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Comcast Customer Satisfaction Drops 6% After TV Price Hikes, ACSI Says (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's customer satisfaction score for subscription TV service fell 6 percent in a new survey, putting the company near the bottom of rankings published by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Comcast's score fell from 62 to 58 on ACSI's 100-point scale, a drop of more than 6 percent between 2016 and 2017. The ACSI's 2017 report on telecommunications released this week attributed the decrease to "price hikes for Xfinity (Comcast) subscriptions." Satisfaction with pay-TV providers dropped industry-wide, tying the segment with Internet service (a product offered by the same companies) for last place in the ACSI's rankings. The ACSI summarized the trend as follows: "Customer satisfaction with subscription television service slips 1.5 percent to 64, tied with Internet service providers for last place among 43 industries tracked by the ACSI. Many of the same large companies offer service for Internet, television, and voice via bundling. The threat of competition from streaming services has done little to spur improvement for pay TV. Customer service remains poor, and cord-cutting continues to accelerate. More than half a million subscribers defected from cable and satellite TV providers during the first quarter of 2017 -- the largest loss in the history of the industry. Customers still prefer fiber optic and satellite to cable, putting FiOS (Verizon Communications) in first place with a 1 percent uptick to 71. AT&T takes the next two spots with its fiber optic and satellite services."

28 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Me like to play jokes by ls671 · · Score: 1

    Me like to play jokes and download TV programs for free.

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    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re: Me like to play jokes by ls671 · · Score: 1

      Impossible sue me where I live! See me strike again joking on you ;-)

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  2. Monah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Money money monahhhh

    That's all cable providers hear or care about.

    You unhappy but still buying? You like a heroin addict bitching about your health as your buying from me.

  3. How can they charge even more? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

    I'm already paying them so I can watch commercials almost half the time. That's just stupid. Program to commercial ratio seems to be about 60:40 these days, but I really should use a timer to verify. It feels more like 50:50, I'm trying to be objective.
    My wife won't agree to cut the cord because of local news and sports - two things I can get from the 'net or don't care about. There's got to be a good counter argument for that, between Roku, Netflix, Hulu, etc.. I've got killer Internet bandwidth right now at 200mb download speeds. (about 20mb up).

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    1. Re:How can they charge even more? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm already paying them so I can watch commercials almost half the time. That's just stupid. Program to commercial ratio seems to be about 60:40 these days, but I really should use a timer to verify. It feels more like 50:50, I'm trying to be objective.
      My wife won't agree to cut the cord because of local news and sports - two things I can get from the 'net or don't care about. There's got to be a good counter argument for that, between Roku, Netflix, Hulu, etc.. I've got killer Internet bandwidth right now at 200mb download speeds. (about 20mb up).

      It's around 60-40 - the current for prime-time TV is 22 minutes of ads per hour.

      As for news and sports, if you can simplify the experience for your wife, you can probably cut the cord. And by simplify, I mean simplify - she probably wants to turn on the TV and then watch the news by clicking on news or something at best. No "turn on the TV, then go to web browser, enter blah, click here, there everywhere and watch". Roku might be easiest, but it's still a click-fest nightmare at times (provided your local TV station has a Roku channel app).

      Sports is a bit harder since most televised sporting events are NOT streamed, and thanks to various league rules, often times the streaming services omit local events.

      If you're still addicted to cable, and she wants local news, I suggest investing in a good OTA antenna setup. You can get your local news and sports for free that way in a simple format. All for the investment of a couple hundred bucks for a good antenna and maybe half a day's work putting it on the roof.

      As for those that download the shows, you should know how normal TV works. Stations air programming, and that programming comes with ads to pay for the station and producing the show, etc. Viewer numbers set the ad rates, which for prime-time generally average around $80K-$150K for a 30 second spot. By downloading the show, you lower the viewership numbers, and thus the amount of money made for that program. (The Neilsen numbers you see reported are the "free" ones that no one cares about. The numbers that set ad rates are the C numbers which is the number of viewers watching the ads.). Lowering the C numbers means the show is less popular and the networks will likely cancel it if they can find a show that performs better. And the shows they replace it with are ones that attract viewers, so if all the smart people download the shows they like, the networks will actually produce less of those shows (since they don't bring in the eyeballs) Which is why a lot of TV now is driven meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator - the programming everyone wants to see everyone downloads until the program gets cancelled.

