By Reinhart Krause, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Investors hit the pause button on cable TV stocks over the summer as they flocked to high-dividend-paying phone companies.
Indeed, dividends are among the few things that set the two big providers of telecom services to homes apart.
Phone and cable companies compete in delivering to consumers phone, pay TV and broadband services. Though they're losing droves of video subscribers amid the weak economy, cable TV companies are still the top provider of pay TV. And cable companies are No. 1 in selling broadband.
But when it comes to the key financial metric of shareholder dividends, cable TV companies are playing catch-up with the likes of AT&T (T) and Verizon Communications (VZ).
The telecom leaders offer dividend yields above 6%. AT&T is expected to dole out about $1.68 per share in 2010. Verizon shareholders will get about $1.91 a share.
The nation's two biggest cable TV firms, Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC), only recently began offering dividends. Time Warner Cable's yield is about 3%, or about $1.60 per share in 2010. Comcast's is near 2%, at 38 cents a share.
Disclosure: I own Verizon
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