The Cablevision Systems Corporation posted a 47 percent decline in fourth-quarter income on Tuesday and said its free cash flow would be lower this year because of an increase in capital expenses, results that set off a 10 percent decline in its share price.
Discussing the earnings on a conference call, the chief financial officer, Gregg Seibert, said the company planned no increases in subscriber fees this year, a move that, along with investments in cable set-top boxes and costs to upgrade networks, would reduce free cash flow.
Maybe if they stopped moving the good stuff from free service to rented set-top box service this wouldn’t happen. Right now in NJ, except for the broadcast channels, most of what we get is crap from cable without the box —yet not needing a box (supposedly) is the only real advantage they have over satellite or FIOS.
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Comcast is the same, no box, no glory. They want you to have the box, so that they can make routine channel shuffles without you knowing it. They make a change, transmit that info to the box, and you are none the wiser. For cable customers who watch clear-QAM channels with no box, they are constantly having to rescan their TVs because Comcast makes change, after change, etc. I’ve often thought it was deliberate, to force clear-QAM customers to get a box. Yes, FIOS makes you get a box, but when you see the quality of FIOS TV, you’ll quit whining about the box. FIOS does not use compression, because they have infinitely more bandwidth. The picture quality is stunning. The satellite and cable boys only have to much bandwidth to play with, and the compression levels that they subject some of their channels to is absolutely criminal.