Cable companies to give clues on Internet impact

Are people really cancelling cable to watch TV and movies from the Internet instead? It's a question that has dogged the pay-TV industry for a year, and a spate of quarterly reports over the next few weeks. Much lies in the balance. If online video really is taking TV service subscribers from cable, satellite and phone providers, it's not just bad news for those companies. Analysts also see it leading to more restrictions and higher prices for online video and broadband access, a trend that has already started.

Time Warner Cable's cable TV rolls shrank in the second quarter by 130,000 -- slightly more than Wall Street anticipated -- while the MSO saw a 35% surge in business services revenue and added 54,000 broadband customers.