Cable Gets Some Love In Customer Survey

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 5/24/2010 12:01:00 AM

Cable companies are doing a slightly better job at winning over consumers than they did a year ago.

The four biggest U.S. cable operators posted notable gains on the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index ratings, released last week, as the average score across all pay TV customers climbed 5% in the first quarter of 2010.

“It’s a big, meaningful bump up for the sector,” ACSI managing director David VanAmburg said. “What this study is suggesting is that as competition becomes more meaningful, everyone is stepping up their game.”

Still, cable trailed both satellite and the telco TV services from Verizon and AT&T, which were included for the first time on the ACSI survey. Verizon’s FiOS TV topped the pay TV category — with a score of 73 out of a 100-point scale — followed by AT&T U-verse TV at 72.

Dish Network also stood out, boosting its score by a whopping seven points, to 71. Direc- TV, meanwhile, dropped three points from last year, to 68. According to ACSI, DirecTV’s recent price increase combined with Dish’s aggressive pricing promotions “has the two satellite TV providers moving in opposite directions.”

Cox gained 2% to 67 to lead cable for a seventh straight year, and while Charter Communications made the biggest leap — gaining 18% to 60 — it remained in last place. Charter is now statistically tied with Comcast and Time Warner Cable, both up 3% to 61.

The survey results showed a three-point improvement among all TV providers, to an average of 66, the highest score for the segment since ACSI began measuring it in 2001. Last year, the ACSI’s average score for pay TV services fell 2%, to 63, compared with 2008.

The ACSI had been produced by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, but the project was spun off last year into a standalone company that remains based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The ACSI rating for each company is based on a sample of 250 customer interviews with more than 65,000 interviews conducted annually.