Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Brighthouse being bought by charter.
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Old 07-13-2015, 05:10 PM
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Default Brighthouse being bought by charter.

Anyone else hear of this? It wouldn't let me post the article because I'm new. Being a brighthouse customer myself living in wildwood I'm more than a little concerned. Although I have been considering other options anyways as the technology with brighthouse is getting behind the times.

The article reads:

Tampa Bay, Florida — In a $10.4 billion deal, St. Louis-based cable provider Charter Communications is buying Bright House Networks and its close to 2 million subscribers.
For the average customer, based on Charter's history, don't expect your bill to go down anytime soon, or for customer service to get better.
Charter is already established in Missouri, California, Texas and elsewhere. Now, the company is moving in to Florida.
Here's what the acquisition means for you.
Ask a cable customer about their bill and you get a pretty standard answer.
"It's already high enough, if it's gonna go any higher, I'm definitely going to be changing my service," said Bright House customer Liz Green.

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But with Tuesday's shocking announcement that Bright House Networks is selling to Charter, Bright House customers want to know "will my service change?" and "will my bill go up?"
USF media business expert Justin Brown says the answer to both is "yes."

"I think the bill will increase as it has over the years. The name is just gonna change," Brown said.
Brown says midsized cable companies like Charter and Bright House are under huge pressure to combine to survive.
"The Netflixes of the world are coming out and people are cutting the cord and cable subscriptions," he said.
In a message to employees, Bright House CEO Steve Miron said: "We strongly believe as our competitors get larger and we increasingly compete with both national and global brands, that it is critical for Bright House Networks to gain as much scale as possible."
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Brown says that scale may come at a price for customers especially with the hundreds of online complaints knocking Charter's service.
"I wouldn't think they're going to get a better service than they already have. If anything it's going to get worse given Charter's record," Brown said.
One reason, as cost go up and customers go down, it's getting harder to make money in the video cable business.
Bright House will still be a minority stakeholder in the company, and it will take months for the deal to close.
This is what 10 News found about Charter on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index: Charter Communications received a 64 out of 100. Last year, they dropped 6 percent to 60.
Here's how they compared to other providers in 2014:
DirectTV scored 69
Verizon Fios got 68
DISH Network scored 67