If there’s one person in this world who really doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of your complaints about Time Warner Cable’s poor service, it’s probably Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes; not because he’s some sort of uncaring jerk, but because he has nothing to do with Time Warner Cable.

Well, that’s not completely true. Time Warner content — in the form of networks like HBO, TBS, CNN; and in movies and TV shows produced by the company’s studios — does rely on Time Warner Cable to reach millions of Americans in the nation’s two largest TV markets, but Time Warner and Time Warner Cable have not been the same company for more than seven years.

In March 2009, TWC was spun off from the bigger company and the cable/internet service inexplicably kept the Time Warner name, in spite of the fact that the words “Time Warner Cable” are not exactly synonymous with quality.

The overlapping company names and shared corporate history only makes things more confusing for subscribers who don’t read the business pages, leading to TWC customers reaching out to Bewkes with their cable problems.

“Everybody thinks I did their cable installation,” he recently told the Wall Street Journal.

This includes a man who sent Bewkes a late-night email referring to him as a fornicating piece of fecal matter.

Rather than just deleting the message or forwarding it on to the correct CEO — TWC’s Rob “Golden Parachute” Marcus — Bewkes actually called the guy back and congratulated him on his prolific profanity.

“It’s not easy to maintain that tone through four paragraphs,” acknowledges the CEO (of Time Warner, not Time Warner Cable).

The confusion over the two companies has even extended to the stock market, with people misinterpreting headlines about TWC’s quarterly earnings for news about its former parent company (and vice versa). More recently, when reports surfaced that Apple had considered buying Time Warner, websites that should have known better inaccurately reported that the iPhone maker was looking to merge with Time Warner Cable.

This should change now that TWC’s merger with Charter is underway. When that’s complete, Time Warner Cable will reportedly be known as “Spectrum,” which is not be confused with the former hockey/basketball arena in Philadelphia that was owned by Comcast.

[via DSLreports]

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