A typical promotional offer from Comcast for a bundle of broadband, TV and phone service.

Cable and phone companies will continue to raise the price of broadband-only service while also increasing the value proposition of bundled packages of broadband, television, and phone service to keep customers from cutting the cable television cord.

For at least four years, cable companies have refocused rate increases and fees on Internet access, especially for broadband-only customers. At the same time, cable-TV rate hikes are easing, especially for customers subscribed to two or more services. Today, customers face prices as high as $67 a month for standalone Internet service. But that price can drop in half if customers bundle broadband with television and phone service. Most triple play promotions in markets where AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS compete can be as low as $90 a month. In less competitive markets, a similar promotion often costs $99-119 a month.

Recent research by Sanford Bernstein reveals these pricing strategies are not happening by accident.

Media analyst Todd Juenger recently held his second cord-cutting focus group in Comcast-dominant San Francisco and found some of those most likely to cancel cable television decided to keep their Comcast bundle after they discovered the cable company charges $66.95 a month for Internet-only service, excluding the modem rental fee. For $10 more per month during the first year, customers can get that same 25Mbps broadband service bundled with 140 TV channels. Assuming the customer doesn’t protest the subsequent rate increase beginning a year later, that rate will eventually reset to $136.90 a month. But price-sensitive customers who complain often avoid any rate increase at all.

Juenger’s focus group surveyed 18 men and women in the age group most likely to drop cable television – 21-38 year-olds. Despite their love for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other online video services, the participants broadly recognized the cable/telco bundle now delivers a better value proposition and as long as cable and phone companies continue to price up standalone Internet service, many will choose to stay with the company they hate and not try to cobble together a comparable package of broadband and television service from other providers.

“Hence, we remain cautiously optimistic that cord-cutting, in large numbers, isn’t likely to happen,” Juenger wrote his clients. “It’s one of those ideas that sounds great in the abstract but crumbles when faced with the reality.”

As cable television pricing continues to exceed many household budgets, providers are seeking new customers that can afford cable TV but choose not to subscribe. One of their primary targets: broadband-only customers and cord-nevers who might be persuaded to add cable television at a starting price of $10-20 above what they pay for broadband service. That price is less than what Sling TV or PlayStation Vue charges for far fewer channels.

The challenge competing online video providers face is finding a compelling limited channel lineup that will appeal to all-comers. Although the average cable subscriber generally watches fewer than a dozen cable channels regularly, not having access to one or more of those favored channels is a deal-breaker for many.

Juenger’s focus group was most open to a hypothetical a-la-carte package of any 10 customer-chosen channels for $20 a month. But Juenger reminded his investor clients no such package currently exists and probably never will.

“Simply put, for existing pay-tv subs, the content [available to Sling or View customers] is too limited (relative to the cost savings); and for cord-nevers, the price is too high (relative to the appeal of the content),” Juenger wrote.

But Juenger did warn that customers are enthusiastic about sticking it to their current provider, if they can get the programming they want. That could make some programmers, especially broadcast stations and networks, more vulnerable to revenue loss. If a company can reliably offer a variety of theme-based slimmed down cable packages coupled with an effective and seamless over-the-air antenna, no retransmission fees would be paid to over-the-air stations and networks.

If the bundled package pricing argument doesn’t work with cord-cutters, the broadband usage cap probably will. Customers will quickly learn they can eat through their monthly Internet usage allowance watching live television online, or avoid that prospect by subscribing to cable TV, which offers unlimited viewing.

Two educational public broadcasting stations in Los Angeles will soon share the same channel to make room for AT&T and Verizon Wireless’ growing needs for wireless spectrum.

KCET, a charter member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that left the network to become the nation’s largest independent TV station in 2010 will share the transmitter of KLCS, an educational PBS TV station owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. The move will turn back a 6MHz UHF channel to the Federal Communications Commission, to be auctioned off to the highest wireless carrier bidder in a future spectrum auction.

The two stations will share a single UHF channel, multiplexed into up to eight digital over-the-air sub-channels, equally divided between the two.

The time-sharing agreement is nothing new for KLCS, which had shared one of its digital sub-channels with Spanish language KJLA-TV earlier this year in a trial in partnership with the biggest wireless lobbying organization in the country – CTIA and the Association of Public Television Stations. The trial was designed to see how well two stations could use the H.264 compression video codec for simultaneous shared digital television transmissions. The multiplexing test, completed in March, found generally good results as long as the stations avoided concurrent HD broadcasts on the same channel. There is simply not enough bandwidth in a single 6MHz channel to handle multiple HD feeds showing complex content.

KJLA’s primary transmitter already multiplexes 10 low resolution digital sub-channels of its own, primarily in Vietnamese, Mandarin and Spanish.

