Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt warned programmers in early December that low-rated cable channels were at risk of being dropped from the second-largest cable operator in the country.

Ovation and Current TV now understand he meant it.

Customers are now being notified that the cable company has dropped both networks. Most customers will never notice the loss — only about 1% of Time Warner customers, around 33,000 nationwide — watched Ovation last month and about as many parked their remotes on Current TV.

Time Warner Cable released a statement explaining escalating programming costs are forcing the company to closely assess each network as it comes due for renewal. The cable company called Ovation one of the worst performing networks on its lineup. It was more abrupt about Current. The company claimed it dropped the network simply because “it was sold.”

Several weeks ago, Britt hinted networks that began offering one type of programming but shifted to another in a bid to win more viewers are especially vulnerable to being dropped. Britt appeared to be thinking about Ovation, which calls itself a cultural fine arts channel but last month devoted 70 percent of its schedule to infomercials, reruns from TV networks that hardly qualify as “fine arts,” and endless repeats of PBS’ ‘Antiques Roadshow.’ For this kind of programming, Time Warner Cable has paid Ovation $10 million over the past several years.

Ovation has gotten 25,000 signatures on its petition drive to try and convince Time Warner Cable to bring the network back to its lineup.

“They’ve had ample opportunity to improve the ratings and the content, and have failed to deliver,” Time Warner said in a statement.

Current TV, which was partly founded by former Vice President Al Gore as a broadcast home for viewer generated content (think YouTube on the airwaves) has always turned in dismal viewership numbers. More recently, the channel has shifted its format, airing a variety of liberal political talk radio and television shows deemed too left-wing for MSNBC, which has helped win the network some additional viewers, but not in every case. Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, formerly with CNN, has a TV show on Current he admits doesn’t draw flies.

“Nobody’s watching, but I’m having a great time,” Spitzer said.

On Wednesday, the network announced it was acquired by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, a kiss of death for most mainstream cable systems that are still unwilling to carry programming from a network the Bush Administration came close to calling ‘with the terrorists.’

Time Warner Cable dropped the network from its lineup the moment the sale was announced.

Current TV intends to gradually rebrand itself as Al Jazeera America, with a 24-hour English language news and information format. Al Jazeera has won respect for its international news coverage, but continues to be saddled with the perception it has a subtle anti-American bias.

But not every network with low viewer numbers is at immediate risk of being placed on Time Warner’s chopping block.

The Kremlin’s subtle hands of influence have kept RT — Russia Today — closely aligned with Vladimir Putin’s policies as relations cool between Moscow and Washington. But that network remains on the Time Warner Cable lineup.

The new owner of Current TV.

One thing all threatened networks have in common is that they are independently owned and operated and are not a part of a much larger network or studio conglomerate. That makes them low-hanging fruit for cable operators to pick off because the owners lack leverage to force renewal.

Fox Business Network, which has continuously turned in abysmal numbers since its inception is a case in point. Despite often having fewer than 15,000 viewers in its target demographic, it safely maintains its place on Time Warner Cable’s lineup because it was included in a carriage agreement deal that bundled the much larger Fox News Channel. As long as Time Warner agrees to contracts that tie the fate of both networks together, Fox Business Network will have a home on the cable system even if nobody watches.

With the writing on the wall, other low-rated networks have responded by easing their hard-line tactics at contract renewal time. The parent owner of IFC and WEtv have agreed to a temporary contract extension as the two networks fight to remain on Time Warner’s lineup. Hallmark TV and Hallmark Movie Channel may be in a similar position soon enough.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Citizens for Access to the Arts Fights to Keep Ovation 12-12.mp4[/flv]

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Cablevision West, formerly known as Bresnan Communications, has been up for sale for weeks, and at least three major cable operators have submitted bids to acquire its 300,000 customers in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

Cablevision bought Bresnan Communications in 2010 for $1.37 billion. The cable operator invested millions updating the cable properties in the mountain west, but ultimately decided the more rural cable systems were too far away from its hometown systems in densely populated suburban New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Selling Cablevision West would improve Cablevision’s balance sheet and allow the company to concentrate on its highly competitive home territory in the northeast, where Verizon FiOS frequently competes.

Among the three vying for Cablevision West, Charter Communications seems to be the best positioned to win. Charter already operates cable systems in the central and western United States, mostly in smaller cities and rural areas. Former Cablevision CEO Thomas Rutledge was in charge when Cablevision bought Bresnan Communications, and in his new role as CEO of Charter, he told CNBC he still admires those western systems.

