You can still read a book instead of everything else.

Allowing Comcast to dominate New York’s cable television marketplace will deter future competitors from entering the market, particularly for television programming.

One of the arguments made by proponents of the merger is the possibility of decreased wholesale television programming costs won through volume discounts available to the largest nationwide providers. Unfortunately for consumers, Comcast has already declared customers will not benefit from those discounts in the form of lower cable bills.

A prospective new entrant considering providing cable television service will face competition with Comcast without any benefit of volume discounts on programming.[1] That makes it unlikely a provider will offer a competing television package.

This is not a theoretical problem.

In Ohio, independent cable company MCTV discovered that while large cable operators like Comcast were benefiting from volume discounts, it faced contract renewal prices more than 40 times the rate of inflation.[2] Cable ONE, owned by the Washington Post, had to drop more than a dozen Viacom owned channels for good because it could not afford the asking price.[3]

MCTV president Bob Gessner reminds us of just how concentrated the entertainment business has become, noting that nine media companies (Comcast is one of them) now control 95% of all paid video content consumed in the United States.[4]

MCTV’s survival plan includes membership in the 900-member National Cable Television Cooperative, the only way smaller providers can pool resources and win discounts of their own. It is no longer effective as mergers and acquisitions continue to consolidate the cable and telco-TV business. All 900 NCTC members serve a combined five million customers. Comcast has 21 million, DirecTV: 20 million, Dish Networks: 14 million, and Time Warner Cable: 11 million.[5]

AT&T confesses it cannot compete effectively with Comcast and other larger competitors for the same reason. AT&T’s solution, like Comcast, is to buy a competitor, in this case DirecTV.[6]

Frontier Communications faced a similar problem after adopting Verizon FiOS franchises in Indiana and the Pacific Northwest after purchasing Verizon landline networks in several states. When Frontier lost Verizon’s volume discounts on programming, Frontier’s solution was to begin a marketing campaign to convince its fiber customers to abandon the technology and switch to one of its satellite television partners.[7]

—

[1]https://www.fiercecable.com/cable/comcast-twc-deal-will-squeeze-programming-and-technology-vendors

[2]http://stopthecap.com/2014/06/05/independent-cable-companies-unify-against-cable-tv-programmer-rate-increases/

[3]http://online.wsj.com/articles/viacom-60-cable-firms-part-ways-in-rural-u-s-1403048557

[4]http://stopthecap.com/2014/06/05/independent-cable-companies-unify-against-cable-tv-programmer-rate-increases/

[5]http://stopthecap.com/2014/06/05/independent-cable-companies-unify-against-cable-tv-programmer-rate-increases/

[6]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-02/dish-or-directv-need-deal-most-in-at-t-love-triangle-real-m-a.html

[7]http://stopthecap.com/2011/08/16/frontiers-fiber-mess-company-losing-fios-subs-landline-customers-but-adds-bonded-dsl/

Comcast has repeatedly touted its rating from J.D. Power & Associates claiming the company has been cited for the most improvement of any cable operator scored by the survey firm. That isn’t saying very much when one takes a closer look.

In fact, since 2010 Comcast has achieved very little improvement in its abysmal score. J.D. Power & Associates reports that over the last four years, Comcast has only managed to boost its TV satisfaction score 92 points and Internet satisfaction 77 points… on a 1,000-point scale.[1]

Comcast also continues to have below-average scores in all four regions for both television and broadband, with the exception of Internet service in the north-central region, where it faces competition from DSL offered by telephone company CenturyLink.

Other consumer satisfaction surveys are far less charitable to Comcast.

Consumer Reports ranked Comcast 15^th out of 17 large cable companies and called their service and customer relations mediocre. In a survey conducted in April, the consumer group found 56% of the public opposed to the merger, 11% supported it, and 32% offered no opinion. The survey found 74% believing the merger will result in higher prices and fewer choices for consumers.[2]

“A merger combining these two huge companies would give Comcast even greater control over the cable and broadband Internet markets, leading to higher prices, fewer choices, and worse customer service for consumers,” Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel in Consumers Union’s D.C. office, said in a statement.[3]

Nearly every year, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts acknowledges the problems with customer service and promises improvements.[4] But according to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, those improvements never arrive. Perhaps they need the expertise of professionals like those virtual assistants to turn things around.

