When a company is up for sale and employees fear losing their jobs, it is easy to expect that work becomes secondary while bitching becoming the top priority. The same could be true for Time Warner Cable (TWC) who has been dealing with a sale for quite some time. Yet despite that all blowing up, Time Warner Cable has kept their eye on their business targets and the results seem impressive.
For the first quarter of this year, TWC has been successful in fighting back against cord cutting, according to Multichannel, "adding 30,000 basic video customers in the first quarter, its first positive basic video quarter since 2009." In addition, broadband customers grew 315,000 and telephone customers grew 320,000. These best ever increases demonstrate that the company stayed focus despite the uncertainty of future ownership. And while that uncertainty continues with Charter Cable interested in a new bid, Time Warner Cable may just start thinking that they can survive and prosper without being acquired.
Of course, in the long run, the question is can Time Warner Cable as well as the other cable operators figure out how to reverse the trend of cord cutting over the long haul. It would be interesting to hear from TWC where these new basic subs came from; did they come from formers that were trying to live without cable, new build or new home owners, or from competitor platforms like U-Verse, FIOS, DirecTv or Dish. A deeper dive of how TWC captured this growth might tell the industry a lot about what lies ahead.
