Out

In a widely anticipated move, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt will retire from his leadership role in December, replaced by his chief operating officer Robert Marcus.

Marcus will assume control of the nation’s second largest cable company with a promise to improve customer service, corporate culture, and growth in residential subscriptions.

Marcus told the New York Times the company has to develop a level of emotional connection with customers, many who loathe the cable company and complain regularly about the increasing cost of cable service.

Time Warner Cable has lost cable television customers and growth in other services has continued to slow as consumers explore competitive offers from the phone company and satellite providers. The company has made up the loss of revenue by raising prices and aggressively expanding business service by wiring offices and complexes for cable broadband.

In

Wall Street has complained Time Warner’s financial performance has fallen behind other cable operators, notably Comcast. Some also mention Time Warner’s broadband speeds are slower than other cable operators. Some analysts also continue to pressure the company to drop flat rate Internet access to accelerate earnings.

The cable company’s current market position has made them a target for a takeover, notably by John Malone and Charter Communications. The two companies have met informally to discuss a potential merger deal, but Britt doubted Charter — far smaller than Time Warner Cable itself — could run the combined entity effectively.

Marcus told the newspaper Time Warner Cable’s attitude towards a merger would depend entirely on how much value it would create for the company’s shareholders.

What was best for customers was not mentioned as a factor.

Time Warner Cable is once again raising its broadband prices, reflecting the fact Internet access continues to be a “must-have” product with room to raise the cost without driving customers away.

On average Time Warner Cable customers in the northeast with broadband-only service will pay $3 more a month starting Aug. 9, according to public relations manager Joli Plucknette-Farmen. Customers now pay $51 a month for 15/1Mbps service. After the increase, customers will pay $54.99, not including the modem rental fee. In early 2010, customers were paying $39.95, around $15 less.

Time Warner Cable’s new broadband prices will range from $34.99 a month for Lite 1/1Mbps service to $104.99 a month for 50/5Mbps service.

The rate hike will likely spread across the rest of Time Warner Cable’s systems around the country over the summer and fall.

Plucknette-Farmen said the increase will help the company offer the best possible broadband service.

Not every customer will immediately face higher pricing. Customers on promotional pricing packages will remain unaffected until those offers expire.

Because Time Warner Cable increasingly prices its services on a customer-by-customer basis, assessing the full impact of rate changes is extremely difficult because customers can pay dramatically different rates for the same services. A Time Warner Cable customer paying regular prices for standalone Internet service will find their neighbors with bundled service packages paying much less and those with promotional/customer retention deals paying the lowest rates of all.

In 2012, Stop the Cap! wrote a guide for Time Warner Cable customers to negotiate a better deal for themselves. Readers report the method still works.

Triplett

Anthony Triplett used his job as a Comcast subcontractor to hunt for unsuspecting female victims while installing cable service — customers he would later return to rape and strangle.

On Friday, a Cook County judge sentenced the murderer to life in prison.

Judge Kevin Sheehan agreed with prosecutors who called Triplett both a sociopath and a psychopath, treating his victims with all the reverence of a used facial tissue.

Sheehan said Triplett’s defense was ludicrous, calling it a “wicked web of lies.”

“You were dancing like an ant on a sugar cube,” Sheehan said.

Triplett was found guilty of raping and strangling 23-year old Polish immigrant Urszula Sakowska,  whose lifeless body was found in a bathtub inside her Chicago-area home back in 2006.

Triplett is also facing charges in the death of 39-year old Janice Ordidge, a Comcast customer in Hyde Park.

Victims’ families say Comcast has a lot to answer for after subcontracting cable work out to Premier Cable Communications, a third-party company accused of maintaining shoddy hiring practices. Comcast is under scrutiny for doing nothing to stop Triplett after being informed he was being questioned by police in the death of Ordidge.

Both Comcast and Premier are being sued for allowing Triplett to continue working, which lead to his encounter with Sakowska.

Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Sexton said Triplett “obviously could not help himself” from committing the sexual assaults and killings.

“This is the most dangerous individual you will ever see in this courtroom — and that’s saying a lot for 26th Street,” Sexton told the judge, calling Triplett “every woman’s nightmare.”

“This is who you killed!” he shouted at Triplett while holding a photo of Sakowska.

Sakowska’s fiancé, Grzegorz Magiera, said he will never recover from her loss, which would have never happened had she not called Comcast.

“I can still see her in our house, smell her and feel her warm embrace,” Magiera said in a victim impact statement read by prosecutors. “My life will never be the same as it was before. No one will ever be able to replace my Urszula. She was my one and only. She was my angel.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WLS Chicago Comcast Killer Sentenced to Life 7-19-13.mp4[/flv]

WLS reports Comcast-contracted cable repairman Anthony Triplett was found guilty of rape and murder and is yet to face murder charges in a second case. Triplett used his “house calls for Comcast” as a hunting ground for female victims. (2 minutes)

Several million Time Warner Cable and Bright House customers in New York, California, Texas and Florida will lose CBS programming this Wednesday at 5pm if the three companies do not iron out their differences in contract renewal negotiations.

CBS and Time Warner Cable have taken their fight public over retransmission consent talks that have left the two sides far apart. The cable operators say CBS has gotten greedy asking for as much as 600 percent more than what the cable companies paid under the old agreement that expired in June. CBS says the fact its stations have never been thrown off cable systems before is proof that their terms are reasonable.

Cable analysts say CBS’ old agreement cost the two cable operators between 75 cents and one dollar a month per subscriber. Most believe CBS is now asking for between $1-2 a month per subscriber to renew the agreement.

