http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4091036.html Stay tuned for changes in cable TV Comcast Corp. taking over for Time Warner, but much will be same until early 2007 By SHANNON BUGGS and PURVA PATEL Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable system operator, has been making money in Houston for years but few of its customers knew it. As co-owner with Time Warner of the Houston-area cable franchise, Comcast sat in the background collecting half the profits while Time Warner operated the system. Now Comcast will be the company sending you a cable bill. Early next year, Philadelphia-based Comcast will become the sole owner and operator of the Houston franchise, the company said Wednesday. "We're thrilled that we will add Houston, a Top 10 market and one of the fastest growth regions in the U.S., to our footprint," said Vibha Agrawal, a Comcast spokeswoman in Philadelphia. When Comcast takes over from Time Warner next year, the cable box on your TV will continue to work, your Road Runner e-mail address will still accept mail and your usual cable guy will fix or upgrade the wires in your home and neighborhood, at least for a while. Typically when Comcast enters a market, it leaves much of what is there in place in order to minimize disruption to customers. It assumes ownership of the cable boxes along with the rest of the cable system's assets, so there's no need to change out the technology. A mail migration system allows the company to automatically forward e-mail to new Comcast addresses for about a year. And many employees stay on the job. New York-based Time Warner has about 2,000 employees in its Houston division, but neither company could say how many will be retained after the exchange. "It's really early to say in this process what will happen once the transaction closes," Agrawal said. Might offer new channels Comcast anticipates a seamless transition for the Houston takeover, but there are sure to be noticeable changes. It's likely subscribers will have to learn new numbers for their most-watched channels. And they may get to add to their pre-programmed list of favorites new niche channels such as The NFL Network and Logo, which are not offered by Time Warner. Comcast is known as a leader in video-on-demand programming because it offers many movies for free through this service to basic cable customers. It also has a deal to provide TiVo digital video recorder service in homes that pay a premium price for it. "What I really want to see out of all this is the rates coming down," said Ronnie Casas, a Time Warner customer in Pearland. "It seems like every six months or so, my bill goes up." Comcast may lower rates if Houston or state officials threaten to slow down the ownership transfer unless the company agrees to moderate rate hikes for a certain period of time, said Robert Routh, an analyst at Jeffries & Company. "Or Comcast could want to win more subscribers from satellite companies by increasing their marketing and decreasing their rates," he said. Building market share in Houston is likely to be a high priority for Comcast since Time Warner took over its systems in Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth on Tuesday. On Monday, Time Warner and Comcast completed a joint purchase of Adelphia Communications Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002. To make that deal work, the companies swapped systems in some markets, which led to Comcast vacating Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth. Time Warner paid Comcast approximately $67 million as an adjustment to the cable swaps, and Comcast relinquished a 21 percent ownership stake it held in two Time Warner subsidiaries, according to a Time Warner filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Most cable companies don't really compete against each other," said Todd Chanko, an analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. "Time Warner and Comcast more often than not have been partners." Joint venture dissolved In 2004, the two cable giants restructured 50-50 joint ventures in Houston; Kansas City, Mo.; Southwest Texas and New Mexico into one partnership agreement. Each got half the profits and expenses while Time Warner operated all of the systems. The agreement allowed for the partnership to be dissolved any time after June 1 of this year. Comcast notified Time Warner on July 3 that it wanted out of the joint venture. As previously agreed, a divorce declaration split the cable systems into two pools of assets — the entire Houston system with about 790,000 subscribers in one pool and the rest of the cable systems with a total of about 789,000 subscribers in the other known as the Kansas City pool. Also, the party triggering the dissolution got to divide up any outstanding debts of the partnership between the asset pools however it wanted. So Comcast saddled the Houston cable system with the total $2 billion debt load, most of which was owed to the two partners. The party that did not ask for the separation got to pick first and take full ownership of the pool it wanted. Time Warner on Tuesday told Comcast it would take the Kansas City pool, which includes the cable systems in El Paso, Laredo, Corpus Christi and Beaumont-Port Arthur. "It is expected that once the dissolution of the partnership is concluded, Time Warner Cable will still manage 1.9 million customers in Texas and remain the primary cable provider in the state," the company said in a statement released Wednesday. In addition to those systems and Dallas-Fort Worth, Time Warner also owns and operates the cable franchises in Austin, San Antonio and Waco. Most cable companies don't compete with each other because of the high costs associated with digging up streets and laying down cables, but some do overlap service areas. Houston has four other local cable operators, including TVMAX, which services about 35,000 subscribers mostly living in apartment complexes and condominiums. "For us, there's not an immediate impact," said Dave Curtin, chief operating officer of TVMAX. "But the natural assumption is (Comcast will) be an aggressive competitor." For now, nothing different In most markets, satellite providers compete the most with the dominant cable company. In the Houston market, Time Warner goes head-to-head with Dish Network and DirecTV. Confusion created by the ownership change may help competitors change perceptions about their products and build their market share. Houston-based Optical Entertainment Network expects to launch Internet Protocol TV this year, though its plans to offer 400 channels, phone and Internet services on a fiber optic network are still in the pilot stage. For now, nothing changes. Time Warner remains the dominant cable provider in Houston for the remainder of the year. Comcast will spend the next few months restructuring the partnership debt not owed to itself — about $1.4 billion — and mapping out a strategy for entering the Houston market. Chronicle reporter Mike McDaniel contributed to this report. shannon.buggs@chron.com
Ye, thats the place. What do you think of the place? Unfortunately, I think I'm stuck with TVMAX b/c I can't get DishNetwork on my side of the complex.
