St Joseph News-Press - Senate Hearing Focuses on Pay-TV Services

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By Ken Newton

As the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill has access to all sorts of fact-finding resources.

But the lawmaker's concerns about the business practices of cable and satellite television companies took root when she called about her own bill.

In a Senate hearing on Thursday, at which representatives of the five largest pay-TV providers testified, McCaskill told of questioning a $10 charge for a service that had become part of the basic package. The customer service representative admitted that the charge had become unwarranted.

"I said, "Were you going to tell me this?' And they said, "No, you have to call in and ask,'" the senator recalled at the hearing. "That's exactly the kind of hide-the-ball (tactic) that infuriates people. If I hadn't called in and asked, that $10 could still be on my bill today."

The subcommittee investigated pay-TV services and found, according to McCaskill, that consumers do not get clear information about services paid for and fail to get refunds due them after overcharges occur.

Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, said Time Warner Cable overbilled up to 11,000 of his state's constituents during the first five months of this year. The overcharges totaled about $108,000.

"Not all of (the companies) bother to go back and figure out when the overcharge started, calculate how much they owe the consumer and give them a refund," Portman said at the hearing. "Instead, their practice has been just to pocket past overcharges."

Along with Time Warner Cable, corporate representatives from Charter, Comcast, DirectTV and DISH Network testified. McCaskill said the companies provide services to more than 71 million subscribers and at least half of U.S. households.

The Missourian added that a consumer survey indicated more than 20 percent of those who had interacted with pay-TV providers "reported having a bad experience during the previous six months, the highest level of any industry."

Tom Karinshak, Comcast senior vice president of customer service, offered a note of contrition.

"We and the industry as a whole have not always made customer service the high priority it should have been," he told the subcommittee. "We regret that history and have committed to our customers that we will lead the way with initiatives to change it."

But Kathleen Schneider, DISH senior vice president of operations, pushed back on Congress and the Federal Communications Commission for not updating the retransmission consent system to ease forced bundling of programming.

"The issues that have most consistently come up over the last several years (in customer service) involve the price of programming, and the lack of options that customers have in selecting which channels they receive," she said.

In a conference call to Missouri reporters after the hearing, McCaskill said she hopes to have a hearing in the fall "to get to the bottom of how these programming costs work."

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