These, ladies and gentlemen, are the leaders in the pay-TV industry. The pinnacles of what other companies strive to be.

When we heard the latest on both Time Warner Cable and Comcast, we were more disappointed than Seahawks fans coming out of the Super Bowl.

It’s certainly no surprise that either of these companies would again make headlines for their inept business practices, that’s for sure; however, there comes a point that it stops being funny and starts being plain sad.

Time Warner Cable Squeezing Every Ounce of Profit Possible From Customers

A Huffington Post investigation reveals Time Warner Cable is raking in (read: milking) a 97% profit margin on their services. The author behind the story documents a 112% increase in pay services in just two years, and follows the numbers to a staggering profit margin that no company should benefit from. That’s right — he’s paying double compared to 2013.

One redditor took to the calculators and came up with an interesting way to put this into perspective:

Worse, if you take the internet costs ($175 million) and add all of the employee costs ($3,019 million) and all of the “Other direct operating costs” ($1,312 million) and then divide by 11,393,000 subscribers in 2013 and again by 12 months, it comes to about $33 per internet subscriber. That is, they could dump 100% of their company-wide overhead costs into broadband and still be making profit.

Yikes.

Comcast Calls Customer [Expletive]

And speaking of things that make you say “yikes,” Comcast recently pulled a sixth-grade level insult against a customer who canceled their services.

Upon canceling service, Ricardo Brown’s name on the bill came through the mail as “A**hole Brown,” minus the censorship of course.

Comcast is notorious for some of the worst PR blunders in recent memory, but this one was particularly shocking considering the company’s response.

Ricardo (or is it “A**hole?”) had his two years of service refunded and received an additional two years free. Additionally, he received personal apologies from executives running the show.

Isn’t that sweet?

Props to Comcast for actually owning up to the debacle, but why are there not stopgaps in place to ensure this type of ordeal does not happen to begin with? This is a testament to the need for better employee and customer service training.

If you’re looking for a laugh, you should check out CNN’s dramatic video and interview with Ricardo Brown’s wife.

Frank Eliason, a former Comcast exec, posted publicly on LinkedIn to share his disappointment with the matter.

“Over the years Comcast has provided some of the greatest customer service blunders the Internet has ever seen.”

Eliason blamed company culture for most missteps and said that simplifying pricing strategy would help prevent some incidents from happening, simply because there would be fewer scenarios where the customer would need to battle customer service. (Side note: Our customer service reps are incredible and we cannot thank them enough for their hard work selling the top-rated HDTV antennas on the market. Just putting that out there!)

Interesting thoughts, Frank. Do you actually believe any of that will happen? You can check out his entire LinkedIn post here, and be sure to give us your thoughts on Facebook!