When KCET and KLCS begin the channel sharing arrangement, one is unlikely to air its programming in HD. Instead, the channel space will be divided into up to eight 480i channels airing both stations’ programming lineups. For some, it will be a viewing quality downgrade. KCET was one of the first stations in Los Angeles to air HD programming, but that will be unlikely in the future.

KCET’s Channel Lineup

KLCS’ Channel Lineup (No HD programming)

KCET is the financially weaker of the two stations, having given up its membership in PBS four years ago and seeing a dramatic decline in viewer pledges ever since. KCET sold its studio complex to the Church of Scientology in 2011 and moved its operations to smaller facilities in Burbank. KOCE-TV in Huntington Beach is now the primary PBS station in greater Los Angeles.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold its voluntary spectrum incentive auction in mid-2015, allowing stations to bid on surrendering their licenses, moving their UHF channel to an open VHF channel or sharing their channel with another station — all in exchange for cash payments. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are widely expected to be the two largest bidders for the valuable spectrum.

Roku

Time Warner Cable is preparing to solve one of its customers’ biggest annoyances — the expensive and unruly set-top box — by getting rid of them for customers who don’t want them.

CED reports Time Warner Cable provided insight into its “Boxless Home” project at the SCTE Rocky Mountain symposium held last week in Denver.

“One of the projects that I lead is called Boxless Homes where we can take a different device and use it instead of our set-top boxes,” said Time Warner’s Louis Williamson. “We’ve actually addressed the big screen with the Roku. We’ve launched it but we haven’t officially launched what we call our Boxless Homes because its missing a couple of the key Title 6 requirements. and the most important one we’re trying to get working right now is secondary audio. We have closed captioning and other things in it.”

The new project would let subscribers pack up and return their current set-top boxes (not DVRs just yet) and replace them with Internet-enabled Roku, Xbox, and Samsung Smart TVs, potentially saving customers close to $100 a year or more. It is part of the broad transition away from analog service cable companies are making as they gradually move towards IP distribution of content — creating one large broadband pipe across which cable television, Internet access, and phone service will travel.

“We describe things like the iPhones, and iPads and other stuff as companion devices,” Williamson added. “You can use them with your TV, they work as remotes and they’re good for looking at TV for a bit. When you go to something that fits on the big screen, the 10-foot experience like a Roku or the Xbox, or our work we’ve done as an app on Samsung TV that does [live TV and video-on-demand], that’s where we look at as Boxless Homes. You don’t have to have one our boxes; you can use one of those devices as outlets in your home. We’ve been driving heavily to get to that point where we can enable all of our services on a device that is theirs. In a couple of markets the channel lineup is pretty much there except for the transactional video on demand. It’s just getting all the Title 6 compliance in and a good marketing strategy around how you drive it.”

Time Warner management likes the initiative because set-top box equipment is costly to buy and support and many customers would prefer to do away with the frustration and cost of extra equipment, especially when many cable set-top boxes installed in homes before Jan. 1, 2014 use more electricity than a home refrigerator, consuming an average of 446kWh hours each (about $50 a year per box, depending on local energy costs).

Time Warner Cable customers looking to save money already have the option of returning their old energy vampire set-top boxes for one of several new models Time Warner has introduced this year. Contact your local office to find the Time Warner set-top boxes available for service in your area:

Feature Key

For now, Time Warner expects most of those going box-less will be in the under-30 age demographic. They already have game consoles or Internet-enabled set-top boxes like Roku and are comfortable switching in and out of the Time Warner Cable TV app.

“I think its to early to say how its going to impact the traditional world,” Williamson said in response to a question about whether Boxless Homes will replace traditional MPEG-2 services or augment them. “Currently we don’t even market it or tell anyone about it. The IP video stuff has rolled out word of month. These are the early adopters who are understanding that there’s a TWC app that goes on the Roku box. They decide to go down to their kid’s room or somewhere else and make that their secondary outlet. That’s how it’s evolving now. I think as it gets more and more prevalent and we get on more and more devices, which is going to take time, then its going to be more interesting. Our app on Samsung TV is much closer to our same look and feel as on our se-sop box. Unfortunately these are the real high-end Samsung TVs with the smart hub technology and things like that. There’s not enough of them to understand what the impact is on our footprint.”

Comcast is also working on a box-less approach, but only for college campuses. Its “XFINITY on Campus” project offers streaming cable TV over students’ laptops or portable devices exclusively while on campus. The service is now limited to Emerson College, Drexel University, University of New Hampshire, Lasell College, and MIT. Comcast currently has no plans to offer box-less service to residential subscribers.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BTIG Demo of New TWC TV App on Roku 12-23-13.flv[/flv]

Rich Greenfield at BTIG Research produced this hands-on demonstration and review of the TWC on Roku app. (6:23)

For years, cable operators have denied they have a problem.

But new evidence suggests Americans are cutting back on their cable television habit as prices continue to rise and alternatives become available.

