It’s no surprise that there’s quite the competition in the cable industry, oligopoly or not. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see an advertisement for almost every cable company in my surrounding area – and those awful theme songs they try and get stuck in your head? Horrendous.

While I may be bias and think that everyone should just cancel their cable and go the Netflix route, recent news has proved that while I may not be the only one who isn’t the biggest fan of cable companies antics at times, there are still some dedicated customers out there.

Specifically, Dish Network Corp. reported that its TV subscriber growth grew immensely in the fourth quarter 2009 with 249,000 new customers, which put the company’s total customer base at 14.1 million.

In addition to Dish’s growth, the fourth quarter faired quite well for DirecTV (News - Alert) Inc., which gained 119,000 customers to end at 18.6 million total client base. 

However, the fourth quarter did not bode well for all cable providers though. Comcast, Time Warner (News - Alert) and Cablevision all suffered a loss of customers. Comcast lost 199,000 ending the fourth quarter at 23.6 million; Time Warner lost 105,000 ending the period at 12.9 million; and Cablevision lost 45,100 to end at 3.1 million. 

Are Comcast (News - Alert) and Cablevision’s losses a result of the legal issues and network cancellations the companies dealt with recently? 

I’ll leave you to ponder on that thought.