CBS wants to be paid at levels comparable to the most popular cable networks and believes the fact the network is now number one in the ratings delivers negotiating power. CBS has not made its aggressive position on carriage fees a secret. Executives have told investors it plans to quadruple cable and satellite fees over the next four years with a goal to raise an extra $1 billion. Wall Street analysts have recommended the stock to investors and its value has risen at least 65% in the past year.

But Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Maureen Huff believes CBS is asking for too much.

“Broadcasters have already hit customers with 84 broadcaster blackouts in the past 18 months,” Huff said in a statement. “Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS, has always been outspoken about the programming fees he believes he deserves. He has said ‘the sky is the limit’ when talking about the price he thinks he deserves for his CBS stations, and he clearly means it. He doesn’t seem to care about our customers’ budgets or the going rates for CBS programming.”

But critics contend Time Warner Cable does not come to the table with clean hands on the issue of expensive carriage fees. Time Warner Cable seemed less concerned about the skyrocketing costs of cable programming when it set high asking prices for TWC-owned regional sports networks SportsNet and TWC Deportes.

CBS says it deserves at least as much as what Time Warner Cable pays Time Warner Entertainment’s TNT, which reportedly charges at least $1 a subscriber.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBS Time Warner Cable Customers about to lose CBS 7-20-13.mp4[/flv]

CBS is now running this ad in New York City warning Time Warner Cable customers they are about to lose WCBS-TV, the local CBS affiliate.  (1 minute)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable CBS Outrageous Fees 7-20-13.mp4[/flv]

Not so fast, says Time Warner Cable. CBS wants 600% more for WCBS, driving up the price customers pay for cable television. (1 minute)

If no agreement is reached, CBS expects customers will lose access to its network-0wned affiliates starting at 5pm Wednesday afternoon. Although most media reports are focused on the fact CBS stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas are affected, not all are CBS affiliates. In fact, customers in a few other cities will also find their CBS-owned stations dropped:

• New York: WCBS (TWC)
• Los Angeles: KCBS, KCAL (TWC)
• Dallas-Ft. Worth: KTVT, KTXA (TWC)
• St. Petersburg-Tampa: WTOG (Bright House)
• Riverhead (Long Island): WLNY (TWC)

Some Bright House customers are also affected by dispute.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Time Warner Cable and Bright House would also drop Showtime from lineups across the country in a retaliatory move, but this was not confirmed by either cable company.

Station owners are seeking higher retransmission consent payments from cable and satellite operators to establish additional sources of revenue. Pay television customers ultimately foot the bill with higher priced cable television service. As prices rise, pay television operators increasingly worry customers will either defect to a competitor or cut the cable television cord for good. Some operators are adopting a tougher stance, willing to drop stations from the lineup.

Most station owners believe the larger number of stations they own or control, the less likely a cable operator will actually throw a station off the lineup. This month, Wisconsin-based Journal Broadcast Group is threatened with the loss of nearly half of its 15 television stations on Time Warner Cable systems in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and California:

• WTMJ Milwaukee
• KMTV Omaha
• WGBA Green Bay/Appleton, Wisc.
• WACY Green Bay/Appleton, Wisc.
• KMIR Palm Springs, Calif.
• KPSE Palm Springs, Calif.

Bigger is better

Some stations have been off the lineup since July 10 in some markets, with digital sub-channels first removed by Time Warner Cable in a warning shot in others.

Larger station owners like Sinclair Broadcast Group have felt less threatened. The more stations under negotiation, the more leverage station owners have in contract renewal talks.

Sinclair is further boosting its position in the local TV station business, spending almost $2 billion in the last 18 months buying 81 more television stations.

Sinclair owns and operates, programs or provides advertising sales services to 140 television stations in 72 markets nationwide. They are a force to be reckoned with. Despite angry words over the station owner’s asking price, both Dish Networks and DirecTV renewed their carriage agreements with Sinclair without disrupting viewing.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ Retransmission Dispute TWC CBS 7-20-13.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal’s “Moneybeat” looks into the retransmission dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable and what impact it may have on viewers. (5 minutes)

A Michigan man last week opened his front door only to find AT&T’s efforts to install U-verse for a neighbor tore up his front yard and he isn’t even a customer.

Broadband Reports‘ AT&T forum member “riekl” in Macomb discovered AT&T’s service “upgrade” for the neighbors left him with a front yard “downgrade” consisting of a long strip of dead grass, a potentially undermined driveway, and no idea who will pay to repair the damage.

“The only utility easement is a 20 foot strip in my back yard,” he wrote.

AT&T decided running cables well inside the Macomb man’s front yard and beneath his driveway was fine. So was leaving without bothering to repair the damage.

An AT&T ‘Right of Way’ manager was eventually dispatched to the property and quickly conceded AT&T buried its lines well outside of the utility easement. The company is now making arrangements to repair the resident’s lawn.

“He also apologized as their techs are told to always notify the homeowner when crossing property,” said the irked resident.

But the story may not be over. AT&T’s cable is now a permanent feature beneath the non-customer’s front yard, which could create some issues if AT&T assumes it now has an ‘effective’ easement and will be free to repair or replace the cable in the same area at their discretion.

AT&T has a long history of using contractors that do not always favor the correct solution over an expedient one.

But at least they buried the cable this time.

Last fall, a Texas resident arrived home to find AT&T had installed a new line for one of their customers by stringing it across the top of the neighbor’s back lawn, where it remained untouched and unburied for an extended period.