• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, June 3, 2003

Before it ruled, FCC heard from roughly 13,000 groups and individuals including the Newspaper Association of America, National Association of Broadcasters, Newspaper Guild, National Organization for Women, Sony, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, National PTA, American Psychological Association, the Traditional Values Coalition, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Family Research Council and Morality in the Media, and even the United Church of Christ.

It seems everyone had an opinion about whether the FCC on Monday should have ended the ban in most cities of cross-ownership of television stations and newspapers. The ruling loosened local-ownership allowing companies like The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to gobble up more local TV and radio stations. It will permit Viacom, Disney and AOL Time Warner to control TV stations with nearly half the national audience. In the largest cities, it will allow owners of two TV stations to buy a third.

Critics of the decision fear that it will lead to an ever more concentrated media world, one in which much of what we see, hear and read is controlled by a handful of mega-corporations. Programming is likely to become even more homogenized -- and less substantive. Subscription and advertising rates are likely to shoot up as competition diminishes. Local news coverage, already feeble in many smaller towns and communities, is likely to get worse - or disappear altogether. There will be - brace yourself - a withering away of diversity of viewpoints.

But my fear is far more mundane. The withering away of customer service. As if it could get any worse.

Consider the case of the Chevy Chase widow vs. the mighty Comcast Cable, the largest cable company in the United States, serving approximately 21.3 million cable subscribers.

Two years after her husband died, while handling last-minute logistics of moving out of their house, the Chevy Chase widow tried to cancel her Comcast-provided cable service.

"Comcast said, 'You can't cancel it. We need a death certificate to prove he's dead,' "she says. "I have to prove he's dead to get the TV turned off?" reported the Washington Post.

All the utility accounts, including cable TV, had been in her late husband's name. In canceling the others, she had none ask for a death certificate.

After several minutes of arguing, Comcast's customer service rep wouldn't budge. He told her Comcast has had cases where someone in a bitter divorce cancels cable TV and the irate spouse calls later.

"He said they didn't want to get caught in the middle of that," says the widow. "I said, 'What middle? He's dead!' It was not only insensitive, it was bizarre. It's stressful enough moving, and it was certainly stressful enough since Walter died -- but now I have to argue with this person?"

Finally, the customer rep dropped the P-bomb: company policy, he told her. Nothing he could do.

"It is a policy," confirmed Comcast spokesman Bryan Edwards, explaining that Comcast requires a death certificate, particularly if there is a balance on the bill, a billing dispute, or even if it's just a widow closing an account in her deceased husband's name. "Before we do anything on the account, we want to be absolutely certain we are speaking to the account holder or someone who is authorized to do it."

Once the Washington Post got on their case, Comcast relented and let the Chevy Chase widow off the hook.

It should come as no shock that a recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index singled out three cable operators - uh, including Comcast - for earning "among the lowest scores ever recorded across all companies and industries."

When I contracted for Cablevision to provide broadband service to my home a few years ago, after six different service guys failed to hook me up successfully, I had to threaten corporate HQ with going public with my experience before they finally sent somebody who had a clue. (In fairness, others in town say that since then Cablevision's service has vastly improved.)

I'm not just picking on cable companies. It is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than to get the New York Times delivered to my home at the location I have requested at least 15 times. And on the days they fail to deliver it altogether and promise a "redelivery" it often never comes and if so at about 3:30 in the afternoon when the news is beyond stale.

Frankly, I don't think the average media consumer is all that concerned about who owns what. While the ad industry worries about near monopoly ownership of broadcast ad inventory in local markets and liberals and conservatives debate about who will get a larger share of voice in the world after June 2 and journalists worry about losing jobs to consolidation and local news runs a danger of disappearing in favor of homogenized Clear-Channel-one-size-fits-all news; I worry that media company customer service, already an endless maze of touch dial options and three hour windows for repair calls, will only get worse.

And with all the media under a few big roofs, there will be no alternative but to take it all lying down.