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Time Warner Cable adding new HD sports channel, plus 2 more

March 17th, 2010, 5:45 pm by

No, the NFL channel isn’t coming to Time Warner Cable. Now that that’s out of the way, there is a new HD sports channel just around the corner for Orange County and Los Angeles customers.

Called iN Demand Sports HD, the new sports channel will feature baseball and hockey games and be part of the existing MLB Extra Inning pacakge and NHL Center Ice package. iN Demand calls the channel GAME2 and for Time Warner customers, it will be available on channel 731 beginning April 19.

iN Demand is a network owned by several cable companies, including Time Warner and Cox.

“iN Demand calls it GAME2. This channel will be added to our lineup in order to further expand the HD game offerings as part of NHL CENTER ICE and MLB EXTRA INNINGS. This will bring a significant increase to the number of HD games available in these packages,” said Time Warner spokesman Darryl Ryan.

The addition of the HD sports channel brings the number to 4 HD channels that Time Warner offers from iN Demand. The others include HD PPV on channel 431, and seasonal sports packages on 732 and 733.

Time Warner also announced that two foreign-language channels, plus two radio channels will be added to the lineup beginning April 19. Those are: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 20 Comments »

Local BBB’s biggest complaint getter: DirecTV

March 15th, 2010, 9:04 am by

When it comes to TV or mobile phone service, consumers aren’t shy about saying what they don’t like. That’s not only true here on this blog, which made me refocus the content to cover TV and mobile heavily last year, but to the local Better Business Bureau.

The Better Business Bureau of the Southland reports that mobile phone service and TV service were the two categories with the most complaints last year (see bottom chart). But by far the top offender? DirecTV, based in El Segundo. The satellite TV service received 15,367 complaints, well above second place Federal Loan Modification Center in Northridge, which had 858 complaints.

The BBB said that DirecTV issues are related to billing disputes, early cancellation fees, inadequate disclosure about the cost of service and the inability to contact the company.

Southland BBB’s 10 companies with most complaints
  1. DirecTV – El Segundo (15,367 complaints)
  2. Federal Loan Modification Center – Northridge (858 complaints)
  3. Auto One Warranty Specialists – Irvine (686 complaints)
  4. Acaiburn.com – Ontario (633 complaints)
  5. IvoryBrites – Burbank (604 complaints)
  6. Dealer Cost Car Audio – Santa Ana (524 complaints)
  7. Acai Nutraburst – Corona (463 complaints)
  8. Specialty Merchandise Corporation – Simi Valley(380)
  9. dazzlesmilepro.com – Ontario (367 complaints)
  10. Cellular Blowout – Agoura Hills (366 complaints)

The organization — the go-to site for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties,– also pointed out that DirecTV has faced government scrutiny for violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Washington state Consumer Protection Act for “false or unfair use of the word “free,” among other issues.

The BBB named DirecTV its top 2009 Pluto Award recipient, which calls out the area Orange County and Los Angeles businesses that use “underhanded business practices and ambiguous advertising to augment their riches and defraud the American public of billions of dollars each year.”

“DirecTV is a well-known satellite service provider, and its number of complaints might not be quite so striking if you took its complaints-to-customers ratio into consideration. Nevertheless, its practices and rating prompt us to urge extreme caution in doing business with DirecTV,” warned the BBB.

DirecTV spokesperson Jade-lin Ekstedt acknowledged the issue and said that the company is working on improving the poor rating. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cell phones • Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • | 38 Comments »

Enough with the fees! TV providers team up to fix rising TV prices

March 12th, 2010, 2:28 pm by

Corrected, 3:50 p.m.: Apologies to Phillip Swann for mispelling his name. Also, I incorrectly said Comcast is buying CBS. Comcast is interested in NBC, as I’ve previously reported (sigh).

CATCHING UP: Time Warner Cable led a group on Tuesday asking the government to fix the rising price of TV service.

Well, sort of. The issue wasn’t about a customer’s rising bill but over “retransmission fees,” which TV channels charge to TV providers that want to retransmit the channel to customers. The TV services, of course, blame the fees for pushing up a customer’s monthly bill.

On Thursday, U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski appeared to have listened. During an Senate committee meeting, Genachowski talked about the retransmission issues and said that the ”framework that is in place … may have lost pace with changes in the marketplace,” reports the L.A. Times.

These retrans fees gets renegotiated every year or so and pretty much always go up. Here is one estimated list of how much a TV customer ends up paying for each channel.

But disputes over retrans fees have left some cable customers wondering if they’ll be staring at a blank TV screen. We here in Orange County felt this over the holidays when Fox threatened to take away channels from Time Warner customers. The fee fight was resolved with no disruption in TV service.

But last weekend, Cablevision customers on the East Coast missed the first 30 minutes of the Oscars because the cable company didn’t come to an agreement in time with Walt Disney-owned ABC. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 8 Comments »

Want to ditch your cable TV service for $19.99/month?

February 19th, 2010, 5:02 pm by
Sezmi's set-top box and antenna

Sezmi box and antenna

For those tired of an ever-increasing TV bill, it’s Sezmi to the rescue.

The Belmont, Calif.  company launched its hybrid TV service in the Orange County, Los Angeles area this week with service plans between $4.99 to $19.99.

The lower price includes stuff that is mostly free already, including local TV channels and Youtube videos, plus access to on-demand movies for an extra fee.

The higher-price subscription adds access to 15 cable channels, including CNN, Nickelodeon and Discovery (see chart on lower right). The company has contracts with Turner Broadcasting, Discovery, Viacom and NBC Universal.

Users must invest in a $299 box and have high-speed Internet at home. The box mixes free over-the-air local TV channels with on-demand movies and videos and the cable channels.

