Netflix's Customer Satisfaction Dips

The first cable news roundup of 2012 finds Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) looking to climb out of the deep hole it started to dig in the second half of the past year.

Netflix's string of blunders, including price hikes, in the second half of 2011 contributed to declining customer satisfaction numbers, according to the annual ForeSee Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index. Netflix's customer satisfaction index dipped seven points -- and 8 percent -- to 79 on ForeSee's 100-point scale. "Netflix totally misread its customer base and is paying the price, damaging its brand among both consumers and investors," ForeSee President and CEO Larry Freed opined in a statement. Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), meanwhile, climbed two points to register 88, the highest score from any retailer in Foresee's 14 consecutive studies. (See 2011 Top Ten: Video Battles & Blunders.)

This editorial from The New York Times urges the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to examine the recent spectrum deals between Verizon Wireless and Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC), Bright House Networks and Cox Communications Inc. , arguing that they put "in doubt whether FiOS will ever be a serious competitor to cable" and reduce the likelihood that over-the-top video service providers "could break up cable's regional oligopolies." (See Will Verizon Abandon DSL for Mobile Broadband? and MSOs Sell AWS Spectrum to Verizon for $3.6B .)

Multichannel News did the math on new Charter Communications Inc. CEO Tom Rutledge's pay package and calculated that, when factoring in bonuses and stock options, it could be worth more than US$90 million during the next four years. His annual base salary is $2 million. (See New Charter CEO's Base Salary: $2M and Ex-Cablevision COO Becomes Charter CEO.)

Versus, the Comcast-owned sports channel, was officially rechristened as the NBC Sports Network on Monday, Jan. 2. The rebranding comes roughly one year after Comcast closed its deal to acquire NBCUniversal LLC . (See Comcast Clinches NBCU Deal .)

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable