Cox CEO doesn't expect customer surge from digital transition

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 15, 2009 by Stephen Maloney

Cox Communications CEO Steve Sawyer said he doesn't expect a significant spike in customers as a result of this past weekend's highly anticipated switch to an all-digital signal.

Cox is not tracking new applications resulting from the digital transition, he said.

"We're probably going to get some new business from this," he said. "It's a broadcaster event, so it's not a cable event, per se. If people are calling Cox or another provider to inquire about service, we'd love to have that, but we're not tracking that right now."

Dubbed the "digital transition," the Federal Communications Commission set Friday as the last day broadcasters could transmit an analog television signal, making televisions not equipped to receive a digital signal obsolete as of Saturday.

Sawyer compared fears surrounding the digital switch to the widespread paranoia leading up to the year 2000, but he said the transition went as smoothly as possible.

"For cable, it was sort of a non-event," he said. "We're digital as we speak, so the big point that we tried to make to anybody is that if you already had Cox you were going to see no change at all, and that's exactly what happened."

While service was not interrupted on televisions directly connected to Cox, Sawyer said customers could see auxiliary televisions with old-fashioned "bunny ear" antennas go dark.

"I've got a TV in the garage that's not hooked to cable," he said. "I've heard that garage example from a lot of people, but I don't think that is a significant percentage of our customers."