In 2004, ACSI noted it added cable television to its index in 2000, and since that time, “customer satisfaction has gone from bad to worse, and there is no improvement in sight:”[5]

Among cable providers, Time Warner has the highest score of 60. Both Comcast and Charter Communications register at 56. For the private as well as public sector, including the IRS, this is the lowest level of customer satisfaction of any organization in ACSI. Consumer complaints are also much more common relative to any other measured industry. Almost half of all cable customers have registered complaints about one thing or another.

When buyers have meaningful choice alternatives, this level of customer (dis)satisfaction is neither competitive nor sustainable. Cable is the only industry to score below 60 in ACSI. With the satellite companies removed, the weighted average for the cable industry is 59.

Under normal competitive conditions, there would be mass customer defections. The reason this is not the case for the cable industry is due to local monopoly power, which means that in most markets, the dissatisfied customer has nowhere to go.

In 2007, ACSI foreshadows what a merger between two giant cable companies is likely to mean for customers as the two companies eventually attempt to integrate their disparate computer systems and management:[6]

After a minor gain in 2006, the first ever for the industry, satisfaction among subscribers to cable and satellite TV service drops 2% to 62, the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered by ACSI.  None of the providers has improved on customer satisfaction this year.  Comcast (down 7% to 56), DirecTV (down 6% to 67) and Time Warner Cable (down 5% to 58) tumble.  High system loads causing problems with reliability and pricing were major culprits.  Both Comcast and Time Warner have acquired many new subscribers in their deal to divide up troubled cable provider Adelphia Communications – integrating these acquisitions often leads to short-term problems with customer satisfaction.

In 2008, things deteriorated further for Comcast customers, according to this ACSI assessment:[7]

Comcast is down 4% to 54, an all-time low for the largest cable provider in the country. Rapid growth may have contributed to difficulties in operations as Comcast continues to add cable subscribers, often through acquisitions of companies in smaller markets.

[…] As is often the case, small is often better in terms of being able to provide good customer service. Cablevision, for example, with some 3 million subscribers, is barely 1/8th the size of Comcast. These companies don’t generally seek to expand quickly beyond their geographic footprints and are often targets of acquisition by larger firms, companies that may be able to withstand depressed customer satisfaction in the short term as operations of the smaller providers are integrated.

This year, both Comcast and Time Warner Cable fell even further according to ACSI:[8]

Cable giants Comcast and Time Warner Cable have the most dissatisfied customers. Comcast falls 5% to 60, while Time Warner registers the biggest loss and plunges 7% to 56, its lowest score to date.

“Comcast and Time Warner assert their proposed merger will not reduce competition because there is little overlap in their service territories,” says David VanAmburg, ACSI Director. “Still, it’s a concern whenever two poor-performing service providers combine operations. ACSI data consistently show that mergers in service industries usually result in lower customer satisfaction, at least in the short term. It’s hard to see how combining two negatives will be a positive for consumers.”

ACSI also scored Internet Service Providers this year and found even worse news:[9]

High prices, slow data transmission and unreliable service drag satisfaction to record lows, as customers have few  alternatives beyond the largest Internet service providers. Customer satisfaction with ISPs drops 3.1% to 63, the lowest score in the Index.

[…] Cable-company-controlled ISPs languish at the bottom of the rankings again. Cox Communications is the best of these and stays above the industry average despite a 6% fall to 64. Customers rate Comcast (-8% to 57) and Time Warner Cable (-14% to 54) even lower for Internet service than for their TV service. In both industries, the two providers have the weakest customer satisfaction.

Comcast claims the transaction will allow the two companies to invest in their networks, improve customer service with a topnotch phone answering service, and enhance the products available to Time Warner Cable customers.

