Time Warner Cable Inc. forced out its chief cable guy in Southern California on Wednesday, but you may not want to throw that help number away just yet.
Roger Keating, head of Time Warner’s regional office since 2003, was done in by an avalanche of complaints about Internet and e-mail outages, TV channel lineup changes and pressure to sign up for digital service. Customers were most annoyed by maddeningly long , and sometimes futile , waits to reach a human by phone.
Keating and his bosses “agreed it was a good time” for him to exit, according to a memo to top managers from Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs. Keating will be replaced by two Time Warner executives who Hobbs said had “a different set of leadership skills.”
They have a tall order ahead in repairing strained relations with customers and winning back the more than 10,000 people who have canceled their subscriptions since October.
