shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.4% of ITV shares are held by institutional investors. 4.0% of WideOpenWest shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.0% of ITV shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for WideOpenWest and ITV, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
WideOpenWest	1	0	1	0	2.00
ITV	0	0	0	0	0.00

WideOpenWest presently has a consensus price target of $7.50, suggesting a potential upside of 49.85%. Given WideOpenWest’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe WideOpenWest is more favorable than ITV.

Profitability

This table compares WideOpenWest and ITV’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
WideOpenWest	-14.17%	-22.83%	-3.60%
ITV	N/A	N/A	N/A

Risk and Volatility

WideOpenWest has a beta of 1.47, meaning that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ITV has a beta of 1.47, meaning that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares WideOpenWest and ITV”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
WideOpenWest	$630.90 million	0.67	-$287.70 million	($0.71)	-7.05
ITV	$4.50 billion	0.86	$261.22 million	N/A	N/A

ITV has higher revenue and earnings than WideOpenWest.

Summary

ITV beats WideOpenWest on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About WideOpenWest

WideOpenWest, Inc. provides high speed data, cable television, and digital telephony services to residential and business services customers in the United States. The company's video services include basic cable services that comprise local broadcast television and local community programming; digital cable services; WOW tv+ that offers traditional cable video and cloud DVR functionality, voice remote with Google Assistant, and Netflix integration along with access to various streaming services and apps through the Google Play Store; and commercial-free movies, TV shows, sports, and other special event entertainment programs. Its telephony services consist of local and long-distance telephone services; business telephony and data services include fiber based, office-to-office metro Ethernet, session-initiated protocol trunking, colocation infrastructure, cloud computing, managed backup, and recovery services. The company was formerly known as WideOpenWest Kite, Inc. and changed its name to WideOpenWest, Inc. in March 2017. WideOpenWest, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is based in Englewood, Colorado.

About ITV

ITV plc, an integrated production, broadcasting, and streaming company, which creates, owns, and distributes content on various platforms worldwide. It operates through ITV Studios and Media & Entertainment segments. The ITV Studios segment creates and produces programs and formats that include sports, drama, entertainment, factual, and news for its own channels and other broadcasters. The segment also operates as an unscripted independent producer of content in the United States; and produces content for local broadcasters and international OTT platforms in Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. In addition, this segment engages in licensing its finished programmes, formats, and third-party content internationally, as well as finances productions. The Media & Entertainment segment broadcasts and streams various contents on its family of free-to-air TV channels; and offers television advertising services. The company also delivers content through linear television broadcasting, as well as on the ITV Hub, BritBox UK, ITVX, catch up services on pay platforms, and through direct content deals. In addition, this segment offers online advertising, HD digital channel on pay platform, and ITV Premium subscription services. The company was founded in 1955 is based in London, the United Kingdom.