US pay-TV customers think cable and satellite companies are “greedy”


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Michelle Clancy

| 11 February 2016




A full 77% of all respondents in a US survey from TVfreedom believe that pay-TV providers care more about their own profits than ensuring quality service for their customers.



When asked which adjectives describe pay-TV providers, respondents said “greedy” (52%), “unpleasant” (22%) or “heartless” (18%). Additionally, 79% of all survey respondents said that monthly DVR/cable box rental fees are too high.

The poll conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of TV broadcasters’ coalition TVfreedom also shows that Americans remain very concerned about poor service/connection quality issues such as loss of signal or interrupted programming (17%) and complicated billing (10%). Among pay-TV subscribers, 26% report “an unsatisfactory customer service experience with my pay TV provider,” while nearly one-fifth (18%) acknowledged that they had been mistakenly overcharged by their cable or satellite TV provider.

“The survey shows that the FCC’s narrow focus on retransmission consent rules is wildly misguided,” said TVfreedom spokesman Robert C Kenny. “Instead of rewarding the pay-TV industry for its effort to manufacture a retransmission consent crisis, the FCC should focus on issues truly harming consumers, starting with service outages, excessive rental fees and deplorable customer service that consumers are subjected to every day.”