To quote the great Vinnie Barbarino, "This is weid, Mr. Kotta."

The pay TV side of U-verse, abandoned as a service for sale to new customers by AT&T back in April 2020, then packaged in a spinoff to private equity, is beloved by a loyal core group of legacy customers.

At least that's the narrative put forth by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which has ranked U-verse TV No. 1 in the pay TV category for four straight years. 

Also read: How Screwed Up Is the U.S. Pay TV Biz? U-verse TV, Which AT&T Doesn’t Even Sell Anymore, Ranks No. 1 in Customer Satisfaction

The ACSI Telecommunications Study 2022-2023 is based on interviews with 22,061 telecom customers, chosen at random and contacted via email between April 2022 and March 2023.

According to the ACSI, based on factors including picture quality, range of channels and customer service, U-verse just keeps getting better, improving its overall score from 73 in 2022 to 78 in the most recent study. 

This is puzzling for numerous reasons. It's not like the spun off DirecTV is lovingly curating U-verse TV these days. To the contrary. The private-equity-backed spinoff wants to move away from launching TV satellites and AT&T's legacy in general, and put its dwindling customer base on DirecTV Stream.

We suspect anybody whose still paying a U-verse bill isn’t all that hard to please in a consumer survey. And the ACSI seems to agree with us. 

“Those that do remain tend to be more satisfied and loyal, which boosts customer satisfaction for the subscription TV industry overall," said says Forrest Morgeson, assistant professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the ACSI.

Verizon Fios TV — decidedly an afterthought itself within the bowels of its corporate parent — finished second, improving its overall score from 71 in 2022 to 74 this year. 

At the bottom were video offerings from cable companies Comcast, Cox Communications, Mediacom Communications, Charter Communications and Altice USA. 

Here’s another ACSI oddity — T-Mobile’s fixed wireless access service ranks No. 1 among nonfiber ISPs, but Verizon’s FWA product doesn’t even show up in the rankings. 

We suspect the ASCI didn’t break out Verizon's nascent FWA service from its other home wireline internet service. 

Finally, the most volatile area of measurement for the ASCI seems to be virtual MVPDs, where YouTube TV and DirecTV have recently slipped and Hulu Plus Live TV has ascended. 

For a fifth consecutive year, U-verse TV — the bundled subscription video service AT&T stopped selling to new customers in April 2020, and spun off last year — topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index for pay TV services. 

For its ACSI Telecommunications Study 2021-2022 report, the ACSI polled 23,605 U.S. telecom consumers from April 2021 to March 2022. U-verse, which is now managed by the DirecTV unit spun off to private equity last year, scored a 73 on ACSI's 0-100 index, down 1 point from the 2021 survey. 

Also read: How Screwed Up Is the U.S. Pay TV Biz? U-verse TV, Which AT&T Doesn’t Even Sell Anymore, Ranks No. 1 in Customer Satisfaction

U-verse has actually topped the pay TV portion of the ASCI telecom survey since 2017, followed closely by the last different provider to lead the list, Verizon Fios, which has perennially topped the survey’s ISP section, as well. 

Notably, T-Mobile — which just entered the ISP business last year with the introduction of its 5G fixed wireless service — ranks second on the ISP list, and first on an ACSI ranking of in-home Wi-Fi providers. 

Comcast’s Xfinity and Charter's Spectrum platforms, the Nos. 1 and 2 providers of high-speed internet services in America, rank behind all three telcos — Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile — on both the ISP and in-home Wi-Fi lists. 

The ACSI also ranks streaming providers, too, but its ranker is a little whack, placing a digital store (the Microsoft Store) atop a list that also includes SVOD providers like Disney Plus and Netflix. Seems pretty apples and oranges to us. ■

AT&T stopped selling new subscriptions to one its several legacy pay TV services, U-verse TV, in April of 2020. But according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index ranking of telecom services, U-verse TV is the top-rated U.S. pay TV platform, improving its score by an impressive 6% in the 12 months since the ASCI published its last report. 

