As a purely financial matter, Netflix’s quarterly report should not have precipitated the absolute shellacking that the company’s stock suffered after-hours Monday, wiping out about $1 billion in shareholder equity. The company’s …
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Some Awfully Good Companies Competing for ‘Worst Company in America’ Title
Google and Apple? They’ve been squared off in an annual March Madness-style tournament in which the nation’s worst company “wins.” What complicates matters is that Apple, Google, and several other companies entered in the contest …
Is Netflix Coming to Cable TV?
For years, Netflix has been portrayed as a threat to traditional cable TV service. Its growth has fueled a growing discussion about “cord-cutting,” the idea that the consumers would ditch their pricey cable service from the likes …
Shopping Spree: 10 Companies Doing Surprisingly Good Business
There are certain retailers and service providers that everyone knows are doing well in terms of sales. When Apple posts impressive sales figures, no one is surprised. Given the still shaky state of the economy, it’s also …
New Comcast Service Aims at Netflix as Video Wars Heat Up
Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, is launching a new video-on-demand service aimed squarely at Netflix, in a move that illustrates accelerating competition for advantage over the digital living room. The new service, …
The Return of Television Rabbit Ears?
Getting TV stations through the airwaves may seem like an anachronism in the age of streaming video online. But actually, the rise of Hulu and Netflix seems to be helping the rabbit ear industry.
Netflix Stock Soars as Subscribers Return
Netflix, the streaming video and DVD service, saw its stock price soar over 22% Thursday after reporting earnings results that beat Wall Street expectations. The company said it added 610,000 new customers last quarter, in a …
You’re Paying $100 a Year to Watch Sports on TV—Even If You Don’t Watch
As a rule, consumers don’t like paying for things they don’t enjoy. Even so, despite the widespread consumer desire for an a la carte model, in which pay TV customers could select (and be charged) only for the channels they want, …
Gotta Have Cable: Has the Cord-Cutting Trend Slowed Down?
Month after month, hundreds of thousands of cable TV subscribers keep closing their accounts. Roughly a half-million subscriptions were canceled in the second quarter of 2011 alone. Even so, there’s an argument that 2011 isn’t …
Is Pay Per Channel Cable TV Inevitable?
Most consumers like the idea of pay per channel cable TV, in which the customer would select a la carte the channels he actually watches, rather than pay for a bundled service with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of channels that are …
Comcast’s Internet Essentials: $10-a-Month Service for Low-Income Families
If you live in an area served by Comcast and your kids receive free lunches at school through the National School Lunch Program, you may qualify for a new Internet service from Comcast, which costs just $9.95 a month.
Can Comcast Cut Waits for The Cable Guy?
As a consumer, nothing is more annoying than being told to wait for the cable guy during a ridiculously long window – yes, we’ll fix your system, but our repairman will arrive between noon and 4 p.m. When he’s then late, or doesn’t show up at all, smashing the set with a baseball bat sounds like a reasonable response.