CHICAGO - The cable industry appears to be facing up to a few hard facts, if panel discussions and keynotes at The Cable Show are any indication, and one of those, as pointed out by Cox Communications president Patrick Esser, is a "poverty problem"--that is, subscribers impacted by a rough economy who are now being priced right out of cable.
In fact, he said that he worries more about those customers than he does about cord cutting, an SNL blog reports.
Esser cited Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who has argued for quite awhile that a growing segment of the population is unable to afford cable service as disposable income declines.
Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) CEO, agreed with Esser that it was a concern, and that MSOs should look at different ways to reach struggling customers.
"It would behoove all of us to work together on smaller packages," he said.
For more:
- SNL has this blog post
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