Time Warner Cable CEO says consumers will want cheaper cable tiers with fewer channels

On the Call: Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt

Most major cable companies don’t like the idea of letting consumers order cable channels a la carte, where they pay only for the channels they watch. Consumers typically watch just a handful of channels, not the hundreds they’ve had to buy as part of a cable tier.

But on Thursday Time Warner Cable Inc. CEO Glenn Britt championed the idea of offering a smaller number of cable channels in less expensive packages during a chat with analysts at the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

QUESTION: Could you give an update on any discussions you might be having with content companies on providing lower priced, more economic tiers?

RESPONSE: What we see is a segmented economy and some people clearly would like to be able to buy smaller video packages … and I think it would be a good idea for the broader industry and multi-channel providers and programmers to meet that need.

Obviously the economics of the programmers (works in a way) where they try to bundle all of their networks together and there’s a history of ever adding more networks. They think that their interest is having the big packages.

So, not surprisingly, we don’t see a lot of people signing up for the small packages, but I do think there’s a consumer need there.