Fox is Wacked: Mediacom - Sinclair Saga Continues (Moments of Clarity)

I posted my piece on the Mediacom-Sinclair debacle and within 24 hours, I received a very nice note from Scott Westerman, a Vice President with Mediacom. Doing a little research on where my visitors come from, I think he found my blog by searching technorati for the Mediacom and Sinclair tags. Excellent and Admirable! I'm posting our follow up email chain below. The bottom line here, Mediacom gained a notch on my respect totem pole because they are watching, listening, and reaching out. Below is my answer to his first response but the link at the bottom will get you the entire chain.

Doug's Response to Mediacom:

edited here but full letters available at link below.

The key thing that all parties should remember here is that (in the nicest way possible here) the customer doesn't care what your businesses are squabbling about. We care that something we desire is no longer conveniently available to us at a price point. We're being forced to look elsewhere or take additional inconvenient action to get get "back to ground zero". How many of your customers use DVR? I'm guessing an ever larger number. We cannot use DVR to watch 24 at our convenience anymore and that's a problem. I bet the sports fans are REALLY angry and considering the myriad NFL packages on DirecTV and Dish, this will really damage you over time.

Somewhere, some very smart analysts have probably provided you the top secret report with the "Bend over and take the losses vs. bend over and take the Sinclair price tag equation mapped out". As you approach that break even point of losing customers and/or paying out whatever it takes to get the programming back, I'm guessing we'll see action. So the question is will I and enough of those like me, all Mediacom VIP's with all of your offerings bundled, switch quickly enough to trigger the "oh crap" button.

I'm stuck in the middle...and it's the WORST place for a customer to be.

Thanks for listening and participating in the conversation. I'm not sure where you are located...but Des Moines has a vibrant blogging community that would like to know that someone in "big corporate America" listens...in case you'd like to meet some of them.

Scott Westerman's email to me with all follow up messages.