By the end of this month, I will hand my landlord a form with a formal application to turn off cable TV. That is right, I will no longer be able to watch TV through cable. (I need to apply for the disconnection through the landlord, because in Zurich most households have cable by default, it is a service that comes with the rent. In other words, you always pay for cable. Whether you have a TV or not does not matter.)
Instead of cable, I will start a contract with a new TV provider, an alternative to Cablecom’s offerings, called Bluewin TV.
Cablecom is a monopolist Swiss cable provider. Until November 2006, no real alternative to Cablecom existed. That changed with the introduction of Bluewin TV, offered by Swisscom, a Swiss telecommunications company, which was run by the Swiss government until 1997.
Bluewin TV works with regular phone lines utilizing ADSL. My current Internet connection is set up with Cablecom as well. Both, TV and ASP are subscribed through Cablecom. With the switch to Bluewin TV I will also get ADSL instead of cable, which doesn’t offer any improvements on the Internet side. It will be about the same speed. I also need to install a land line which I previously didn’t need. Still, all in all, the new contract with Bluewin TV will be cheaper than the Cablecom offering.
If I count Internet and TV as a single package, I get more channels with Bluewin TV. It’s over a 100 channels in the basic package, whereas Cablecom is decreasing its offerings. They are gradually turning off channel by channel, to make users switch to what they call “Digital TV”. In truth, Digital TV may use a digital signal, but to the end user, there are no obvious advantages in quality or content. They may get a few channels more than in their regular TV offering, but most of those are the ones Cablecom had previously deleted from their analogue offering. There is just one fundamental difference to the end user. Digital TV by Cablecom costs more money than their analogue version, a service they are closing gradually.
Swiss TV history
As former Rediffusion (until 1994), Cablecom has written history for Swiss TV. For generations the Cablecom had served a balanced portfolio of available channels, ranging from foreign German, French, Italian channels, the four Swiss language areas, as well as additional international channels from the U.S., the UK and Spain. You had news channels like CNN, NBC or n-tv. You had Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies. You had SWR and WDR, German channels with great documentaries, as well as BBC Prime, which I don’t need to introduce.
Since about a year, Cablecom has started to erase these channels from their service, while maintaining the same fee they charge for this decreasing content.
To the average Swiss TV consumer, this is a blatant abuse of trust and consumer liablity. I am certain Cablecom strategists thought about the company finances, about one-directional marketing, but as much I am assured about their incompetence in marketing, I am equally convinced they did not foresee the power of this ultimately bad brand experience they create. A brand, you see, is not made by the company who represents it. A brand is basically built and carried by the gut feeling of the people using the company’s products. And if the company is behaving in a way that hurts the customer experience, the customers will go away. I am writing it in such clear and simple lines so Cablecom can get the message. Because so far, they obviously haven’t been listening.
Price is not the reason why I’m making the switch. It is mainly because I am done with Cablecom. If you are watching TV in Switzerland, on more than one channel you get a line scrolling over your screen in large font size, plainly informing you that this channel you are watching is going to be discontinued as an offering by next week. They have done that with three channels already, and they aren’t stopping it any time soon. I am sure they slowly cut off the air, until every subscriber of the regular TV offering will have switched to the more expensive “Digital TV”.
How to deconstruct a brand
Let me make a daring prognosis here. If Cablecom continues to progress on its course, they might lose more than the brand liability of its customers. The company might see a drastic erosion of their customer base, as more and more consumers will spread the word and switch to alternatives, such as using a dish antenna and a satelite receiver, or simply switching to Bluewin TV. Consequentially, Cablecom’s fate may be even bancrupcy, if they continue with this chosen course.
Cablecom offers a helpline, 0800 66 0800, to offer consumers a contact point for more information about the closing channels. Of course the real value for that so called helpline, for Cablecom, is to advertise to its subscribers to switch to their “Digital TV” offer. This phone call used to cost 1.95 per minute. The Swiss government had to force Cablecom to make that phone call free of charge. You can call only from 8 AM to 5 PM, which covers the time no one who has a job is at home and able to make that call.
Personally, I am not alone with these feelings. In the past six months, with the increasing number of channels disappearing from consumer TV screens and communities like French and Italian speaking foreigners in Switzerland forming resistance along with Swiss citizens , Cablecom’s reputation has been falling from the sky like a meteorite.
Professionally, because I am a consultant with experience in the areas of brand building and user experience, a story like this makes my heart bleed. Seriously, I don’t get how blind a company can be, completely ignoring its customer base. I don’t blame Cablecom to want to make customers switch to the new offering. It is a normal marketing strategy. What makes this case bad is the arrogance and ignorance they put behind this. This has been going for almost a year now, and the bad press and increasing resistance from consumer groups has had virtually no influence on Cablecom’s behavior. If a company acts that stupid, not getting what is going on in the market they serve, then in my opinion, it doesn’t deserve to be successful.
Markets are different than they used to be 30 years ago. Consumers are not consumers anymore, they are participants who choose in what they want to participate. Let’s sit back and look at this unfortunate case of brand desctruction in a year from now.
Additional Resources
20Minuten: Cablecom: Der grosse Frust der Gemeinden
20Minuten: Diese Sender darf Cablecom nicht streichen
Swisscom Bluewin TV
Cablecom
Your excellent analysis of the failings of Cablecom is inaccurate in one detail - the arrogance and disservice to its customers is much older than one year, it was evident even before they began to introduce their digital service in 1999. The poor service and support is legendary and was the subject on more than one occasion by the SF1 consumer protection programme Kassensturz, with memorably the CEO Rudolf Fischer having to answer some very tough questions in 2008 on the programme; he was totally underwhelming and was forced to promise to do better. Of course, nothing improved and the deterioration continues with the loss of the BBC World Service to analogue users this month.
Some 5 years ago I purchased, for the exorbitant sum of Sfr 400, a digital set-top box (but no extra channel subscription). The service and additional channels were pathetic and when the unit failed only six months later I returned to the analogue service.
I have now subscribed again to the digital service for the basic service (Sfr6/month), with a new set-top box but that is for one receiver only, in my study I continue to use the analogue system and the loss of the BBC World Service is the last straw. I too shall be planning my changeover to Bluewin TV.
Finally, I do not share your belief that Cablecom’s appalling marketing strategy will be losing too many customers - it is truly a monopoly with captive customers tied into the rental infrastructure of supplied services. We can only hope.
Brian Henry, December 21, 2009 1:31 PM
Indeed, the arrogance and ignorance of Cablecom has been apparent long before they started shutting down channels. And now, two years later, we still have no alternative cable TV offering and Cablecom continues to blatantly follow its monopolist strategy, its oppressive marketing methods unhampered in any way.
Henning von Vogelsang, December 28, 2009 11:50 AM