Some things, you can measure centrally. Some, you can survey with a sample group. But sometimes, what you really need is a giant crowdsourced effort — and that’s what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking Empire State residents to help with. [More]
charter
DirecTV Asks Court To Throw Out Justice Dept. Lawsuit Over SportsNet LA
By 2.13.17
It’s hard to be a baseball fan in Los Angeles. For what feels like ages, the LA Dodgers have had an exclusive deal with Time Warner Cable — now Charter — to air their games in the area. Other carriers reportedly have tried to get access to the games but were stymied, eventually leading to a complicated court case where the Justice Department sued DirecTV over allegations of colluding unlawfully with other carriers in negotiations with SportsNet LA. Now, DirecTV is fighting back. [More]
Charter Accused Of Charging Fees To Activate Service That Is Already Active
By 2.10.17
It’s been the better part of a year since Charter leapfrogged to the top of the giant cable company pile by gobbling up Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. The transition, though, has been far from effortless for Charter, which now finds itself facing a potential class-action lawsuit brought by a former Bright House subscriber. [More]
More Charter Customers Now Being Hit With Controversial ‘Broadcast TV’ Fee
By 2.8.17
As the recently merged Charter and Time Warner Cable finish combining their customer bases, some subscribers are getting their first look at controversial fees that significantly raise their cable bills without being counted as a rate hike. [More]
State: Time Warner Cable Defrauded Customers By Advertising Internet Speeds It Couldn’t Provide
By 2.1.17
Back in 2015, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched a statewide effort to measure residents’ broadband speeds to see if they were getting the “blazing fast” internet access that the service providers advertised. Today, Schneiderman announced his office is suing New York City’s biggest broadband provider for not only failing to live up to its promises, but for allegedly knowing that many customers couldn’t possibly see the speeds that TWC promised. [More]
Univision Pulls Channels From Charter-Spectrum Lineup
By 2.1.17
A nasty battle between the nation’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster and the second-largest cable company has resulted in Univision pulling its channels from millions of Charter-Spectrum customers. [More]
Verizon And Charter Romance Heats Up; Could Merger Marriage Be On Horizon?
By 1.26.17
Earlier this month, it was reported that Verizon has a thing for big cable companies that begin with the letter “C,” and that it really wants to make out under the bleachers with either Comcast or Charter. Now comes news that Big V has actually begun the courting process with the latter. [More]
Senators Question Comcast, Charter About “Broadcast TV” & “Regional Sports” Fees
By 1.5.17
The 115th Congress only just came into town and got properly sworn in and down to business on Tuesday, but returning members aren’t wasting any time picking their favorite projects back up. And so, only a few days into the new year, a pair of senators are turning on Charter and Comcast to ask what, exactly, those two think they’re doing with their pricing schemes. [More]
Charter/Time Warner Cable Tries To Defend “Broadcast TV” Fee; Says It’s All About Transparency
By 11.16.16
Last week, a Time Warner Cable customer sued the cable-TV and its parent, Charter Communications over fees that significantly increase subscribers’ bills and allegedly imply that they are surcharges required by the government. Now Charter is commenting on the fees, claiming that this confusing fee is part of the company’s “simple to understand” strategy. [More]
Many Time Warner Cable TV Customers Not Sticking Around With Charter
By 11.8.16
It’s the time of year when all publicly-traded companies announce their last quarter’s results. And over in Charter-land, something’s not looking so good: video subscribers are down, but it’s not a universal cord-cutting trend across the board. Instead, the loss is almost entirely concentrated in Time Warner Cable markets. [More]
DOJ Sues DirecTV Over Blackout Of SportsNet LA
By 11.2.16
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against DirecTV, alleging that the nation’s largest satellite TV provider illegally shared non-public information with other pay-TV companies about their negotiations to carry SportsNet LA, the only cable channel in Los Angeles to air most Dodgers games. [More]
Charter Files Lawsuit To Slow Rollout Of Google Fiber In City Where It’s Not Even Offered Yet
By 10.5.16
Seven months after AT&T went to court to put up a roadblock to the deployment of Google Fiber in Louisville (even though it’s not yet a market for Fiber), the folks at Charter have laid down their own legal challenge, accusing the city of being unconstitutionally biased in favor of Google and AT&T. [More]
Your Cable Company Will Probably Give You Free HBO For A Few Months, But Good Luck Getting The “New Customer” Rate
By 8.15.16
For years, we here at Consumerist HQ have heard anecdotal claims that negotiating for a better rate from your cable provider is no longer as simple as it used to be. The discounts weren’t as deep, people would say, the offers were on the weak side, and in the wake of bad PR, companies have seemed more willing to call customers’ bluff and let them cancel service painlessly. Of course, anecdotes do not equal data, so we wanted to know: is this actually a thing? [More]
Sorry, TWC Customers: Charter Acquisition Means No More “Maxx” Upgrades For You
By 8.11.16
Remember that whole thing where Time Warner Cable was going to install really fast internet upgrades and try to suck a whole lot less? Yeah, that. Well, like the TWC brand itself, the plan to upgrade cities to “Maxx” internet speed is now being left in the dust thanks to the acquisition by Charter. [More]
Charter, Comcast, AT&T Really Want To Stall Chance Of Competition From Google Fiber
By 8.2.16
Consumers really like Google Fiber. Or, at the very least, they like the idea of Google Fiber: when the company says it’s considering bringing its super-speedy internet service to town, prospective subscribers happily sign up and towns do what they need to do to make themselves attractive to the business. And that sits very, very poorly with the companies that are already in town and don’t want to deal with a pesky thing like competition. [More]
Charter Tries To Get Fox News At Time Warner Cable’s Rate, Fox Says ‘Nice Try’
By 7.20.16
When one brand takes over another, it takes over the other company’s assets, which include customers, intellectual property, buildings, and employees. Does the larger company get to take over agreements with vendors and extend them across the entire company, though? Fox News says that no, they do not, as Charter tries to extend Time Warner Cable’s carriage fee agreement for the channel and its sibling Fox Business News across all of its own customers now that it has acquired the smaller company. [More]
Time Warner Cable/Charter Service Not Likely To Improve After Merger
By 6.9.16
Remember how literally just yesterday the Attorney General’s office in New York was strongly suggesting to Charter that they get on the ball about that whole “making service not suck” thing now that they’ve bought Time Warner Cable? Well, analysts are saying that New Yorkers — and everyone else — probably shouldn’t hold their breath. [More]
NY Attorney General: TWC “Has Earned The Miserable Reputation It Enjoys Among Consumers”
By 6.8.16
Last fall, the New York Attorney General launched an investigation to find out the answer to one big question: are New Yorkers actually getting anything like the internet speeds their providers claim, and that they pay for? The investigation is still underway, but early results say that from one provider at least, the answer is a big fat “no.” [More]
