Cable Takes Yet Another Hit

1759 Views 11 Replies 10 Participants Last post by jegrant, Jun 20, 2002

Steve Mehs

Discussion Starter · Jun 11, 2002

Already reeling from high debt levels, allegations of self-dealing and potential bankruptcies, the cable television industry recently took another hit as researchers from Alexander and Associates promoted new findings on cable household subscriptions. According to the A&A folks, cable subscription levels peaked in 2000-2001 at 62 percent but have been declining since early this year.

Said Mike Gorman, consultant and analyst with A&A, "Penetration declines in this case mean actual disconnects; this is a real net loss of subscribers for the cable community."

The declines noted by A&A are also reflected in recent research by Media Business Corp.'s BIGPIPE division, which analyzed data submitted to FCC by cable operators. According to the information, the cable industry currently passes about 85.5 percent of the nation's households and has a penetration rate of 59 percent.

(More information on the BIGPIPE cable data study can be purchased via the Bandwidth Bridge Cable Homes Passed and Basic Cable Penetration report or by calling Robert Lehmann at 303-271-1234.)

From SkyReport (Used with Permission)

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woodman

· #2 · Jun 11, 2002

Whoopee! Progress is being made!

Now if we can just get the merger accepted, perhaps the evil dragon known as cableTV can be really "slain" at last (or at least severely wounded). That would make me one happy camper!

woodman

P.S. If you perceive the foregoing as evidence that I HATE the cable industry with a passion ... you're right!

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Frapp

· #3 · Jun 11, 2002

Originally posted by woodman
Whoopee! Progress is being made!

Now if we can just get the merger accepted, perhaps the evil dragon known as cableTV can be really "slain" at last (or at least severely wounded). That would make me one happy camper!

woodman

P.S. If you perceive the foregoing as evidence that I HATE the cable industry with a passion ... you're right!

I think i`ll stay on the fence on this one. Cable has it`s problems .. YES .. but Dish has released a few new units over the last two years ( and more may be on the way ) that they can not get the software correct for. Also remember, they are losing $100,s of Millions per year.

In my major metropolitan area, I have noticed a HUGE improvement over our local cable PQ and service, I think we have Charlie E. to thank for this by making the local cable companies respond to his aggressive marketing.

Basically, I think there will always be more customers out there that want/need a one-wire cable solution although the community here does not fall into that category. If you ever worked in a satellite showroom, you would see that fact.

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON`T NEED A DISH <G>

Just my opinion from a different angle :shrug:

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· #4 · Jun 11, 2002

Charter Communications, with its superior digital channel line-up, superior crystal clear channels, totally cool video on demand, 42 channels of Music Choice channels, and so many more neat movie channels will rule the day!!

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AllieVi

· #5 · Jun 11, 2002

Originally posted by woodman
Now if we can just get the merger accepted, perhaps the evil dragon known as cableTV can be really "slain" at last (or at least severely wounded). That would make me one happy camper!

If the merger were to be approved and the cable dragon "slain" as you suggest, then we'd be in the same situation that most of us despised - a single dominant provider. Except in this case it would not be cable, it would be the surviving satellite company and the same complaints would eventually arise.

I prefer to have healthy cable and satellite companies - the more the better!

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Mark Holtz

· #6 · Jun 11, 2002

And, which city are you in? Does it have a web page?

If you have a really good cable system, more power to you. Some of us don't, and the antics of AT&T Broadband (at least in Sacramento) has resulted defections to other sources, including Dish and DirecTV.

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Kevin

· #7 · Jun 12, 2002

Originally posted by Buffalo
Charter Communications, with its superior digital channel line-up, superior crystal clear channels, totally cool video on demand, 42 channels of Music Choice channels, and so many more neat movie channels will rule the day!!

Oh god, not again.

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Scott Greczkowski

· #8 · Jun 12, 2002

Buffalo, glad you like Digital Cable. As you can see the site is called DBStalk not Digital Cable forums.

Further Digital Cable spam will be deleted without warning, and other steps can be taken as well.

(I wonder if there is digitalcabletalk.com?)

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Nick

· #9 · Jun 12, 2002

AllieVi opined....

"I prefer to have healthy cable and satellite companies - the more the better!"

