To listen to some executives cry on their quarterly conference calls about the struggles of the cable television industry during the economic downturn almost makes you want to weep for their misfortune, until you realize some of those voices are getting big salary hikes anyway.  For a select few, economic downturns are for the little people.  Nothing shall stand in the way of substantial salary raises and bonuses.  Don’t have the money to pay?  Just raise your rates!

Take Time Warner Cable’s Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs.  Many of y0u will remember him from last April’s controversial Internet Overcharging experiment.  Landel tried to convince consumers their rape and pillage broadband pricing was a good thing, and objections to it were simply a result of you misunderstanding how good of a deal it was.

Hobbs has an all-new employment agreement you can read for yourself.  Sonya Hubbard from footnoted, which reviews SEC filings, notes the company went out of its way to hand Hobbs a new contract a year before his current one expires:

The odd thing about Hobbs’ raise is that, according to the proxy filed April 20, 2009, his 2008 employment agreement wouldn’t have expired until January 31, 2011.  That agreement paid him a base salary of $900,000, an annual discretionary target bonus of 233% of his base salary (nearly $2.1 million), and a discretionary annual equity and other long-term incentive compensation award with a minimum target value of $3,000,000.

The new agreement took effect January 1, 2010 and has the same expiration date… January 31, 2011 as his former agreement.  But now Hobbs gets a minimum annual base salary of $1,000,000 and an annual long-term incentive compensation with a target value of $3,650,000.  The annual discretionary cash bonus remains at $2,100,000 (although now the number is specifically stated, rather than given as a percentage of his salary).

Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Robert Marcus also gets a new contract, after his old one expired in 2008 (he’s been getting a monthly extension ever since).  Hubbard reports:

The company had given Marcus raises, of course.  In addition to other types of compensation, as of last April Marcus’s base salary was $800,000, his annual discretionary target bonus was 175% of his base salary ($1.4 million), and his discretionary annual equity and other long-term incentive compensation award had a minimum target value of 225% of his base salary ($1,800,000).

The new agreement, which became effective January 1  and runs through December 31, 2012, states that Marcus will now get a minimum Base Salary of $900,000, an annual Target Bonus of $1,500,000, and an annual long-term incentive compensation with a target value of $3,100,000.

While executives surely appreciate a raise as much as the rest of us do, it’s probably a safe bet that investors and especially cable customers may be less enthusiastic about the new agreements.

At those prices, both can afford a lot of pay-per-view, but then, Time Warner Cable often provides free service to its higher level employees and management, so they’re insulated from those pesky rate hikes the rest of us pay year after year, too.

Princeton, Kentucky

A cable technician and his supervisor were jailed late last week after a customer dispute escalated into a shoving match between the Mediacom employees and the Princeton, Kentucky police.

Under arrest are Shannon K. Parker, 46, of Indian Avenue, Oak Grove, and 55-year-old Phillip R. Tosh of Centennial Drive.

Police officials responded to a call from 509 North Jefferson Street over an argument between a customer and the cable technician.  When police arrived, they report Parker was using loud, obscene language and refused to follow police instructions to calm down.

Tosh, a Mediacom supervisor, then joined the fracas and reportedly shoved one of the officers attempting to take Parker into custody.

The Times-Leader reports both men were arrested and lodged in the county jail.

Parker was charged with disorderly conduct. Tosh was charged with third-degree assault on a police officer and hindering prosecution or apprehension.

The investigation continues, and other charges are possible, police told the newspaper.

Strigl, who has 18.5 million reasons to smile

It used to be when a truly valued employee choose to retire, he or she might get away with a gold watch and a retirement bash, but those days are over.

While the rest of America copes with layoffs, high unemployment, and a decline in real income, the chosen few retire in style, walking away with stunning parting gifts.

Take Verizon’s Dennis F. Strigl, the company’s former president and chief operating officer.  After years of service to Verizon, he decided to retire this past December.  In addition to whatever parties his fellow employees threw him at the end of the year, Strigl will also receive an $18.5 million separation payment this July.  That’s 14 times his former annual salary of $1.32 million dollars.  Verizon claims in its filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission that it was “required” to cough up the 18 million because of Strigl’s employment contract.

DealBook’s Perk Watch found out plenty more:

There are other goodies thrown in as well for Mr. Strigl, including a $1.9 million short-term plan award, a $451,000 executive life insurance benefit, and a tax gross-up worth $367,478. Mr. Strigl will also have his telecommunications services covered for the next five years, which the company estimates will cost around $11,500 ($192 a month).

A Verizon spokesman, Bob Varettoni, said in an e-mail message that Mr. Strigl’s employment agreement “was used as a retention vehicle when Bell Atlantic completed its acquisition of GTE in 2000, forming Verizon and Verizon Wireless. So it was a contractual payment under a legacy employment agreement.”

Toben

Walk into your boss’ office and ask where your retention vehicle is in your employment contract.

