Cable company iPad apps are experiencing great success

Just when we thought cable was out, they pushed themselves back in. With the streaming content apps from Comcast, Time Warner, and others, cable providers are successfully ensuring their relevance in a changing market.

Time Warner's earnings call revealed that their iPad app has been downloaded 360,000 times during its first month. And remarkably, they've suffered fewer customer losses than in previous quarters. So is the iPad app the reason? Probably not. But customers might have been less likely to leave if they thought they were in on the ground floor of a major upgrade to their cable service.

Cablevision's iPad app scored an incredible 500,000 downloads in only 5 days, and Comcast's Xfinity TV app has been downloaded 1.5 million times since its launch 5 months ago.

Getting cable TV on your iPad is obviously great for consumers. But for the cable industry, it means that they will live to fight another day against mobile streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and more. And that's no small feat, considering the vastly more nimble business models of Netflix et al.

source: GigaOM