What?! Another Time Warner Cable rate hike?

There's definitely an art to informing customers that you're about to smack them upside the head. About 500,000 Time Warner Cable customers in Southern California probably knew they were in for trouble when they received a letter the other day that began: "At Time Warner Cable, we strive to bring you the best products and services available."

Does a sentence like that ever signal anything except bad news? Time Warner takes two full paragraphs to clear its corporate throat before it finally gets to the point: "We are making some adjustments effective with your next billing statement. Certain services, packages and equipment prices will change." Even then, the company can't quite bring itself to clearly state that prices are going up again. The letter refers only to "price adjustments," and nowhere does it say that your cable bill is about to get more expensive. You have to make your way to the back page of an enclosed pamphlet to finally learn that the cost of the typical cable package is rising by as much as $3.04 a month.