edithhopegardenjournal

NBCUniversal’s investments this month in Vox Media and BuzzFeed firmly place the audiovisual giant in a strong position to benefit from cross-platform advertising and content distribution. The company this month invested $200 million in each of the two leading digital firms that operate portfolios of sites and are strong players in social media distribution. The move will make it possible for them to jointly offer advertising packages for major events such as the Olympics and provide new avenues to promote the broadcast and cable programs and motion pictures from NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of cable/internet giant Comcast, which itself owns about 14% of Vox Media. The investments reveal the increasing importance of digital and social media as channels to consumers and that legacy media companies are gaining better understanding how they can be used to advantage. It also indicates that legacy companies like NBCUniversal do not have the capabilities and skills to directl...

Comcast and Time Warner are awaiting regulatory responses to their application to merge and become the dominant player in cable television provision in the U.S. If permitted, the combined firm will control about 2/3rd of the broadband cable market and about 40% of the entire broadband market in the U.S. (which is used for both cable and the Internet). Independently, the two firms both have reputations for poor installation and repair services, poor billing and collection practices, high prices, and price increases above inflation levels. No one seriously believes their claims that the merger will be pro competitive, lead to more consumer choice, better service and lower prices. The companies have not been helping their case by appearing to be operations out of control when it comes to their customers.   In recent months customers seeking services have been kept on the phone for hours and forced to undergo forms of psychological abuse while they tried to get the changes they wished....

Serving and satisfying customers is a crucial part of  value creation in any business,but U.S. communication firms continue to struggle with the very basics and are being heavily criticized for poor service, price gouging, billing problems, and generally poor customer relations. 40 percent of the top 15 companies that most dissatisfy customers are communications firms, according to the latest data from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index. The companies American most dislike include Facebook and cable systems, which operate as near monopolies and consumerss have no real competitors to turn to for better service. The scores for the companies are: Direct TV: 68/100 Facebook: 66/100 Comcast: 61/100 Time Warner: 63/100 Cox Communications: 63/100 Charter Communications: 59/100 These are failing scores on any grading system. The companies have little incentive to spend time and money to improve service and relations with customers b ecause there is no real competition that can discip...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted rules designed to halt cable system operators from retaliating against independent channels when there are business disputes or discriminating against them in favor of ones in which they ownership stakes. The rules are intended to ensure that the monopoly power of cable operators is not used to deny viewer choice or harm competition channel providers. One rule is designed to prohibit systems from dropping channels when there are business disputes with systems that have been taken to the commission for resolution. Another rule is designed to create a more level playing field for independent channels by making it possible for them to reach more viewers. Comcast Corp., for example, has been accused in recent years of forcing competitors’ sports channels into premium packages that fewer viewers select. Given that price rises for cable services have far outstripped inflation rates in recent years, that service providers cr...

The Federal Communications Commission has moved to keep Internet service providers from limiting or unreasonably discriminating against content provided by competing services The regulations are designed to keep telephone and cable companies that provide phone services from using their Internet services to limit use of Skype and other online telephone services. It is also intended to halt them from making content provided by audio and video service providers they do not own less desirable by limiting downloads from firms such as Netflix or Hulu or providing faster service only for their own content. The rules are designed to maintain a level competitive position on the Internet and to restrict the abilities of companies that dominate access to the Internet from using oligopolistic control of the service points to harm content competitors. The regulations require that services allow their customers equal access to all online content and services, but allow the services some fle...

Increasing competition among cable, satellite, and broadband suppliers, combined with slower growth in consumer uptake because the industries have reached maturity, is leading to aggressive marketing efforts to wrestle market share from other companies. If the leading companies followed classic marketing strategies, they would be offering consumers better arrays of networks and services, better customer service, and/or better prices in efforts to attract more customers. Instead, many of the largest competitors have been engaging in acts that harm customers and consumers by using illegal and deceptive marketing practices and strategies designed to unwittingly wring greater revenue from their customers. Although the companies apparently think there are benefits in behaving badly, their marketing practices are increasingly getting them into trouble. Aggressive telemarketing—which has always offended consumers—has landed a number of leading firms in hot water. Comcast and Direct TV have ju...

Sometimes companies forget what businesses they are in and Comcast seems to be the latest media and communication company to do so. The problem evidenced in the dispute between the FCC and Comcast over its traffic management policies blocking or slowing BitTorret and other files in violation of FCC network neutrality rules requiring open access. Without addressing whether regulators or Comcast are right in the dispute, it is clear from the company’s response that it has lost sight of it core business. Comcast argues it was engaging in reasonable business practices by limiting the flow of BitTorrent files (often used to download large video, audio, and text files) because they push up the flow of traffic and slow the system. In Comcast’s view, the system and its integrity are its raison d’etre and represent the business it is in. It is easy to understand why the company and its executives might think so. Comcast spends the majority of its effort and personnel creating and maintaining it...