DIRECTV may have lost some subscribers but Time Warner’s got them beat. According to their own financials, released today, They lost 169,000 subscribers in the last quarter. It doesn’t seem like the people who dump Time Warner are going to DIRECTV, so the most likely answer: they’re getting wise to antennas.
Cutting the cable is a movement that’s been picking up steam in the last two years or so, with newer antennas that are packaged better and perform equally to the old rabbit-ears-and-bowtie of days gone by. Add to that, services like Hulu Plus and Netflix take up the slack where cable leaves off, for far less money.
Time Warner’s customer service issues are well known, of course, and since their product keeps rising in prices, it’s likely that they will keep seeing subscriber losses for some time to come.
The good news in Time Warner’s financials is that they are still making money. It looks like they managed to keep about $452 million in profits, about a 9% increase. I guess those customers who left must have been “low-value” ones, the ones who don’t contribute much to the bottom line.
