CABL Forum - Well said Walter!

You pose many valid and interesting points and cable industry pros are indeed in a pickle. Greed is definitely a factor in this equation but I am certain that it still takes a back door to the damage caused by generally poor and shortsighted management practices. Cable television is a relatively simple product and it's technology, while interesting, is not all that complicated. Market areas are clearly defined, efficient delivery routes exist, main product identity is well established, and the service offered is nowhere near the end of it's lifecycle (in fact it might be almost perpetual). This would be an ideal dream scenario for almost any product or service. Add the quasi-monopoly parameter and the old no-brainer cliché is immediately brought to mind. So what is the continual problem with failing to maximize income potential and the resultant foundational damage caused by consistently missing opportunities to share this lost wealth with all internal and external stakeholders? Simple boneheaded failure to "get it" still seems to be prevalent in a surprising number of these cases. The good old boy (and girl) system is not always outright corrupt, but it is often inefficient in that the best overall organizational decisions are not made. With rare and wonderful exceptions, all systems are populated by some of these folks. One typical example is contractor ABC, Inc. who has been around forever but always seems to have the lowest Q.A. numbers, highest customer service complaints, and a generally arrogant attitude toward frontline system personnel is one notable example. The department or system manager, unlike the rest of us apparent idiots, is able to see the “big picture” and justify to his bosses why this particular contract makes sense. Perhaps that is because one of the contractors’ many “business” gifts to the manager was a 52” Sony or it is because while they while they are hunting and fishing together the bugs are being worked out? Another example is the system manager or V.P. of Whatever who everyone is afraid to cross because they are connected to … (it may as well be Bozo the Clown as far as the good of the company is concerned) and it really might hurt or cost them their career. But the main problem is still the folks at the very top, be it at the division or corporate level. They got there for a variety of reasons, which include: a) they own a good chunk of the company (the Roberts and Rigas families), b) they have been around forever and might have even gone to high school with the one of the owners, c) they were never really all that successful but the A’s and the B’s “liked” them or were related to their spouse and therefore saw some “hidden potential” (Good Old Boy 101), d) they made a series of short term successes (which left a mirror series of disasters in their wake for the people left behind to pick up the pieces, and who were also forever after held accountable) and buried more than a few knives to the hilt in some of their former colleagues” or bosses” backs, e) corporate, under intense pressure from key stockholders, buckled and finally agreed to bring in some “new outside blood” with a “fresh perspective” (T.C.I. tried this on it’s way out), f) they defied all odds, and more than a few Category D’ers, and earned well deserved promotions each step of the way. Some of the individuals in category A are excellent and some fall a bit short, but they are pretty much fixtures in any case. Category B’ers seem like fixtures as well, but occasionally one or two get yanked out of the wall (Charter did a fair amount of this several years back and Time Warner made a perfunctory move or two). Category C’ers do sometimes get sacrificed if they make too much of a public mess, but usually they use their brother-in-law B’s connections to get immediately picked up and promoted by another MSO as a professional favor. Category D’ers are by far the most resilient (like in Teflon) ones and do the greatest amount of actual damage because they are still operating the way they always have, with short-term survival in mind. They continually rename and reissue the same old strategies and require the same “instant” success results (shotgun style subscriber marketing campaigns and the unbelievably high after campaign period churn which it inevitably causes). They are constantly seeking out successful, and therefore threatening, Category E’ers and F’ers whom they subsequently label as “out of control” or sometimes more subtly “a problem” (which in plain speak means effective, hard-working, loyal, dedicated and innovative) and then they conspire with the weaker C’s to run them out on a rail. But they are ultimately powerless to do evil without the sanction of their bosses, the “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” A’s and B’s, who can almost always be counted on to let them get away with their bad behavior and occasional outright ill deeds. Of course the banner of “it’s really in the best interest of the company” is always held high aloft in these nefarious dealings. Category E managers can be a great source of valuable and much needed “real business world” perspectives and experience if they are selected for the appropriate reasons and then given the necessary staff support to become successfully amalgamated into the somewhat lawless CATV industry. If not, then they are simply short-term eyewash and long-term scapegoats as part of the latest explanation of “why we did not get it done like we said we would”. Category F folks are simply wonderful but there are just not enough of them and they have to continually defend themselves from the nasty internal political agendas and outright attacks from the Category C stinkers, who all too often have the support of certain Category A, B and D nitwits (like a seventies anti-establishment Disney movie without the obligatory happy ending). For an incredibly long span of years (the good old days everyone refers to) Wall Street did not pay much attention to the industry but those days are long gone. Like it or not, stock prices are now the greatest publicly viewable litmus test for a well run cable television MSO. It would theoretically be easy for any cable operator or large contractor almost immediately increase it’s efficiency by having everyone at the top reapply for their jobs (I always love it when necessity of this measure at the frontline to upper mid-level management level is explained by the upper management level who is NOT doing the same thing to themselves!) and have the HR Department at Harley Davidson decide who gets to stay and who has to go. Well, I guess that this is easy for me to say because I am no longer in the industry. Of course I could also add that I did say it the entire time I was in and not too many people wanted to hear it. But I think that instead I will go online and check my cable stocks (a bargain with growth potential or a high-risk investment? tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…). I sure hope that 2004 is a better year for all of you good folks that are still hard at it out there.

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Well said Walter!