This commentary is not the usual broadcasting news you read on this website, but since it’s related to our industry, I thought you’d find my experience interesting:
It was a deed I’d been dreading but one that had to be done: cutting the cord on the legacy TV service I’d had since 2000 at five locations.
I hadn’t been dreading the loss of service, since I hadn’t really used it much in years. The dread came knowing that there would be a long phone call during which the customer service representative would try to talk me out of it.
I knew this because they’d succeeded in talking me out of it before.
The only reason I subscribed is because it of a package of five “SuperStations” and I’m a broadcasting geek who couldn’t bear the thought of losing the cool channels from big cities. But the feeds are only in letterboxed standard-definition (360 lines) and streaming eliminated most of the appeal years ago.
After my December bill reflected a 25% price increase for the local channel package, which I had to pay for to get SuperStations, it was time to make the final call. (I work for one of those local channels so spare me the claims that the price increase is our fault.)
Why a phone call? It’s not that the provider isn’t capable of shutting off service online. It’s because they want a chance to beg and plead. And that’s practically what the CSR was doing by the end of the 38-minute call.
(It was actually my second call of the day because I’d sat on hold for 45 minutes at lunch before having to go back to work.)
The call was so predictable it would have been funny if it wasn’t annoying.
‘Why are you cancelling?’ I don’t watch it anymore. (The CSR apparently didn’t notice that they just raised my price.)
‘OK, just curious, do you use streaming services?‘ I have some.
‘OK, cool, but which ones and how much do they cost?’ I’m not going to tell you that. But they’re a lot cheaper than what I used to pay you, and you were cheaper then.
‘OK, did you know sometimes the internet isn’t very reliable?’ Works just fine for me.
‘OK, but did you know that sometimes your antenna can stop working during a storm?’ Not as often as satellite stops working during a storm.
‘I could switch you to another package that’s only $15 more per month and you’d get more channels.’ But I don’t want to pay more and I don’t want to watch those channels.
‘We could put your service on pause for three months so you can think about it.’ But then I’ll just have to make another one of these annoying phone calls.
‘OK, but if you cancel and decide to try to become a customer again, we’ll have to run another credit check.’ I should have told him to go ahead and check.
The CSR repeatedly claimed to be having computer problems and put me on hold no fewer than seven times.
Finally, he admitted defeat and read me the boilerplate cancellation legalese. ‘We’ll credit you for the $3 left on your account for this month. We don’t want the receiver back but don’t try to sell it. Visit our website to find out where to recycle it.’
And with that, it was over. 21 years of LA, Denver, New York, and Boston beaming into my living room via satellite, over.
Note that not once during the entire call did the CSR bring up those SuperStations, which was only thing that had kept me a customer all of these years. It should have been obvious because it was the only thing on my bill besides the locals and various fees.
He also could have tried to remind me that since the SuperStations are no longer sold and I was a grandfathered customer, I can never get them back. But I already knew that and it was time to cut the cord anyway.
No more KTLA News on the satellite. But I’m watching KTLA as I write this — on the stream instead. The picture quality is way better, though it doesn’t have those cool commercials for California fast food chains.