Executive suite Money Parties don’t stop with Strigl.  Doreen A. Toben, who stepped down as chief financial officer last March and left the company in June, received $3.5 million under her employment agreement and also entered into a one-year consulting agreement that paid her $125,000 each month. And at the end of 2008, when William P. Barr retired as Verizon’s general counsel, he received a payment of $10.38 million six months after he stepped down from the company, according to Perk Watch.

For those on the lower floors, the company will provide you a free cardboard box to collect your belongings and get out of the building.  After slashing 17,000 jobs in 2009, Verizon has announced it expects to cut another 13,000 employees in 2010.

An inmate serving time for robbery is convinced the local cable company and state corrections department are robbing him on his monthly cable bill.

Joel Santos Maldonado, 28, of Lancaster is serving a 12- to 26-year sentence at the State Correctional Institute at Fayette in Labelle, Luzerne Township, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Maldonado already feels his monthly bill from Texas-based Correctional Cable TV (CCTV), which provides cable service to prisoners, is high enough, but when he discovered the state included a 75-cent monthly “administrative fee” he filed a lawsuit.

Maldonado accuses the state of interfering with his business relationship with CCTV by including the fee.  Without the fee, his bill would be $15.75 a month for the 47-channel cable package.

His suit asks for a reversal of the 75-cent fee as well as unspecified damages.

Prison officials counter the administrative fee has been part of the cable package for at least four years.

Trinity Broadcasting Network offers inmates special programming on CCTV that it claims "rebuilds inmate lives and reduces recidivism"

“The inmate signs an agreement that states we charge this fee when he elects to purchase cable,” corrections department spokeswoman Susan Bensinger told the newspaper. “If he doesn’t want to pay the fee, he can simply elect to not purchase cable TV service.”

Those outside of prison pay more for their cable service.  Cable pricing from Atlantic Broadband is a comparably worse deal.  For $19.99 a month, residents of Labelle get 20 channels, mostly local broadcast stations, public access, and a handful of basic cable channels.  To get a package comparable to what Madonado receives, a customer would have to upgrade to the 67-channel standard service package — for $59.99 a month.

The lawsuit awaits further action in Fayette County court.

Correctional Cable TV began providing cable service to Correctional Facilities in the early 1990’s and currently serves more than 130 facilities across 20 states, particularly in Colorado, Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  The company furnishes, installs, and maintains the equipment to provide the programming at no up front cost to the prison authority.  Programming costs are recouped by charges paid by inmates to receive the service.

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban has once again entered the debate over online video, Internet Overcharging schemes, and giant corporate mergers… and mangled it.

Cuban, who owns HD Net as well as the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, occasionally presents cable industry talking points on his blog, but quickly gets into trouble when he strays from them.

This time, Cuban is annoyed with Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) over remarks the senator made about the proposed Comcast-NBC merger.  Cuban seized on comments by Franken that Comcast should put all of its television programming online.  Doing that, Cuban insists, would lead to higher prices for broadband and usage caps on it.

Where has Cuban been?  I realize the man is too wealthy to worry about the relentless rate increases Comcast and other companies force on consumers every year, but he also forgot Comcast already has a usage cap on its service, even before the feared video tidal wave arrives.

I get that no one really cares if Comcast has to spend money on capital improvements to add bandwidth to the home.  They should. Its pretty damn stupid to push consumption in a direction that will raise internet rates  to receive the same content for which there is already a phenomenal digital network in place to deliver that content.

Think about it for a minute Senator Franken. Comcast, and every large TV Provider has a digital network in place that can and does deliver gigabits of tv content perfectly,  every second of every day, to any TV set in any  home that is connected to their network. It works. Well.  What you are asking Sen Franken, is that Comcast duplicate the delivery of theirs and NBCUniversals shows on a network, the internet,  that is not, and has never been designed to handle the delivery of huge volumes of video and tv shows.

Cuban should be arguing that point with the cable industry.  TV Everywhere, the online video platform that will offer consumers access to “hundreds of TV shows and cable programming,” is their invention.  If Cuban’s fears are correct, why would the nation’s largest cable operators launch such an ambitious online video platform?

Cuban has bought into industry propaganda justifying usage caps.  There is always an excuse for rationing broadband service to boost profits.  First it was file sharing, now it’s online video causing the “serious problem” of customers using broadband service for more than just e-mail and web browsing.  Their solution – monetize it.  Usage caps and usage based billing are about preserving high profits, not protecting or increasing network capacity.  TV Everywhere proves that.

Franken does not advocate usage caps, as Cuban suggests.  The senator simply wants to be certain Comcast cannot act as a gatekeeper, determining who gets access to Comcast-NBC programming, and who does not.

Cuban should be welcome to such measures as a victim of Gatekeeper Abuse himself.  Mark, how many subscribers did you lose nationwide when Time Warner Cable unilaterally pulled the plug on your channels?