JD Power and Associates recently released their awards for television.  Not surprisingly, most major cable companies ranked lower when compared to satellite providers.  JD Power splits up its ratings to regions, east, west, south, and north central.

In the east region, Verizon FiOS ranked highest with a score of 714, followed by DirecTV (684), Dish Network (669), Cablevision Systems (649) and Cox Communications (644).  In the north central region, WOW led with 724, followed by AT&T U-verse (715), Verizon FiOS (712), DirecTV (674), Insight Communications (672), Cox (652) and Dish (650).  In the south, U-verse (718) was followed by Verizon FiOS (702), DirecTV (685), Bright House (674), Insight (658), Dish (654) and Cox (641).  Lastly, in the west, AT&T U-verse (721) and FiOS (682) went one-two, followed by DirecTV and Dish (both with 664), Cox (646) and Cable One (635).  It should be noted that Comcast was below all the average ratings.

From the above data, one can deduce that cable customers are far less likely to recommend their provider than satellite TV customers.  When polled, satellite subscribers, 78% said they “definitely will” or “probably will” recommend their provider to others, an increase of six percentage points from 2008. About 60% of cable customers said the same, up from 55% in 2008.  Both cable and satellite providers noticed a negligible drop.

Both cable and satellite providers tried to improve product performance as well as customer support.  Since we are in a recession, it comes down to those little things like waiting 15 minutes for support versus 5 minutes.  While people are maintaining their freedom to choose where they get their entertainment from, companies know that it comes down to not only experience but also customer support.  Both Dish Network and DirecTV are doing a good job of this, while Comcast seems to be dropping the ball.