Editor's Letter: Crimes of Opportunity

By John P. Ourand

I understand the mind of a cable thief.

Well, at least a little bit.

I've come to realize that some cable thieves really don't mean to steal cable. Who can really blame them if they look the other way when they start receiving premium channels that weren't ordered, or if nobody comes when they call to disconnect? It's a crime of opportunity.

I've become more attuned to these cable pirates because of a question of scruples I faced last month at the final CTAM Digital Conference in Los Angeles.

That was when the Century Plaza hotel staff mistakenly delivered to my room a 30-page contract proposal from a network group to a cable operator. It was filled with numbers, offers and other information that would have made for a splashy cover story. I spent 15 minutes combing through the document, until I heard a frantic knock on my door. It was a hotel employee, asking me if I had received a fax delivery by mistake.

My first instinct was to lie. In fact, that was my second, third and fourth instincts. Instead, I fessed up, handed over the 30-page fax and decided to pursue the story through phone calls and e-mails.

The reason I'm retelling this tale is not because I'm comparing myself to those who steal cable signals. The 30-page fax literally fell into my lap, and I was within my journalistic rights to report its contents. Still, when confronted, I didn't want to give up the easy scoop.

Cox executives like Claus Kroeger and Catherine Mitchell understand that type of thinking, too. Some cable thieves aren't bad guys: They just capitalize on opportunities. Kroeger and Mitchell believe it's better to turn these thieves into paying customers than to prosecute them.

Though I claim to understand the mind of cable pirates, I still have problems with this concept. The first version of our cover had Kroeger and Mitchell in front of jail cells. But that's not the point. Cox doesn't really want to send these guys to jail. It wants money, not a pound of flesh.

And as Mavis Scanlon reports on page 14, Cox has been successful with this strategy. During a week in Hampton Roads, Va., earlier this year, it turned 12% of caught cable pirates into paying customers. More proof that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

This issue sees the debut of a column from Shirley Brady: previews of cable networks' programming. Once each month, Shirley will preview these shows through the prism of local ad sales and customer retention efforts. Her first column, on page 30, details IFC's upcoming Friday night block, "IFC Fridays."