Cable TV far less popular than oil, health insurance and fast food companies, survey finds

Polling 9,000 U.S. consumers about 1,200 companies, a new survey found that pay-TV companies rank rock bottom in terms of customer satisfaction.

The latest YouGov BrandIndex survey found that cable and satellite companies rank below large banks, oil and gas providers, fast food makers and creators of erectile dysfunction medication.  Even health insurance companies ranked higher.

To provide a sense of scale, providers of home and improvement products and services ranked highest in the survey, with a score of 71; credit card companies were in the middle with a score of 44.1; wireless companies ranked next to last, scoring 21.2; and pay-TV was dead-last with a bullet at 13.2.

And it appears to be the three largest cable companies that are dragging the entire pay-TV industry down. While Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) each elicited more negative survey responses than positive ones, the other pay-TV companies in the survey yielded largely positive feedback.

Lance Fraenkel, head of client services for BrandIndex, told Huffington Post that while Time Warner Cable has traditionally ranked low in company's surveys, Comcast typically generated neutral feedback. However, a series of high-profile customer-service issues that surfaced over the summer have dragged the MSO's reputation down to dead last among companies involved in the survey.

For more:
- read this YouGov BrandIndex study
- read this Huffington Post story

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