Now, Sezmi calls the box, which includes a 1-terabyte DVR, a hybrid model of broadcast and broadband. It’s not a souped-up digital converter box that millions of analog TV users bought last year in order to watch local channels. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • Wi-Fi & networking • • • • • • • | 20 Comments »

Some fixes for cable TV’s poor reputation

February 3rd, 2010, 2:41 pm by

Cable TV Cable TV companies are losing customers daily.

But if you take a close look at Time Warner Cable’s and Comcast Corp.’s recent financial update, both companies are losing customers they don’t really want anymore. That’s basic cable customers. Instead, both are gaining digital TV customers, who are likely to pay more per month and use less bandwidth.

So, while 68 percent of cable TV users say they’ll drop their service for a 20 percent discount elsewhere (read: Cable TV users just want a 20% discount, says report), are customers are really willing to run?

Readers give several reasons why they’re unhappy with their cable or other paid TV service but won’t drop  it (read: “Why do unhappy customers stay with cable TV?“). Some legitimate reasons include the physical inability to subscribe to an alternative, higher cost if you have multiple TVs,  or they’re locked into a long term contract. (I’ve added the poll at the bottom of this post.)

Ben Piper, an analyst with Strategy Analytics who published yesterday’s report about unhappy cable users, answered a few more questions about the state of cable:

Gadgetress: Readers are constantly berating cable TV. Much more positive responses for IPTV and satellite TV services.

Ben Piper: Our research certainly supports that observation. Overall, customers in our survey reported high satisfaction with their current digital television provider. Seventy-one percent of respondents reported to be “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with their current service.

While this may seem like positive news for the digital television industry, the story changes somewhat when viewed at the individual platform level. The differences among Cable, Satellite, and Telco TV subscribers was marked, with Telco/IPTV customers reporting 95% overall satisfaction, compared to 67% for Cable.

When viewed at a more granular level, Cable underperformed in virtually every metric. The disparity was most pronounced in the areas of ‘Choice of Channels,’ ‘Quality of Channels,’ ‘Picture Quality’ and ‘Innovativeness.’

Q: Internet TV services (Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse) are the newest but least available. Is it just a matter of time before even these services develop a horrible customer service reputation? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • | 26 Comments »

Even Comcast is losing cable TV customers

February 3rd, 2010, 9:29 am by

ComcastComcast Corp.’s services aren’t available in Orange County but what is happening to the Philadelphia cable TV provider offers insight into where cable TV is going.

Comcast, which released its 2009 financials this morning, remains the nation’s largest cable TV company in the nation with 23.6 million video subscribers.

Like Time Warner Cable, Comcast is losing video customers. The results are in for 2009 and last year, the company lost 623,000 video customers, or about 2.6 percent. Fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, lost 199,000 video customers. See the chart below.

But also like Time Warner, the company gained digital video customers — adding 410,000 during the fourth quarter and 1,411,000 for the year. It also gained high-speed Internet, telephone and bundled customers.

Comcast Corp.       Customers         New (net)        
    Year 2008   Year 2009   Growth     4Q 2009     2009
Video customers   24,182   23,559   (2.6%)     (199)     (623)
High-Speed Internet Customers   14,929   15,930   6.7%     247     1,002  
Voice Customers   6,473   7,622   17.8%     243     1,149  
Combined Video, HSI and Voice Customers   45,584   47,112   3.4%     290     1,528  
Digital Video Customers   17,004   18,415   8.3%     410     1,411  
Total Revenue Generating Units   62,588   65,527   4.7%     701     2,939  

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

Why do unhappy customers stay with cable TV?

February 2nd, 2010, 4:41 pm by

TV service dealsHelp me out readers. I know many of you — especially anonymous commenters – like to bad mouth your TV service.

Then I hear excuses like, “I didn’t want to have to change my email addresses” and “I know there is satellite for TV but I don’t really want that” and even “I’m chicken to change from TWC because of the Great Unkown[sic]” — the latter two excuses were e-mailed to me.

And I’ve heard from companies like Verizon’s FiOS, which has had a difficult time attracting customers. It blames the local cable TV provider, which perks up its ears when FiOS enters town and blasts existing customers with better deals. Consumers seem to really have no loyalty when it comes to TV service.

Take the poll and see the results:
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • | 44 Comments »

Cable TV users just want a 20% discount, says report

February 2nd, 2010, 8:47 am by

TV service dealsA new report believes that 68 percent of cable TV customers would switch to a competing service for a  20 percent discount, according to Strategy Analytics, a market research firm.

The report “Digital TV Customer Satisfaction: US Survey Results” only surveyed 856 cable users, but there is other proof that consumers want a better value. Recent cable TV financial reports that continue to show a declining number of TV subscribers and customers dropping services like premium channels and video on demand. Meanwhile, Internet-TV services like AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS have been adding new customers.

“It underscores a trend we have been seeing for the past 18 months: a growing number of customers are beginning to question the value of a ‘traditional’ pay TV subscription in light of expanded “over-the-top” offerings, such as Hulu and Netflix,” said the study’s author Ben Piper, Director of the Strategy Analytics Multiplay Market Dynamics service.

Comparably, says the report, only 33 percent of people who subscribe to the newer Internet TV services also would drop their provider for a cheaper service.

Internet TV also had the highest number of satisfied customers, with 95 percent of respondents claiming to be “somewhat” or “very” satisfied. Comparably, 78 percent of satellite users were that satisfied while 67 percent cable users were.

In my own research, Verizon FiOS TV tends to be more expensive then cable but you do get a lot more features like HD channels and on-screen widgets. Satellite TV tends to be the cheapest. But everyone wants to save money.

Any thoughts from readers? I’ll be evaluating the costs of TV service in upcoming weeks. All input would be appreciated.

Related TV news:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 37 Comments »

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