Wealth Finance
To save cash, many hard-hit subscribers dropping Time Warner and Cablevision
Cable TV is being shaken by the economic blues.
Quarterly results Thursday from Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, as well as DirecTV, showed wealthier families are sticking with cable and satellite subscriptions and, in many cases, upgrading to add services such as video recorders or faster Internet connections.
But cable companies are steadily losing thousands of customers on the other side of the economic divide – those who often choose the cheapest video service but now find themselves out of a job or buried in debt.
Time Warner, for instance, lost 155,000 subscribers – more than it ever had before, while Cablevision lost 24,500 basic video customers. Both results were more than Wall Street analysts predicted for either company.
By contrast, satellite TV provider DirecTV, which typically attracts customers willing to pay more, added 174,000 new subscribers, better than expectations.
“This is a two-track economy right now, without a doubt,” said DirecTV CEO Mike White.
Cable companies face challenges from a weak housing market and an increase in the number of free or cheaper Internet video services such as Netflix and Hulu.
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