In an email to customers this morning, Time Warner Cable claimed that the company remains “hard at work trying to reach an agreement that will quickly return CBS channels to you.”
This is not the first of such emails and notices, but this one offers something different: free antennas to those customers affected by the blackout so they can still see their CBS-related programming. TWC is also offering a movie-on-demand coupon or Amazon gift cards to certain customers. The email concluded with a reminder to customers once more of ways around the CBS.com blackout:
“You can still watch those shows using another ISP (like your mobile provider, for example), and you can find CBS shows online at sites like Amazon (which offers CBS shows for free to its Amazon Prime subscribers), iTunes, and Netflix.”
TWC’s email also reminded customers that CBS is available over the air, free of cost via antenna—a reminder that many people seemed to have forgotten, and it is starting to backfire.
More and more cable customers are beginning to walk away, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Times reports this week that some customers are taking Time Warner’s advice and leaving Time Warner Cable altogether, instead opting for the free antennas or just cutting the cord. With pay TV companies losing more than 300,000 customers in the past year or so (according to a ecent Moffett Research study), these new cord cutters are subscribers most cable companies can’t afford to lose.
Brief Take: TWC is having to go to great lengths to keep its customers happy during this prolonged retransmission-consent battle, but its efforts may backfire. Encouraging customers to try other methods of TV delivery may result in them never coming back to TWC.
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