A potent broadband offering will offset the loss of hundreds of thousands of basic video subscribers and ultimately provide a platform to bring those subs back into the fold, Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR) Chief Marketing Officer Ted Schremp believes.
Speaking at Citi's 21st annual Global Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., Schremp said that Charter sees broadband as part of an IP focus that "helps us bring together solutions not only for a video perspective but really helps us take the bundle from being a packaging and pricing equation to something that truly has cross-platform interaction."
As Charter rolls out DOCSIS 3.0 (it's about 55 percent completed, Schremp said) it finds ways to further differentiate that offering, including "an opportunity over time ... to use usage-based pricing as a way to deliver higher speeds at lower price points based around a particular customer use case."
In every instance, he said, broadband is the foundation but video can be rebuilt atop it, even for subscribers who may be getting their video elsewhere.
"Our network passes 12 million homes (and) there's no reason if somebody chooses to have a satellite di8sh on their roof that we shouldn't be their broadband provider," he said. Those subscribers then can be pitched at a later time when Charter finalizes a next-generation video product that uses "a lot of the ideas that over-the-top and other technologies have brought to the marketplace and pulls them together in a way that makes sense for (Charter cable) consumers," he said.
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