Charter Customers Say Bigger Isn’t Likely to Mean Better

“Maybe it will go from an F-minus to an F.” So predicted Terence Allen of Atlanta (GA), a longtime Charter Communications subscriber, upon hearing that many long-suffering Time Warner Cable customers were crossing their fingers that Charter’s acquisition of their cable provider could lead to better service. Allen, who has had no cable option but Charter in his neighborhood for the last 15 years, was echoing (in rather more pronounced terms) a sentiment voiced by a number of analysts, consumer advocates and brand watchers: For Time Warner Cable subscribers, “not quite as bad” may be about as good as they can get with this deal. Charter’s announcement that it had agreed to buy its larger rival Time Warner Cable for $56 billion cheered Wall Street, and observers predicted that some of the regulatory hurdles that led to the demise of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal in April were not as likely to be a problem this time. But for customers frustrated with screen freeze, unresponsive remote controls, uneven speeds, slurring and skipping over dialogue, and the elusive quest to get a real person on the phone when there is a problem, the effect may be negligible.