Lessons from a quarter to forget: VoIP revenue--and new bundling options--can't come soon enough for cable.((On demand: where content meets technology: VOD * HDTV * DVR * ITV * HSI))

Multichannel News, September, 2004 by Stump, Matt

Cable did not have a good spring. From April through June, the industry lost some 300,000 video subscribers, while DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network added 800,000 subscribers.

While some of those losses were college students, who will return, and others who may be less-than desirable price-chasing consumers, a swing of more than one million homes can't be so easily glossed over or explained away.

To make matters worse, cable modern service lost market share to digital subscriber line service for the first time in history. The split was 52% to 48%, roughly 900,000 to 830,000 subscribers, according to Leitchman Research Group.

DOUBLE DOSE OF PAIN

That's two punches to the gut, unprecedented in...

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