    2. Re:How can they charge even more? by ma1wrbu5tr · · Score: 1

      You're not imagining it.

      Most 1/2 hours shows are actually only 21 minutes (22 with opening and credit)
      It is worse on Viacom owned channels like CC and MTV with entire blocks that have 1 hours shows with only 38 minutes of content.

      And.. of course, there are the channels that are part of those great packages that 1: only show reruns of other networks and 2: only do that for 8-12 hours a day with the remaining 12-16 hours dedicated to everyone's favorite ... Infomercials.

      As for your local stuff, I'm in the boonies with the nearest "city" about 25 miles away. I built a DIY HD antenna and used my old Dish to amplify it. Problem solved. Wife is happy with PS Vue and the occassional month of Netflix, Prime, or HBO (gotta watch GoT).
      Cut that cord already!

      --
      Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
    3. Re:How can they charge even more? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      They don't get any of the money from ads unless they own the station doing the broadcast. The station sells time for the ads to pay for content. Some stations also get money from the cable/satellite provider which is the subscriber fees. And some stations just get the subscriber fees.

      When you get your bill from the cable/satellite company the money is a combination of subscriber fees, what it takes to bring the stations to you (plus Internet, phone, etc), and their profits.

      I hate the cable companies and haven't subscribed to cable or satellite TV for almost 15 years because a lot of what is on TV is crap, I can't choose what I want without having a ton of other channels (until very recently), the content that I do want not being available at all, and the high expense.

    4. Re:How can they charge even more? by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

      You could make a box to record the OTA newsast and watch when she wants. Sports if locally broadcast, same deal. Heck I think many local news stations now have streaming from their site of the latest stories.

    5. Re:How can they charge even more? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      That makes sense, I suppose.... but still, the bottom line is that we're paying to watch a lot of commercials. They should strike some kind of deal there, but there's no pressure on them to, I would suppose because most cable companies have a monopoly in their regions.
      We all want ala carte in our cable subscriptions, but it'll never happen because there's no profitability in it for them. They use bundles to pad the losses they'd take from crap programming and crap channels, like the, "Watch Paint Dry" channel or the, "Watch the Kardashians's Lawn Grow" channel.

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    6. Re:How can they charge even more? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Wow, it's like you know her. heh Truth is, she's a luddite. Even universal remotes befuddle and frustrate her, it drives me nuts. (I had to plead with her for us to get a flat screen HDTV and her a smart phone. Seriously.)
      Anyway, a couple of slashdotters have now suggested the HD antenna route, so I think I'll look into that. If I'm not home to help her, our son is, and he's good with tech. As you point out, it's only gonna get worse. Though, I should also add, she bitches about people who put dish antennas on their roof. As if they're any uglier than the old fashioned antenna we used to use! So it's still an uphill battle no matter what I do. (I'll have to pull out the "I'm the breadwinner" card I guess.)
      I don't mind commercials in broadcast media because that's fair, it's how it's always worked. It just irks me to pay exorbitant amounts for cable and still have commercials on top of that.

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      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  4. Big News by gtall · · Score: 1

    I think the big news here is that some people actually like Comcast. Who knew?

    1. Re:Big News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The real news is that Comcast actually had 6 points to loose...not sure how that happened. Must have been a Comcast billing error in the percent counting again.

  5. Re:62/100-58/100=? by sconeu · · Score: 2

    No, that's a drop of 4 percentage POINTS.... .58/.62 = .935 ~= .94, = a 6% drop from it's previous value.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  6. How? by notsteve · · Score: 1

    How can it drop below zero?

  7. Fascinating by ichthus · · Score: 2

    Wow, what a fascinating story. Please, tell me more about how a company's customer base becomes less happy when prices are raised.