So the U.S. pay TV business, which is currently in free fall, is sunsetting its most well-received product? If not for the involvement of AT&T, that would not make sense. 

Notably, AT&T’s other linear pay TV service, satellite TV platform DirecTV, saw its score improve by 3% and placed No. 3 in ASCI’s pay TV services ranking with a 66 score, eight points lower than U-verse. 

U-Verse also ranked No. 1 in terms of its VOD component, and AT&T was also named the top customer satisfaction generator for both wireline internet and landline telephone services. 

In February, AT&T reached an agreement with private equity firm TPG Capital to spin off its entire U.S. subscription video unit, which includes U-verse TV, DirecTV and the newer IP-based AT&T TV. These three services, which AT&T combines under the heading “premium TV” on its balance sheets, lost a combined 620,000 subscribers in the first quarter … some of them presumably satisfied.

ASCI didn’t include AT&T TV in its rankings. However, in ASCI's ranking of streaming video services—which Next TV sibling pub Broadcasting & Cable wrote about Tuesday morning— placed AT&T TV Now near the bottom. Skinny bundled streaming service AT&T TV Now operated on the same technology platform as AT&T TV and was recently subsumed by AT&T TV. 

Also notable: Ranking No. 1 in customer satisfaction for U.S. linear pay TV services was Fios TV, a platform Verizon has seemingly given up on amid its current fixation with 5G buildout. 

The ACSI Telecommunications Study 2020-2021 is based on interviews with 37,907 customers, chosen at random and contacted via email between April 1, 2020, and March 29, 2021.

Despite being marginalized by their respective operators, AT&T U-verse and Verizon Fios continue to lead the U.S. pay TV sector in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) telecommunications service rankings. 

AT&T is no longer marketing U-verse to new customers. And it reported 897,000 lost pay TV subscribers between DirecTV and U-verse in the first quarter (it didn’t break out customer metrics between the two fast deteriorating platforms). AT&T is now throwing its marketing muscle behind its new IP-based linear pay TV platform, AT&T TV, as well as new kitchen-sink SVOD service HBO Max.

Also read: AT&T Stops Selling U-verse TV

Still, on the ASCI’s 0-100 point scale, U-verse actually led major U.S. pay TV providers for a second straight year, ticking up one point to a 70 score. That tied perennial rankings leader Verizon’s Fios, which shed another 84,000 customers in Q1, but saw its ASCI score tick up two points.

Verizon is now marketing third-party OTT video services, including YouTube TV and Disney Plus, to push its Fios wireline internet product. 

Also read: Verizon’s Video Strategy: Everything You Need to Know About the Wireless Giant’s Tortured TV History

Fios (up three points to a 73 score) and U-verse (68) were also the highest scoring wireline broadband services in the latest ASCI telecom report. And they also led in more drilled down rankings including in-home Wi-Fi and VOD services.

Notably, in the pay TV rankings, it’s was the fastest declining services that scored best in customer satisfaction, according to ASCI. Dish Network, which lost another 132,000 customers in the first quarter, ranked third with a 65 score (down two points), followed by the fast falling DirecTV (down two points to 64). 

Also notable: The two satellite TV services were the only pay TV platforms to see their scores decline. Comcast’s Xfinity service saw a six-point, 11% jump to a 63 score, showing the biggest improvement. 

Evaluating specific pay TV metrics, such as picture quality, customer service and mobile app performance, ASCI scores were roughly flat with last year for U.S. pay TV operators. 

In addition to bundled telecom services, the ASCI rankings also include video streaming services. This year’s rankings were led by a new entry, Disney Plus, which scored an 80 out of the gate, edging Netflix, which declined one point to a 78 score.

The ranking’s other new entry, Apple TV Plus, finished in the middle of the pack with a 74 score. (HBO Max is too new to be ranked.)

The biggest decliners were virtual MVPDs Sling TV, which dropped three points to finish near the bottom of the rankings with a 71 score, and AT&T TV Now, which also dropped three points to a 72.

Services were ranking on factors such as mobile app quality, library depth and call center satisfaction. 

