Slow Road to Ruin: Comcast loses subscribers, growing trend

Comcast this morning has announced some rather grim numbers (and shouldn’t shock any who follow the technology trends): it lost 82,000 video/TV subscribers in the first quarter, which follows an even larger loss in last year’s fourth quarter. The issue (seemingly): slow adoption of HD channels in many markets, not to mention growing cost.

The numbers: Comcast lost 199,000 video customers in the fourth quarter of 2009, meaning the company lost 623,000 TV subs for all of 2009, which is a pretty large number and would really hurt most companies. The setback follows a substantial decline in 2008 when it lost 575,000 video subscribers, which together is over 1 million customers. You would think Comcast would get the message (lower rates and more HD would have kept many of those customers, more than likely).

Comcast really needs to step up their HD adoption in many big markets, where it still averages around 50 or fewer channels, including large states like FL, MI and CA, to regain back some of its lost market share.