Time Warner Cable reports subscriber dip

Time Warner Cable took a hit from a weak economy and growing competition from phone companies in the fourth quarter as subscriber growth slowed.

Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable operator in the U.S. behind Comcast, met financial expectations on Wednesday for the fourth quarter, but it added fewer subscribers during the quarter.

CEO Glenn Britt cited a weak economy and growing competition from phone companies AT&T and Verizon Communications.

The cable operator only gained about 49,000 new lines for a total of 34.2 million during the quarter. And basic video subscriptions decreased by 197,000, to 13.1 million. This drop was attributed to customers ending their service, but was also due to the fact that Time Warner Cable sold some properties.

Even though the company saw subscriptions slow and even decline in some areas, it still managed to increase its revenue, mostly due to higher prices. In video, it increased revenue by about 4 percent to $2.65 billion. Revenue for its high-speed data service also increased 11 percent, to $1.08 billion. And voice revenue increased 29 percent, to $435 million.

Meanwhile, Verizon Communications, which competes head-to-head with Time Warner in several markets, including New York City, had its best quarter yet in terms of signing up new Fios broadband and TV subscribers. For the fourth quarter, Verizon added 303,000 Fios TV customers and 282,000 Fios Internet customers. Verizon ended the year with 1.9 million Fios customers, doubling its base in 2008.

AT&T, which also sells broadband and TV service, also had a strong quarter. It added a total of 264,000 new TV subscribers in the fourth quarter, up from 232,000 added in the third quarter of 2008. The company now has more than 1 million subscribers for this service.

AT&T's U-Verse broadband service also helped push growth in the company's IP data services. In total, AT&T grew its consumer IP data revenue, which includes broadband and AT&T U-Verse services, by 21.4 percent.

Time Warner Cable also wrote off a big portion of its investment in the high-speed wireless network being built by Clearwire. The company took a noncash impairment of about $367 million on its $550 million investment. The company expects to roll out wireless service with Clearwire in at least one city in 2009.

Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable's parent company, Time Warner, also reported a loss of $16.03 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with last year's profit of $1.03 billion. Much of the loss came from $24.2 billion in writedowns, a big portion of which came from the cable operator.

[nicmart]

Any company which provides a forum for the odious Nancy Grace, as Time Warner does, deserves the worst possible economic fate.

[johnsbrn1]

As an ex-Time Warner subscriber, I can say with reasonable assurance that this has nothing to do with the economy and everything to do with their shady business practices. Time Warner charged me for several PPV movies that I never rented and then refused to take them off my bill. Several months later, I found out a friend of mine had the same thing happen. I'd love to know if anyone else has had this issue with them. I stopped all my Time Warner services and switch to DSL and satellite.

[renGek]

When I lived in the east coast, this very thing happened to me. I called them up and said there are 4 movies charged to my account including wet t-shirts parts 1 and 2. And their response to me was if their system says I ordered them then I ordered them. I said I have prove that I didn't. There are only 2 living beings in my home, me and my cat. Since you told me what time I allegedly ordered these films, I can tell you I was at work. So unless my cat was feeling a little dirty and picked up the phone and dial in and ordered the movie (I had already disabled ppv through the remote), it can't happen. Their lame response was "our system is gears towards 100% accuracy". I had to file a complaint with the state attorney general before they removed the charges. I shouldn't have had to go that far because their 100% accurate system sucked 99% of the time.

[digelt]

This exact same thing happened to me. I've fought for months to get a ridiculous $10.99 charge off of my account for some "Smackdown" type of PPV event that we never ordered. They assure me that not only did we order it, but we watched the whole thing. I've gone round and round with representatives at every level about the fact that no one in my home would ever watch anything of the sort for one second, let alone 3 hours (or however long it was). I told them to look at my several year history as a customer and see that we never used PPV, and we'd never asked for any sort of special concession. They refused to remove the charge no matter what. I asked them if $11 was worth losing a customer, and they still refused (basically saying that yes, it was worth losing my business). And so now I'm with DirectTV and AT&T DSL. We just turned in our boxes, and if they withhold that $10.99, I'm reporting them to the BBB & the attorney general.

[xcal78]

I'm an ex-Time Warner subscriber as well. It pissed me off when they made a deal with my Condo association to be the exclusive cable provider. The added the cable fees right into my monthly dues so we had to pay for it reguardless of if we used it or not. I'm currently working with the FCC to get that fixed since it's illegal. You'd think they would just drop it knowing it was illegal but they are fighting it out. Anything to make an extra buck. If they **** off all their customers I'd expect to see Verizon's FIOS service jump the same amount as Time Warner's losses. LOL

[raw2076]

As a ex Time Warner customer i know 1st hand that they ripped me off when it came to getting certain channels. They do not have the HD channels that other providers have. I pay the same price with AT&T U-Verse that i was paying with Time Warner and i get 75 HD channels. The internet is even faster then Time Warner. All i am saying Time Warner is a rip off.

[subslug]

I signed up for the U-Verse the day it became available in my area. Anything to get rid of TW. I really don't know if U-verse as a whole is a better deal than cable. They may have more channels, they may have better internet, they might even cost more...I'm not really sure.

All I know is, it's not TW.
If I lived in an area and TW was my only option......you would see an antenna on my roof.

[sidco1]

I am an ex- Time Warner customer. I recently moved and had my service transferred. After the install, I was unable to order movies on demand. Each time I called TW I was put on hold for at least 15min. Noone I spoke with had a solution for me over the phone so I set it up to have a technician come out. The technician shows up-late of course- and him and another tech. work on fixing the problem for 3 hrs without getting anywhere. They switched out the box and it still didn't work.
So I buy a new tv and my buddy tells me to switch to uverse so I do. I turn in the only box I had to TW. They tell me that they have on record that I have 2 boxes, which I didn't . I argued with about 5 different people over the next week and finally said forget it and sent in the $120 fee they wanted for the box just to get them off my back. Well here it is over 2 months later and I get a bill in the mail from a collection company stating that I am delinquent on my TW account !!!!! I apologize to anyone who reads this for the long story but I want the whole world to know why they should -NEVER USE TIME WARNER CABLE AND IF YOU HAVE THEM, CANCEL THEM IMMEDIATELY. THEY ARE THE WORST COMPANY I HAVE EVER DEALT WITH.
I am furious about this and if anyone can give me some advise on getting "payback" in any way possible, I am open for suggestions!