Family Tier Marketing Limited at Comcast, Other Cable Firms
Cable firm marketing of family tiers varies as widely as availability of the stripped down programming packages meant to soothe legislative and FCC concern about indecency, our survey of the industry found. Time Warner Cable, offering it to a greater portion of subscribers than any peer (CD May 24 p8), is the most energetic in touting the tier. Comcast and Cox, whose efforts are more limited, do less to publicize their packages.
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Bresnan hasn’t publicized any deployment plans -- almost half a year after NCTA Pres. Kyle McSlarrow said 6 companies were working to unveil tiers by March 31 (CD Dec 13 p1). Bresnan declined comment. Bright House began offering family tiers in 3 of its 6 markets in April, said a spokeswoman. The 3rd company McSlarrow listed whose sales were delayed, Midcontinent Communications, started offering the package late last month.
Insight, named by McSlarrow in Dec., didn’t plan to offer a tier in Q1, said a spokeswoman. The firm always planned to start sales, perhaps on a limited basis, by summer’s end, she said: “We've made a commitment to do it, we just haven’t put a stake in the ground.” Charter, not included in the initial batch of commitments, continues to weigh whether to sell the tier, a spokeswoman said: “We just are not there yet.” Firms including Comcast are giving new customers the option to sign up for the tier online.
Midcontinent’s delay arose from a cable capacity upgrade program to 860 MHz from 300 MHz and from talks with programmers, said Tom Simmons, vp-public policy: “We wanted to make sure that we completed that particular project before we launched those services. That was a part of the delay. The other part was negotiations with programmers. We had to redo a number of those contracts.” Bright House’s rollout also was hung up by carriage talks, said an official.
Midcontinent, the smallest firm committing to the tier, has ambitious plans. Its 200,000 subscribers will get a letter by July 31 describing the package, said Simmons. The marketing isn’t at its most intense, but newspaper coverage of the service prompted subscriber calls to customer service, he said: “A number of them are calling in, and they are asking specifically what the channels are.”
Bright House, Cox and Comcast also are relying on media coverage to hype the tier, said officials. Comcast, offering the tier to almost 2/3 of customers, does little to pitch it to nonsubscribers beyond working with the media. Comcast follows franchise-agreement rules in notifying customers, said a spokeswoman. She said she couldn’t provide details. Customer service representatives were trained to ask new customers if they have families and if so to consider the tier, she said.
Cox, with the tiers offered to 20% of customers, relies on public relations, a spokeswoman said: “Cox has tried to drive awareness through PR efforts and has supplemented that with some bill messaging. We are still evaluating appropriate segmented tactics to both the subscriber and nonsubscriber base.” Bright House “did a big press push in those 3 markets when it initially launched,” a spokeswoman said: “Since it’s so new, that’s kind of where we are at this point.” The tier will be available companywide before fall, she said.
Time Warner’s effort stands out. All its approximately 11 million customers got a note advertising the family tier with at least one monthly bill, said a spokeswoman. Executives in the firm’s 28 geographic divisions got a package of information to publicize, including material for newspaper ads, letters to customers and fliers for technicians to leave at homes they visit, she said: “Decisions on what to do are made on a divisional level.”