Time Warner

TWC's Britt sees RGU slowdown

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:29:38 -0500

Time Warner Cable president and CEO Glenn Britt said the company is starting to see revenue-generating units and new service sign-ups slow from last year's pace. In fact, Britt said at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference that he couldn't remember anything like the current economic slowdown at any other time during his career. TWC has not offered specifics, but likely will decrease capital spending next year.

Among current trends, Britt said demand for DVRs is down by 40 percent, though he did not pin this specifically on the economy, and also expressed confidence that subscribers weren't going to disconnect service.

He is not the first one to suggest that TV services are basically safe from whatever the economic crisis has to dish out, but what if it gets worse, like our President-elect last weekend said it probably will?

For more:
- Light Reading's Cable Digital News has this post

TWC wants Manhattan TV market de-regulated

Dan O'Shea — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:09:11 -0400

Time Warner Cable filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission last month asking for the agency to fully deregulate the TV services market in the Manhattan portion of New York City. Cable TV incumbents must prove that they face "effective competition" in a market to have rate controls and other regulations relieved, and TWC believes it can with the recent addition of Verizon Communications to the Manhattan TV services market.

The bar for proof of competition is somewhat low. All TWC has to prove is that Verizon is offering a comparable service, as the number of households being served by the competing service provider is not a criterion. However, the FCC, according to Multichannel News, has not been nearly as quick to act on cable TV deregulation requests as it has been to act on telephony deregulation requests.

For more:
- see this story at Multichannel News

Spotlight: Time Warner Cable eyeing web video

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:20:21 -0400

Time Warner Cable has given indications recently that it is exploring whole-home networking solutions. It joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, and company CEO Glenn Britt told attendees at an investor conference last week that the cable firm was looking at a possible wireless home networking solution, one that also would bring Internet video to TV screens. It's not clear what TWC is thinking about, or whether it will use both MoCA and wireless in some fashion, but according to Britt, we'll see something from the provider within the next couple years. Read the story at Light Reading's Contentinople

Related article:
Time Warner Cable recently became MoCA's largest cable industry member Time Warner Cable report

Comcast takes video hit, but adds telephony subs

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:59:40 -0400

Is video becoming a point of market weakness for cable TV companies? That could be the case if we decide to invest in the trend suggested by Comcast's first quarter 2008 earnings report last week. The company said that it lost 57,000 basic video subscribers during the quarter, and even though it added about 494,000 digital video customers, the latter number was observed to be less than some analyst estimates, according to The Wall Street Journal. Comcast also saw its first-quarter profit dip about 12.5 percent compared to the same period last year. Still, it remains to be seen if video softness is an industry-wide trend. Time Warner Cable had said previously that it added both basic video and digital video customers during the quarter, and at least met estimates in both areas.

Meanwhile, Comcast added 639,000 digital telephony subscribers during the first quarter and almost half a million broadband Internet customers. Comcast now has about 5.1 million voice customers, and seems to be one of the chief beneficiaries of telco landline loss, but its ability to steal voice customers from telcos is not impressive enough to cover the higher-value video customers it is losing to the telcos.

For more:
- see this report at The Wall Street Journal
- read this blog post at ZDNet.com
- check out this follow-up at GigaOM

Related articles:
Comcast reported a profit jump in Q4 2007 Comcast report
Is Comcast planning a wireless network? Comcast report

SPOTLIGHT: SDV on rise, BigBand still hurting

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:59:00 -0400

Switched digital video is one of several technologies that cable TV companies are looking toward to improve the efficiency and revenue potential of their services and their ability to compete with telcos offering IPTV services. Time Warner Cable and Cablevision both recently announced progress in their SDV deployments.

Meanwhile, BigBand Networks, one of the key vendors support SDV, continues to be in a tough spot financially. The company said last week it is laying off about 5% of its workforce, or about 20 people, after cutting 15% of its workforce just last year. still, the vendor posted first quarter 2008 revenue growth to $39.9 million, from $30.7 million in the first quarter of 2007.

For more:
- see this story at Light Reading's Cable Digital News

Related article:
- BigBand held a major SDV demonstration last summer. BigBand report

ALSO NOTED: Time Warner spinning off cable; DirecTV joins MoCA; and much more...

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:58:20 -0400

> Time Warner plans to spin off its Time Warner Cable unit. Article

> Satellite TV player DirecTV has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance. Press release

ALSO NOTED: SES Americom loses bird; second; and much more...

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:58:20 -0400

> SES Americom has declared a "total loss" of a satellite that launched last month but fell into the wrong orbit. Article

> Verizon Communications sues Time Warner Cable, claiming TWC's ads misrepresent Verizon's fiber network. Meanwhile, Verizon bends a news story statement into an ad message. Article

ALSO NOTED: Koreans split over IPTV; Haymes to head Nielsen digital media; and much more...

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:58:20 -0500

> NHN, Daum Go Separate Ways on IPTV Article

> Former Time Warner Cable Exec To Lead Nielsen Digital Media Article

> Optibase Provides In-House IPTV System to a Major TV Network Release

> Scottish IPTV Company Sees Success at Home Release

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500

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