By this time next year and likely before the end of 2023, we will be describing Charter Communications as a bigger pay TV operator in the US market than rival-turned-partner Comcast. It comes as Charter’s pay TV footprint withered by 4.3% in 2022 to a total of 15.1 million subscribers. Comcast’s, meanwhile, collapsed by 11.2% to end the year with 16.1 million pay TV subscribers (see separate item this week for Comcast analysis). This changing of the guard was unfathomable a decade ago, before Charter’s landmark acquisition of Bright House Networks in 2015 that propelled the company from 4.3 million to 16.8 million pay TV subscribers overnight. Even so, Comcast had a head start on Charter to the tune of…