In reality, Comcast’s largest investment will be in a $17 billion share buyback to benefit their stockholders.[10] Time Warner Cable’s current CEO has secured for himself a golden parachute package of $78 million dollars for just two months on the job as CEO of Time Warner Cable.[11]

With that kind of money on the table, it is no surprise Comcast has invested in 76 lobbyists from 24 different lobbying firms and is spending millions trying to convince regulators, including the NY PSC that this transaction is a good deal for New York. The more than 2,700 New Yorkers that have filed comments with the PSC, largely in strong opposition to this merger, disagree. Their voices should speak louder than out of state groups that have been urged by Comcast to send letters supporting this transaction.

—

[1]http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/comcast-time-warner-cable-remain-among-most-hated-tv-providers-survey-1201145921/

[2]http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/comcast-time-warner-cable-merger-poll-shows-majority-oppose-1201224277/

[3]http://consumersunion.org/

[4]http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-CEO-Makes-His-Yearly-Promise-to-Improve-Customer-Service-128206

[5]http://www.theacsi.org/component/content/article/30-commentary-category/86-acsi-quarterly-commentaries-q1-2004

[6]http://www.theacsi.org/component/content/article/30-commentary-category/169-acsi-quarterly-commentaries-q1-2007

[7]http://www.theacsi.org/component/content/article/30-commentary-category/179-acsi-quarterly-commentaries-q1-2008

[8]http://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/press-2014/press-release-telecommunications-and-information-2014

[9]http://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/press-2014/press-release-telecommunications-and-information-2014

[10]http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/comcast_agrees_to_purchase_of.html

[11]http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/20/four-months-as-time-warner-cables-ceo--80-million/6658083/

“Comcast Corp.’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. may be the opening act for a yearlong festival of telecommunications deals that would alter Internet, phone and TV service for tens of millions of Americans.” — Bloomberg News, May 14, 2014

Wall Street analysts remain certain Comcast and Time Warner Cable won’t be the only merger on the table this year as the $45 billion dollar deal is expected to spark a new wave of consolidation, further reducing competitive choice in telecom services for most Americans.

While the industry continues to insist that the current foundation of deregulation is key to investment and competition, the reality on the ground is less certain.

Let’s review history:

For several decades, the cable industry has avoided head-on competition with other cable operators. They argue the costs of “overbuilding” cable systems into territories already serviced by another company is financially impractical and reckless. But that did not stop telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon from overhauling portions of their networks to compete, and in at least some communities another provider has emerged to offer some competition. Some wonder if AT&T was willing to spend billions to upgrade their urban landline network to provide U-verse, why won’t cable companies spend some money and compete directly with one another?

The answer is simple: They can earn a lot more by limiting competition.

When only a few firms account for most of the sales of a product, those firms can sometimes exercise market power by either explicitly or implicitly coordinating their actions. Coordinated interaction is especially suspect where all firms seem to charge very similar prices and few, if any, are willing to challenge the status quo.

Since the 1980s, the telecommunications industry has been deregulated off and on to a degree not seen since the pioneer days of telephone service. That was the era when waves of mergers created near-monopolies in the oil, railroad, energy, tobacco, steel and sugar industries. By the late 1890s, evidence piled up that proved reducing the number of providers in a market leads to higher prices and poor service. The abuses eventually led to the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and later the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914.

Here is what happened when the cable industry was reined in during the early 1990s, only to be deregulated again.

The generation of political leaders that dominated Washington during the 1980s developed selective amnesia about economic history and dismantled many of the regulatory protections established to protect consumers, arguing competition would keep markets in check. In the broadband and cable business, that has not proved as successful as the industry represents.