I know one thing: my Road Runner service has been very up and down the past week. It just goes out for no reason and comes back a few minutes later. Really pissing me off.
"What I really want to see out of all this is the rates coming down," said Ronnie Casas, a Time Warner customer in Pearland. "It seems like every six months or so, my bill goes up." Poor naive little Ronnie. Nothin' ever goes down.
I live up here in Dallas. Curious how it'll affect my stuff. We had NFL Network this past year and I thought it was cool, gonna suck if Warners doesn't carry it. Will be fine as long as they have League pass. Also curious about what's going to happen to internet since I have it set up via Comcast, just don't want another price hike
I ahve 3 email accounts and wanted to consolidate to 2, but didn't know which one a should cut. Now, it's obvious it'll be my rr account.
Yes, they have On-Demand. I lived in Houston for 20 years, having TWC for the last 10, and now live in Dallas and had comcast. Really no difference whatsoever
Well I have an appointment of Aug 10 to change from Direct TV to Time Waner. My old TiVO Hughes receivers are breaking down. I think I might cancel the appointment. TWC does not have NBA TV one negative. The Chronicle article mentions a possible bidding war or something to get people to switch to Comcast. Maybe I'll wait for that. Comcast has TIVO, which is why I got Direct TV to begin with. How is the I control? It sounded pretty cool to be able to watch many of the premium channel movies and series on demand? How does it actually work? Is I control really worth it?
time warner has nbatv if you have digital cable channel 101 and they also have their tivo feature as well
FCC orders TW to reinstate NFL Network in some markets http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aQ0UIDREQhTI&refer=home
I wish they would order Direct TV to have NBA TV. All the movie channels, but I could not watch the Rockets pre-season.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/4093780.html City likely won't get NFL Network in '06 By DAVID BARRON Not that it does Houston sports fans any good for the moment, but the Federal Communications Commission ruled Thursday in favor of NFL Network in its ongoing dispute with our outgoing cable carrier, Time Warner. Time Warner recently yanked NFL Network off the Adelphia and Comcast systems, including the system in Dallas. The NFL appealed, saying Time Warner did not give proper notice of its action, and the FCC ruled that NFL Network should go back on the air on those systems while the dispute is resolved. Time Warner has until Aug. 15 to reply to the order. NFL Network, meanwhile, said the FCC ruling "protect(s) the interests of cable consumers and NFL fans throughout the country. We look forward to continuing discussions with Time Warner regarding long-term carriage of the NFL Network." As for Houston, we appear to be a lame duck for this season. NFL Network isn't going to make a big push to stir up support for its case in Houston when it knows the cable system will switch next year from Time Warner to Comcast. Comcast offers NFL Network as part of its digital plus service, which costs $67.80 per month in Philadelphia, and as part of a digital sports tier for $5 per month. It also offers NFL Network's HDTV service and its video on-demand service, which includes 12-minute condensed versions of each game. Comcast also offers all the ESPN networks that are available from Time Warner, plus ESPN2 HD. It does not, however, offer ESPNU. Other sports networks on Comcast's Philadelphia system include Tennis Channel, NBA TV, CSTV, Outdoor Channel, Golf TV, Fox Soccer Channel, OLN and the three Fox College Sports channels. Comcast is loathe to com-ment on plans for its Houston operation next year, and local Time Warner management had no updates Thursday. But unless the current FCC setback prompts the sides to make progress toward a master agreement that would put NFL Network on all Time Warner systems, it would appear the channel won't be available on the city's largest cable carrier until next spring at the earliest.
