The U.S. cable industry has not been immune to Wall Street's recent dive in the wake of the coronavirus. But the size of the drop has varied company to company, exposing different vulnerabilities and creating potential buying opportunities, according to analysts.

Year to date, the S&P 500 was down 25.8% as of market close on March 18, with fears over the spread of the coronavirus producing the fastest bear market in stock-market history. Share prices in the top five publicly traded U.S. cable operators have similarly fallen, though some have seen a steeper drop than others. Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable company both in terms of subscribers and diversification, has seen its share price drop 20.7% from the start of the year as of market close March 18. By contrast, WideOpenWest Inc., a much smaller operator, is down 54.7% over the same period.

Analysts say there are a variety of factors driving these different performances, including stronger balance sheets at some firms when compared to others. But they note that broadly speaking, cable operators are insulated by consumers' persistent need for broadband.

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"The cable industry is viewed as a recession insensitive business, and for good reason," MoffettNathanson analyst and long-time cable bull Craig Moffett said during a March 16 webinar.

If the U.S. economy enters a recession, he does not expect operators to lose high-margin broadband subscribers. Video subscribers are less profitable, so their loss does not negatively impact margins and can, in fact, boost margins. New household formations will likely slow during a recession, however, which Moffett said could hurt broadband subscriber growth rates.

While noting that March economic data has yet to be released, S&P Global Economics said March 17 "the severity of the blow from the coronavirus leads us to believe that the U.S. is entering recession — if not already in one."

Looking at individual companies, Kagan analyst Tony Lenoir noted that Comcast is the nation's largest broadband provider, and thus could actually benefit from "a sizable share" of homes moving to faster broadband tiers as more people work from home and stream video content rather than venturing outside. Kagan is a research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Moffett, though, said in a March 19 research note that Comcast is a "special case" because its NBCUniversal Media LLC business "is positioned in the crosshairs of the very hardest hit parts of the economy." NBCUniversal has closed its U.S. theme parks and suspended production on the majority of its TV series. Also, with theaters shutting down, Universal Pictures is collapsing the theatrical window, opting to make its movies available on-demand on the same day they open in theaters.

Lenoir said, "Comcast is well diversified, but it's true that their parks and theatrical releases are going to be hit."

Other operators may represent "a buying opportunity," said New Street Research communications analyst Jonathan Chaplin, citing Charter Communications Inc. and Altice USA Inc.

Chaplin sees the companies as "good businesses with manageable, but high leverage that have been punished as equity multiples have compressed." Both Charter and Altice USA took on significant debt to finance major acquisitions, leaving Charter with a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 4.5x at the end of 2019 and Altice USA with net leverage of 5.7x, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

With Altice shares down 35.0% year to date as of March 18, Chaplin called the selloff "extreme" and said Altice USA is now "at the very top" of his shopping list.

Due to its debt and lower subscriber growth rates, Moffett deemed Altice USA's position as "slightly more precarious" than other top cable companies. But he noted there are no looming "covenant issues or other concerns with their balance sheet."

"The bottom line here is that Charter, in particular, and Altice USA, as well, look radically more attractive than peers, and their sell-off in parity with the broader market ... looks wildly overdone," Moffett said.

WideOpenWest, which ranks as the smallest of the top five publicly traded cable companies by subscriber number, has seen an even steeper drop than Altice USA, with its stock price falling by more than half year to date.

Notably, WOW's share price woes began before the broader market sell-off. On March 4, the company reported top- and bottom-line results for the fourth quarter of 2019 that all fell short of consensus estimates. On this news, the company's stock price fell $1.00 per share, or almost 16%, to close at $5.26 per share on March 5.

Like Altice USA and Charter, WOW is also more highly leveraged than its peers. WOW had a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 5.7x at the end of 2019, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, versus 3.1x for Cable One Inc. and 3.0x for Comcast.

On a March 4 earnings conference call, B. Riley telecom analyst Zack Silver asked what levers WOW could pull, such as noncore asset sales, to "potentially accelerate that deleveraging if we do get some macro deterioration."

WOW CFO Richard Fish said the company remains "open as always to any conversations with any party," but said no such conversations are currently taking place. Long term, he said the company hopes to bring its net leverage ratio down to the mid-to-low 4x range.