At the heart of the problem is the 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The sweeping law is littered with lobbyist landmines for consumers and their interests. Under the guise of increasing competition, the 1996 law actually helped reduce competition by removing regulatory oversight and, perhaps unintentionally, sparking an enormous rampage of industry consolidation followed by price increases. The Bush Administration kept the war on consumers going with the appointment of Michael Powell (now the CEO of the cable industry’s lobbying group) to chair the Federal Communications Commission. Under Powell, non-discriminatory access to networks by competitors was curtailed, and Powell’s FCC gave carte blanche to the cable industry’s plan to cluster its territories into large regional monopolies and a tight national oligopoly. The FCC’s own researchers quietly admitted in the early 2000s “clustering raised prices.”

By January 2001, cable operators had settled on rate increases that averaged three times the rate of inflation. While the national inflation rate hovered around 1%, cable companies routinely raised basic cable rates an average of 7% annually. Powell declared rising cable rates were not a consumer problem and adopted the industry’s classic talking point that rate increases reflect the “value of the programming” found on cable. In fact, even as cable customers grew increasingly angry about rate increases, Powell told three different reporters he wanted to further relax the FCC’s involvement in cable pricing. (McClintock, Pamela, “Powell: No Cable Coin Crisis” Variety, April 30, 2001; Hearn, Ted. “Powell: Value Matters in Cable Rates,” Multichannel News, March 13, 2002; Powell Press Conference, February 8, 2001; Dreazen, Yochi. “FCC Chairman Signals Change, Plans to Limit Intervention,” Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2001.)

Economists reviewing data found in publicly available corporate balance sheets soon found evidence that the “increased programming costs”-excuse for rate increases did not hold water. The less competition or number of choices available to consumers in the market unambiguously lead to higher prices. It has remained true since Consumers’ Union revealed the financial trickery in 2003:

The cable industry will claim that programming costs are driving prices up. While programming costs have certainly risen, a close look at the numbers shows that rising program costs account for only a small part of the rising rates.

If costs were really the cause of rising prices, then the cable industries’ operating margins – the difference between its revenues and costs — would not be rising. The facts are just the opposite. Operating margins have been increasing dramatically since 1997. The operating margin for the industry as a whole will reach $18.8 billion per year in 2002, $7 billion more than it was in 1997. Operating revenues per subscriber have increased dramatically over that period, from $208 per year to $273. That is, after taking out all the operating costs, including programming costs, cable operators have increased their take per subscriber by over 30 percent.

[…] The ability of cable operators to raise rates and increase revenues, even with rising programming costs, stems from the market power they have at the point of sale. They would not be able to raise prices and pass program price increases through if they did not have monopoly power.

Consumers’ Union also foreshadows what will happen if another wave of industry consolidation takes hold the way it did over a decade earlier:

While the cable industry has certainly increased capital expenditures to upgrade its plants, it has actually sunk a lot more capital into another activity – mergers and acquisitions.

It is the outrageous prices that have been paid to buy each other out and consolidate the industry that is helping to drive the rate increases. Between 1998, when the first mega merger between cable operators was announced, and 2001, when the last big merger was announced, cable companies spent over a quarter of a trillion dollars buying each other out. In those four years, they spent almost six times as much on mergers and acquisitions as they did on capital expenditures to upgrade their systems. At the same time, the average price paid per subscriber more than doubled.

When a cable operator pays such an outrageous price, the previous owner is reaping the financial rewards of his monopoly power. The acquiring company can only pay such a high price by assuming that his monopoly power will allow him to continue to increase prices. Monopoly power is being bought and sold and borrowed against. The new cable operator, who has paid for market power, may insist that the debt he has incurred to obtain it is a real cost on his books. That may be correct in the literal sense (he owes someone that money) but that does not make it right, or the abuse of market power legal.

Fast-forwarding to 2014, economist and Temple professor Joel Maxcy said the same basic economic truths still exist today with Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable.

“My concern is the merger and the consolidation of the cable and internet delivery system for consumers and what will happen to internet and cable rates and choices,” Maxcy said, voicing his hesitancy about a deal that merges the nation’s two largest cable providers. “As that industry has gotten more consolidated over time, we have seen rates go up. The answer from them is that we’ve got more choices. Are we better off or not better off? I don’t know, but certainly rates have gone up at a much faster rate than the inflation rate. The result of more monopoly power is always higher prices and less choices and it seems that this merger moves in that direction.”