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    sig: sauer
    1. Re:Fascinating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Simple - in some markets, including mine, the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area, Comcastic has added usage caps to their Internet "service". Go over 1 TB/month and they'll nail you. Oh, you're given two "free" "courtesy" months of overage surcharges; we used one of them the first month they invoked their draconian policies because we had no idea how much we'd be using after we started using Netflix on our 4k TV the same month they started this policy.

      Needless to say, if U-Verse hadn't reversed itself and gone with their ridiculous satellite crap (HINT: It frequently rains more than an inch an hour in South Florida, rendering it useless) and since Verizontal can't be bothered to offer FiOS down here, we're kind of stuck for now.

      So, yeah, Comcast, er Xfinity as they've branded themselves in a blatant attempt to deceive us, has once again proven what a schlock outfit they are. They think that rolling out a cell-phone service that's partially based on using Wi-Fi is going to appease the masses, even though the frequencies they're using are supposed to be *shared* with other unlicensed users, making them potentially useless in an emergency. Imagine trying to call 911 while someone is breaking in your house -
      all too common in South Florida, BTW - and discovering that you can't get through because some teeny-bopper wants to watch a movie over Wi-Fi...). Oh, and those same Wi-Fi frequencies are subject to interference from *licensed* users - see Title 47 CFR Part 2, which indicates that the primary user is the Government Radiolocation Service.

      Oh, and BTW, if you are a Comcast Internet customer, and you use "Comcast WiFi", while you're out and about around
      the town doing errands and whatnot, the usage you consume is charged against your 1TB allotment as if you were
      sucking those bits through your cable modem at home.

      And, on the video side of the business, a good portion of the price increase was due to "regional sporting fees" charged to everyone, whether they like it or not, to pay for royalties to both professional and collegiate sports teams so that Comcast can carry their games, even though we didn't sign up for the Sports Package. So, in effect, we're having to sponsor the transmission of sporting events even though we don't intend to watch them play their games in stadia paid for by the taxpayers. What's wrong with this picture??

    2. Re:Fascinating by ichthus · · Score: 1

      I was being sarcastic. This is NOT a fascinating story. Obviously, it was a slow news day.

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      sig: sauer
  8. Comcast Business router selection by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    If you have a static IP from Comcast, at least on their Business Class service, you're required to rent one of their shitty routers. Your options are as follows, with my subjective observations on each:

    Cisco DPC3941 :
    ++ Wireless performance seemed to be quite good.
    ++ IPv6 works
    ++ Fairly decent configurability for business purposes +- Occupies the last IP on your subnet for reasons I couldn't easily ascertain.
    -- Imparts seemingly rhythmic, but generally erratic, latency (1-100 msec) on packets that traverse it. (This is why we binned it; we went through two of them.)
    -- Slowest web interface I had ever seen on a router until I had the misfortune of getting AT&T's branded PACE 5268AC router at home for 1gbit fiber
    -- Random reboots, some of which were Comcast pushing updates in the middle of the day
    -- Takes almost 5 minutes to come back after a restart.
    -- No support for truly useful things on a corporate network like SNMP, LACP, or VLAN

    SMC D3G:
    ++ Small
    ++ Seems highly reliable, for most purposes
    +- No wireless. (not a problem)
    +- Doesn't support higher (150mbit/s+) speed classes
    -- Hopelessly broken IPv6 support
    -- Web interface cocks up after about a week, and can't be fixed without restarting
    -- Very little useful configurability in a business environment, e.g. reserved IP leases based on MAC
    -- No support for truly useful things on a corporate network like SNMP, LACP, or VLAN

    Some outdated Netgear turd (CG3000DCR, i think):
    ++ Never had to use one myself.
    ++ They replaced it with a Netgear router that seems to suck less
    +- They replaced it with a Netgear router
    -- Had to support one "back in the day"
    -- It ever existed

    Some newer Netgear turd ("N300", actually WNR2000)
    ++ Never had to use one.


