Consumer Confidential: Cable on your iPad, Time Warner profit, Red Double Stacks

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Here’s your thoughtfully Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Coming soon to an iPad near you: cable TV. Cablevision Systems Corp. says it’s testing technology to deliver video services to all Internet-enabled devices, including PCs, smartphones and tablets such as the iPad. If Cablevision, which has about 3 million customers, is successful, expect all other cable companies to quickly follow suit with video feeds that break free of the TV. This obviously makes sense from a business point of view -- reaching customers wherever they are. But it’s an open question whether people would want to subscribe to an online cable plan when they can get their fix via free or cut-rate services such as YouTube and Hulu.

-- Speaking of cable, Time Warner Cable, the dominant provider in Southern California, posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit of $342 million as more people signed up for Internet and phone service. The company added 85,000 residential Internet subscribers over the last three months as it continued an aggressive marketing push to win business from phone companies. However, Time Warner lost 111,000 video subscribers during the same period, highlighting the challenges cable companies face in a wired world.

-- Let them eat Double Stacks. A Russian business publication is reporting that Wendy’s is gearing up to enter the Russian market early next year. Vedomosti, citing sources in the restaurant industry, says Wendy’s is in talks with a local company to bring its fast-food fare to the former Soviet Union. If so, then I’m prepared to say the Cold War is over. We won.

-- David Lazarus