It's official! Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are part of Charter Communications. And with the merger will come new marketing intended to forget the old brand and think only good thoughts of the new cable company. And the name Charter has chosen to market cable, phone and data is Spectrum. If you think you have seen that name before, you have. The Flyers and Sixers once played in the Spectrum. There once was a cable network called Prism (sounds like Spectrum a bit) and there is a company already called Spectrum Brands.
Of course the notion of renaming its services under a different brand name comes right from the cable playbook. Comcast introduced us to their Xfinity brand while Cablevision started it with its Optimum brand. Whether Altice decides to keep that name once it acquires Cablevision in the next month or so remains to be seen. Still, the strategy has proved a successful one. Many people have no idea that the brand and the company are the same.
Can Charter take the Time Warner Cable properties and upgrade them and thus help improve their service and reputation? Current TWC customers, especially in California, hope so. If cord cutting doesn't kill them first, an opportunity to regain consumer trust and build a world class operation could certainly be possible. We will have to wait and see how Charter Communications takes on this acquisition and invests in its infrastructure.