I agree.

It is important, and in the best interest of consumers, that both cable and sat
providers survive and thrive. Healthy competition is what drives advances
in the respective technologies, and serves to keep prices down.

The reasons many of us have disliked cable are well documented here and
in other forums. But, as cable systems upgrade their systems and improve
technology, many of those reasons go away.

It is irrational to continue to hold and express such negative views without
recognizing the strides many cablecos have made. Frankly, if my relevant
cablecos, AT&T and Adelphia, were to improve their technology,
programming, customer service. reliability and pricing such that
it equaled or exceeded DBS, I would take another look.

If any DBS sub, for their own reasons, chooses to switch to cable, so be it.
That is his choice, and the decision should not be impugned or denigrated
by DBS fans.

After all, it's only TV.

The Nickster :smoking:

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Scott Greczkowski

· #10 · Jun 12, 2002

I have cable. I have a cable modem. The Cable modem works great the cable looks like... Cable.

I have had Digital Cable, thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread when I first got it! (I was one of the first Digital Cable customers, West Hartford Connecticut was the first town in the US to get Digital Cable)

After sticking with Digital Cable for a long time (I even had a Digital Cable web page!) I got tired of them constantly moving around channels and modifying packages. I got upset as I upgraded to Dolby Digital and got a DVD player and went to hook the recevier up to my Digital Cable box (which has a Big Dolby Digital Logo painted on it) only to find out it does not support Dolby Digital.

Then along came HDTV, I wanted it, I had to have it! I called the cable company and they had no clue what that was.

I was moving to my new house so I took a look at satellite, Dish Network was about to come out with the 6000 so I ordered one of those, I have been with satellite ever since.

While many will say that some satelltie tuners are slow and the guides are bad, they should go play with Digital Cable for awhile, I am sure after they play they will want their satellite receivers back.

Cable is learning, they figured out that they lost all of their good $120 a month subscribers to DBS because of the fact they didnt keep their services in tune with Technology.

Cable did not listen to their customers, who wanted better pictures more channel selections and better technology. If you wanted all the new channels DBS always had them first.

Times are starting to Change, DBS has turned into something great into CableTV from the sky, new channels are no popping up on cable long before they are ever available on satellite.

My local cable system even called me a few weeks ago to let me know they hope to have HDTV available by the end of the year.

I think DBS better look out, or it will be there turn to play catch up.

(Editorial Mode off)

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dlsnyder

· #11 · Jun 12, 2002

There will always be technophobes who think DBS is too complicated, or those who think a dish on their house is unsightly. For them cable will always be the only choice. For the rest of us, it is good to have a healthy competitor to DBS. A strong cable industry (hopefully) will keep a merged D*/E* humble and responsive to their customers needs.

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jegrant

· #12 · Jun 20, 2002

I would like Insight Digital better here in Indiana if they would have kept Music Choice instead of dropping it for DMX. We had the old DMX service (30 channel) on a dedicated receiver *before* we even had digital cable (in the dark old days of TCI). Then we got the 30-channel service again as part of our (awful; overcompressed) HITS digital cable service on General Instrument boxes which provided a "Dolby Digital" logo. Just the logo, mind you, not the actual service.

Finally, Insight more recently re-built their entire system to be two-way and (IIRC) up to 750 or 800 MHZ. As part of this rebuild, they dumped HITS entirely in favor of building their own digital system headend. This was good, because it included a 45 channel Music Choice service. Bad, because we only had Music Choice for several months; I woke up one day to find DMX substituted instead.

DMX continues to this day, even with the Lite Classical service on 2 different channels. I was able to get a CSR to send me a copy of an internal memo listing the new DMX channel lineup, which was sent out right after the switch was made, and the memo even admits to realizing Lite Classical was on two positions, and said that it would be fixed in a future update. Here we are, actually a few channel additions and lineup changes later, and nothing has been done. I wonder if this is just a shameless attempt to pad channel count, or if no one really cares.

Ironically, one of my favorite restaurants (Donato's Pizza) has DirecTV, so I get jealous everytime I hear the Music Choice channels in there. Also, we are in the Indianapolis DMA, but they are getting Cincinnati locals last I saw.

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