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CABLE WORLD STAFF
Wow, if this is what to expect from CableWorld, I am a little surprised. Your cover ?story? (?The Latest Dish,? May 14) goes nowhere and makes the assumption that the lost digital subs in LA have gone to satellite dishes, although you cannot provide one concrete example, nor does the fact [that] there are twice as many digicable subs than DBS bother you. Also, since Adelphia put all its premiere stuff on digital, a better question might have been to see if the analog crowd forced the digital tier to go back to analog and basic services (which is an assumption that can be made from the numbers, but since there is no lineage of service history ? a vital point ? we cannot make that full assumption unless you are wise enough to ask that particular question). How do you figure they left the operator altogether ? isn't cable so mature at this point that it would be difficult to have a nice gain like this with people leaving?
Now, about these discarded dishes ? were they really discarded? No, the picture you show twice is actually of dishes that have been bartered for through service exchanges or even paid for through rebates. Correct? And, being nothing more than a promotional pile of junk (which you merrily featured), couldn't these dishes be pointed out as such? Surely that has to be the most inappropriate way and inefficient way imaginable to get rid of a bunch of satellite dishes. And, a nice touch is that a satellite analyst at a financial house is quoted about all this and he utilizes secondary research he did not author and a sample he did not create. Nice.
Despite the sensational headline, is there one tiny piece of proof digital cable subs are tuning out? On the contrary, the numbers you quote tell a different story ? there are twice as many digital cable subs as DBS subs. And why is this satellite analyst giving the growth numbers anonymously? How could you interpret them in this vein.
Hope this is not a picture of things to come.
Larry Swasey, President
Allied Business Intelligence Inc.
Via e-mail
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