One of the worst affected by cable cord cutters is Time Warner Cable, which has been consistently losing video customers month after month since 2009:

Disputes with programmers and competition from satellite and telephone companies may not be enough to explain away the trend of subscriber losses. It also does not explain why Americans under 35 are increasingly unlikely to sign up for cable television at all.

Cable cord cutting — fact or fiction?

Nonsense, replies Bloomberg opinion columnist Matthew C. Klein:

It is tempting to think that the declining number of subscribers at the U.S.’s biggest cable-television companies is a symptom of the industry’s malaise as it slowly slides into obsolescence. Don’t buy it. The losses are accounted for in the gains by smaller and nimbler rivals.

[…] The customers who have been abandoning Comcast and Time Warner Cable in droves haven’t given up on paid TV content, however. Focusing on the travails of the biggest cable companies obscures the reality that, according to Bloomberg Industries, the total number of pay-TV subscribers is slightly higher now than it was at the end of 2008 and that there were probably more people paying for television subscriptions at the end of 2013 than at the end of 2012.

To the extent that individual company results tell us anything, it could be about where Americans are moving, or the relative quality of service offered by the various companies. In the 12 months ended Dec. 31, AT&T Inc. added 924,000 subscribers to its U-verse TV service, while Verizon Communications Inc. added 536,000 subscribers to its FiOS TV service. Since the end of 2008, the two companies best known for their wireless services have added about 8 million pay-TV subscribers — far more than Time Warner Cable and Comcast have lost.

Klein’s views mirror those of many cable industry executives who blame the economy for deteriorating cable television subscriber numbers. Many suggest multi-generational households are responsible — stay at home kids and older parents are sharing a single cable television subscription. Others claim discretionary income is squeezing some to downgrade, but not cancel, cable television service.

Klein’s accounting does not tell the entire story. Competition from telephone companies, especially AT&T’s U-verse, is not as pervasive against Time Warner Cable and Comcast as Klein suggests. In fact, Charter Communications is among the cable companies facing the biggest onslaught of competition from AT&T. U-verse has picked up many of its newest subscribers not because of a sudden urge to switch, but rather because the service has only just become available in several new markets as a result of AT&T’s expansion effort. Verizon FiOS is still slowly expanding within its current franchise areas as well. Neither Comcast or Time Warner Cable consider either service much of a serious competitive threat.

AT&T U-verse, the larger of the two telephone company services, has a TV penetration rate of just 21 percent of customer locations. FiOS, which serves a smaller customer base, has a 35 percent penetration rate for television. Cable remains dominant for now, even as it loses subscribers and market share.

Another way to measure cord cutting is to look at the subscriber numbers of major basic cable networks that are most likely to be a part of any channel lineup. ESPN, for example, lost around 1.5 million subscribers between September 2011 and September 2013. Most of that loss came from cord cutting or downgrades to tiers like “Broadcast Basic,” consisting mostly of local television stations. ESPN’s numbers include all pay television platforms — satellite, telco TV, and cable.

In spite of the subscriber losses, cable industry profits remain healthy. Revenue growth these days comes from broadband service and rate increases.

Cable ONE customers nationwide lost eight Turner Networks channels yesterday, despite the fact the cable company has a signed contract with Turner to pay for some of the networks that have gone dark.

“In an extraordinary act of retaliation and bullying, Turner Networks removed TBS, TNT and Cartoon Network from all Cable ONE systems without warning, when our prior Turner contract expired on October 1,” said Cable ONE CEO Tom Might. “This happened despite the fact that Cable ONE had signed new contracts and already agreed to pay an enormous nearly 50% rate increase for these three networks.”

Cable ONE was under pressure to carry all eight Turner-owned networks (in turn owned by Time Warner Entertainment) during contract renewal negotiations that included substantial fee increases. The cable company independently decided to boot five “less popular” networks from lineups nationwide: Boomerang, TruTV, TCM, CNN and CNN Headline News. It agreed to keep buying TBS, TNT, and Cartoon.

“We signed contracts for TBS, TNT and the Cartoon Network through the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), which allows for the purchase of individual channels rather than the entire bundle of eight,” said Might. “In a disgraceful punitive reaction, Turner Networks refused to recognize the NCTC contracts and immediately de-authorized all Cable ONE systems in order to ‘teach’ Cable ONE a lesson about the power of cable programmers to tie and bundle channels together and force carriage of unwanted bundles.  They refuse to give cable operators or their customers any choice about what they can or cannot buy.”

Turner Networks claims Cable ONE has no authority to buy a slimmed-down package of channels through the NCTC and must negotiate with Turner directly.

Cable ONE will automatically credit its customers for the missing channels. The cable company is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company and serves 730,000 customers in 19 states.

Cable ONE explains to its customers why eight Turner Network-owned channels are now missing from the channel lineup. (2 minutes)
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