    Boot note:
    Also had these fuckwits do a mass change of 'cusadmin' passwords to something that the router's web interface would not allow you to enter in the 'old password' field to change it. Congratulations, idiots, on forcing all of your business customers (who don't know you can get around this by JavaScript fiddlings) to use the same widely distributed password. Basically, stop screwing with your customer's stuff; also, get some real user-configurable routers.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  9. Re:Beyond their control by ma1wrbu5tr · · Score: 1

    Um, is that why streaming companies can seem to manage decent prices for the same content? Their "worth" as in their networks (infrastructure) is heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

    --
    Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
  10. Re:62/100-58/100=? by ma1wrbu5tr · · Score: 1

    we've heard you screaming how bad Comcast is so you really do not need to work any harder to make them look bad.

    They do a fantastic job of that all by themselves. Yeah, the math here is a bit dodgy but the point is still valid. We hate Comcast more and more every day.

    --
    Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
  11. Re:62/100-58/100=? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    Unless these people are actually cancelling their accounts, why should Comcast care? How are they hurt by "lower satisfaction"?

  12. Re:Beyond their control by Dunbal · · Score: 2

    "Content creators" lol. Yeah how many fucking times can you air the same episode of "Friends", "Die Hard", or "You've Got Mail" and still be called "creative". You get cable and pay up to $100 a month for exactly the same old shit on every channel. Then tell me how expensive it is to re-run all this stuff. How stupid do they think we are. No wonder people are cord cutting.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  13. Re: Been a customer for less than two weeks... by avandesande · · Score: 1

    You might need a bias adjustment it is something a tech can fix from the street

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  14. FiOS in first place? Statistics by clonehappy · · Score: 1

    FiOS is great I'm sure, you know, for the small fraction of the population that actually live in their service footprint. And there are millions of people who can only get satellite, so of course they're happy with what they have. I seem to be the only happy cable customer I know...

  15. COmpetition. THats the fix by See+Attached · · Score: 2

    THere is simply no way this is going in the right direction for consumers. Without competition, there is no chance for innovation, and no disruption, The same old Handshake Monopoly is the norm now. How can we get politicians to recognize this as an issue for constituents. I have contacted my mayor to be sure he knows we are watching, and paying more and more for less and less. When we buy 100 Mbps service from an ISP, are we supposed to pity that ISP when I use that Bandwidth to stream the superbowl or some movies from Netflix? so the fix: 1) Get at least 3 ISPs that can get Metropolitan WIfi to your home (skip the Physical layer - the basis for that monopoly) 2) Drop the triple play crap, and pay the TV producers (HBO, ESPN and News-source-of-choice, and .. oh yeah... Netflix) 3) keep the net neutral. First one ensures some competition, second skips the ISP as Content provider, and third keeps the the ISP as an ISP and not a content purveyor. COmments ???

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    Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
  16. Screw Comcast by Humbubba · · Score: 1

    No surprise. /. had a story Yesterday (5/25/17) about "Cord-Cutters Are Ditching Their Cable Packages At the Fastest Rate Ever." When real G5 becomes ubiquitous, Comcast's 'screw the customer' policies will come back to bite/byte them on their butt.

  17. Re:Beyond their control by Dunbal · · Score: 2

    there aren't as many people to pay the relatively fixed costs to maintain the infrastructure.

    No the problem is that big companies forget how to make money and start pissing all their profits away so the obvious solution is to squeeze the customer as much as they can.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  18. Re:Beyond their control by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    To some extent, yes. It is the new norm that actors in recurring roles get at least a million bucks per episode. That money has to come from somewhere. But cable/fiber providers tack on their own cash grabs with various bogus and official looking fees. In the end the companies can care less if folks cut the TV cord...they still need fast Internet connection and without the TV/voice bundling the Internet only plans are not that much cheaper. Plus, cord cutting is only a reasonable option for folks who are not interested in live TV. Yes, there are the services that provide live TV streaming, but they do not include local channels. In the end you can save maybe 15 bucks a month for a much higher level of inconvenience.