Calling the relationship between cable providers and their customers a "soup of misery," a management consulting firm says subscriber dissatisfaction with cable service has reached an all-time high, with 53 percent of surveyed consumers saying they'd ditch their service if they had more choices.
According to the report issued by cg42, 70 percent of surveyed cable subscribers said their video TV options are too limited, and 72 percent believe they'll be worse off if the proposed mergers of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), and AT&T (NYSE: T) and DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), are allowed to move forward.
"These are the highest levels of [company] vulnerability and [consumer] frustration we've ever seen," said cg42 partner Steve Beck to the Washington Post. "What we know is that frustration drives attrition," he added. "It drives switching."
The cg42 survey was conducted online, and polled 3,038 current and former cable customers at the top five U.S MSOs.
Amid burgeoning competition from satellite and telco pay-TV services, and over-the-top programming alternatives, National Cable and Telecommunications Association spokesman Brian Dietz disagreed with the notion that consumers have few choices.
"The top four biggest video subscription services in the U.S. are an online video provider [Netflix], a cable company [Comcast] and two satellite companies [DirecTV and Dish Network," Dietz noted to the Post.
For more:
- read this Washington Post story
- read this Huffington Post story
Related links:
Comcast, TWC haunt bottom of ACSI's customer satisfaction index
OTT households grow, while pay-TV consumers at their most miserable
Consumers have reached price limit, but cord cutting isn't a problem yet, panel says