Suddenlink has attained deeper pockets after its acquisition earlier this year by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, European private equity firm BC Partners and the cable operator’s current management. With money to spend, Suddenlink Communications could find itself the highest bidder. Suddenlink currently serves over 1.4 million residential and commercial customers, primarily in Texas, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable provider, is also among the stingiest of the three bidders. CEO Glenn Britt has consistently told investors the company will not engage in bidding wars or overpay for acquisition opportunities. The company has passed on several earlier opportunities for cable systems up for sale, although it did successfully acquire Insight Communications earlier this year.

The winner will likely be announced as early as January and then customers will have to prepare, once again, for another owner to take control.

Time Warner Cable is introducing customers to shorter wait times in several midwestern cities, in some cases offering appointment windows of just one hour.

“Our customers have better things to do than sit around and wait for cable service and installation,” said Shannon Mullen, TWC’s regional vice president of operations.

Customers in some cities can now request 15-minute appointment windows that coincide with various times technicians begin their shifts. Offering the first service call of a technician’s workday makes it easy to assure a cable truck will be in a customer’s driveway on time. Offering one-hour time windows the rest of the day is possible with better coordination with technicians and years of experience tracking the average times service calls usually last. The company is now prepared to share that knowledge with customers — providing an estimate of how long in-home installation or repair work is likely to take.

Appointments will begin at 8am and scheduled as late as 7pm. Service calls are also available on Sunday and holidays in some areas.

The company began testing the shortened windows in the beginning of 2012 and has gradually expanded them to different regions. Maintaining good service has proved important, especially in areas where the operator faces competition from community-owned providers, Google Fiber, AT&T U-verse, or Verizon FiOS.

Faster speeds.

Time Warner Cable is planning additional free speed increases for its customers, starting in Google Fiber territory — Kansas City.

The company has already boosted Standard Internet speeds, now at least 15/1Mbps in most areas of the country, up from 10/1Mbps.

With Google’s 1,000/1,000Mbps network now gradually rolling out across Kansas City, the cable operator decided it needed to compete, albeit not on the same scale. Here are the new speeds across Kansas City, which are likely to also begin turning up in other areas of the country eventually:

• Lite Internet — from 1Mbps to 5Mbps
• Basic Internet — 3Mbps to 10Mbps
• Standard Internet — 10Mbps to 15Mbps
• Turbo Pass Internet — 15Mbps to 20Mbps (No word on upgrades for customers already getting 20Mbps Turbo service)
• Extreme Internet — 30Mbps to 50Mbps
• Ultimate Internet — 50Mbps to 100Mbps
• Upload speeds remain unchanged, maxing out at 5Mbps for premium tiers.

Despite the upgrades, Time Warner denied there was much need for the kinds of speed Google customers are now getting.

“We’re really comfortable where our speeds are,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Mike Pedelty told the Kansas City Business Journal.

Time Warner Cable customers having a hard time sorting out hard news for infotainment will no longer have to skim channels with Victoria’s Secret news anchors, blowhard political talk masquerading as news, or exploitative voyeurism from Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren.

By the end of December, BBC World News will be a part of the digital basic package on most Time Warner Cable systems.

“I’m delighted to see BBC World News coming to Time Warner Cable – this is another important foothold for our global news channel in the highly competitive US market,” said Jim Egan, who represents the news network. “We are really pleased by the growing demand in the US for a global news network which is both non-partisan and non-sensational in approach.  BBC World News is about serious news; with on the ground reporting and analysis from different parts of the world and a mandate to inform and provide a balanced view. We know that audiences around the world value the channel’s distinctive world view and we are pleased that more US viewers now have access to it.”

Time Warner Cable already carries several other international news channels, but none with the prestige of the BBC:

• RT: Russia Today, which has close ties to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. It is effectively the television extension of the Voice of Russia World Service (formerly Radio Moscow);
• CNN International: The overseas service of CNN, watched mostly abroad;
• CCTV: Chinese Central Television, a network owned and operated by the Chinese government.

Other news channels not on the lineup:

• France 24: The English language international news channel offering a French perspective on global news with a European focus;
• Deutsche Welle: The Voice of Germany’s international television news and documentary channel;
• NHK World: Japan’s external television news and information channel presented by the country’s largest public broadcaster;
• Al-Jazeera English: The English language service of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, focusing heavily on news from the developing world and the Middle East.

BBC World News will have grown its reach by over 10 million new homes in 2012 and in total, will reach 25 million full time homes in the U.S. following the Time Warner Cable launches.