AT&T U-verse and Verizon Fios ranked highest in the latest survey of U.S. telecom consumers by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

The index ranks service providers on a 1-100 scale. And in the subscription television category, U-verse dropped one point from its 2018 top score to a 69, but still held onto edge Fios, which held flat at 68.

AT&T satellite service DirecTV had the biggest gains, improving its score by two points to 66—but ASCI attributed much of that gain to the loss of dissatisfied customers. Altice’s Suddenlink brand was down three points to 55 to finish dead last. (See chart.)

In broadband services, Fios finished flat at 70 to once again lead the category, followed by U-verse, which gained one point to a 69. Mediacom had the biggest jump—by three points to a 58—but it still finished next to last place occupant Frontier Communications.

Overall, TV and internet service providers held flat with an average scores of 62. Operators improved scores in areas like “streaming video quality” and “call center satisfaction,” but slipped in areas like “ease of understanding bill.”

Among other categories measured, ASCI found Vonage to be the top satisfaction scorer for landline telephone service, with Suddenlink at the bottom.

And among streaming service providers, Netflix improved by one point to finish atop the category at 79. Notably, AT&T’s DirecTV Now vMVPD finished next to last, dropping one point to 69. 

Cable operators were literally the best and worst of telecommunications services providers yet again in a new customer-satisfaction survey.

The good news was that cable operators, who have pumped money, resources and personnel into improving customer service across the board, stopped their two-year slide in the pay TV portion of the survey. The bad news was they still finished last.

But the data also shows something about the mindset of the typical cable subscriber. The same customers that rate their cable provider among the worst for pay TV service see them as stellar broadband service providers.

Never mind that both services are traveling over the same network and use essentially the same customer-service personnel. It’s almost as if hating your cable company is a birthright. Broadband hasn’t been around long enough yet to foster that kind of hatred.

BROADBAND IS ESSENTIAL

Part of the reason also could be that customers perceive their broadband service as more important to their lives. Maybe this is further proof that customers are paying less attention to linear TV, and when they do, it’s because their tablets don’t work.

Another anomaly: Telco TV providers are at the top of the pay TV ranks yet have been losing customers over the past several quarters.

For the most part, cable’s performance in the American Customer Satisfaction Index — an annual survey of 12,710 customers on the often-touchy subject of customer satisfaction — has been consistent. For the past five years, cable operators have mostly received scores in the high 50s to low 60s.

Cox Communications usually got the highest rating. The big exception was last year, when despite fullyear gains in basic video subscribers at Time Warner Cable (53,000) and Charter (11,000), some operators, including TWC, turned in their worst showings ever.

Mediacom Communications has been battling a PR war after being singled out by some news outlets as “The Most Hated Company in America,” based on its ACSI showing. Mediacom’s scores of 54 in pay TV and 57 in Internet service providers was the lowest in all of the industries ACSI tracks, including cellular, wireless and wireline telephone. TWC (up 15.7%) and Comcast (up 14.8%) bounced back this year off declines.

Mediacom has countered that the sample size of its customers was small, which could skew the results, and has pointed out that it has boosted Internet speeds and introduced night and weekend service calls and 30-minute appointment windows.

MERGERS AREN’T HELPFUL

ACSI director of research Dr. Forrest Morgeson said in an interview that cable’s performance will likely decline this year and next as Charter moves to integrate TWC and Bright House.

“What we generally see is in the wake of mergers, for a year or two after, both of the companies involved tend to do a little bit worse,” Morgeson said. “It’s tough to say what will happen in this case, but it is fair to say that neither Charter nor Time Warner are stellar in terms of customer satisfaction. My guess is you’ll see a little bit of erosion as new customers come on to the Charter brand and there are problems with accounts and expensive plans and so forth.”

Charter has said it has been preparing for the integration of Bright House and TWC for about two years and plans to take a slow, steady approach to minimize disruptions. It has said it plans to hire 20,000 customer-facing employees over the years to help improve the customer experience.

Charter’s intentions sound good, Morgeson said, but there is always room for unforeseen circumstances.

“It’s not the things that you prepare for that go wrong,” he said.