“The threat from non-network content providers is a concern for the cable industry,” Maxcy added.

“We’re moving to a situation where we don’t need cable, but we still need the internet and the cable companies are the ones that have control of that,” he said. “Consolidating them together makes them more competitive against the outside forces, but the other argument makes the whole thing less competitive so they’ll have more ability to control the access to Netflix, YouTube and the like. People that may develop other similar sorts of services will have a hard time getting the access they would like to purchase those.”

Chris Stigall spoke with economist and Temple professor Joel Maxcy on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT in Philadelphia about Comcast’s attempt to purchase Time Warner Cable and what that means for consumers. Feb. 18, 2014 (12:10)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

AT&T has approached DirecTV about a possible acquisition of the satellite provider in a deal expected to fetch at least $40 billion, spare change for AT&T’s $185 billion operation.

The Wall Street Journal reports the deal would combine DirecTV’s 20 million customers with AT&T’s 5.7 million U-verse customers, rivaling the size of a combined Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The idea for the merger came after Comcast and Time Warner Cable struck their deal in February, and a person familiar with the merger talks reports DirecTV is receptive to a deal with AT&T. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson reportedly saw the next wave of consolidation in the American cable market as a potential game-changer, forcing AT&T to refocus its growth priorities back towards the United States instead of Europe.

Satellite companies like Dish and DirecTV are at an increasing disadvantage because growth in television subscriptions has stalled. Neither satellite company has a competitive broadband offering, and as more Americans gain access to wired broadband, many choose to bundle service with the company that provides Internet access.

DirecTV’s growth has fallen every year since 2010 and starting in 2013, the company began losing more subscribers than it signed up.

A combined AT&T-DirecTV would market satellite television nationwide, U-verse TV and Internet where available, wireless phone and broadband service, and rural satellite Internet access.

AT&T has explored an acquisition of a satellite provider for more than a decade and already partners with DirecTV to sell AT&T landline customers a bundle including the satellite provider’s television service.

As with most significant acquisitions proposed by AT&T, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission will likely scrutinize any merger deal carefully. Both companies must prove the deal is in the public interest. But the Journal reports the FCC might be amenable to the deal because it considers satellite television without broadband a threatened business. Lobbyists are likely to argue the joint company would be the best positioned to compete effectively with a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable.

If a deal appears likely, Dish Network is expected to face immediate pressure to also merge with an existing cable or telephone company.

Another alternative attempted in the past was a direct merger between DirecTV and Dish, an idea regulators nixed more than a decade ago. Today, such a deal would not solve either company’s difficulty providing broadband service.

Consumer groups are likely to oppose the merger because it further consolidates an industry they believe already sorely lacks competition. AT&T’s lawyers are reportedly already laying the foundation for a major lobbying campaign to promote the deal.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ ATT Approaches DirecTV for Merger 5-1-14.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal provides more insight into the proposed merger of AT&T and DirecTV and how government regulators are likely to see the deal. (2:51)

Bigger is not better. Despite endless claims that mergers, acquisitions and consolidation brings operating efficiencies and cost savings, for most customers it means only one thing: a higher cable bill. The Wall Street Journal traced the ancestors of some of today’s largest cable operators, cobbled together in takeovers, buyouts, and in the case of Adelphia, criminal activity leading to bankruptcy and absorption by Comcast and Time Warner Cable .

Wall Street analysts are pondering what deals are coming next, with Cablevision, Suddenlink, Mediacom, and Cable ONE all top targets. Among the current players, Charter is by far the most aggressive buyer and will likely be in the market for some or all of those smaller cable systems soon enough. Just remember, someone has to pay for those blockbuster merger deals, debt financing and executive bonuses.

Anyone in their 40s probably can recall companies like Jones, TCI, Falcon, Prime and Media General. They are all long gone, much the same way Bell Atlantic, SBC, Pacific Bell, BellSouth, and Ameritech have been absorbed into the AT&T and Verizon Continuum.