Here's the paradox: cable companies are roundly despised in the US, saddled with the sort of scorn generally reserved for lawyers, politicians, and the recording industry. But the services that those cable companies provide are well-loved.

Indeed, despite years of price-gouging and customer service so atrocious that techs sometime fall asleep on people's couches, Americans love themselves some cable TV, and in fact are watching more hours of the boob tube than ever before in history. How to explain the disconnect?

Learning to love cable

I put that question to Kyle McSlarrow, head of cable's trade association, NCTA. "Let's just stipulate that our rankings on customer service are not terrific," he began.

In fact, customer service rankings are terrible. New data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index gives the cable industry an overall score of 63—one of the lowest among major US business sectors. Even the Post Office scored a 74, leaving cable to hang out in the customer service cellar with newspapers (63) and airlines (64).

McSlarrow doesn't quibble with the numbers, saying that "a heck of a lot of time and money and attention is being thrown at [the problem]. We've got to fix it."

But he's adamant that cable users love the actual products being sold. As a trade group, NCTA runs its own surveys every year to provide data to its members, and one of the most consistent findings of the last few years has been that cable customers give their broadband, phone, and video service an average score of 8/10. More extraordinary is the fact that a full 33 percent of respondents rate the products at 10/10.

"I've never seen numbers like that" in any other business, says McSlarrow.

Subscriber numbers appear to bear out NCTA's internal polling. October 2008 estimates from the US Census Bureau suggest that there were 128 million American homes in 2007. The cable business passes nearly all these homes—124.8 million in 2008.

Despite cable's legendary customer service issues, a full 51 percent of these passed households plop down their monthly fee for the privilege of watching cable TV. However much people complain about service and price, half of all Americans get cable TV.

McSlarrow says that it's not about (lack of) competition, either; cable has plenty of competition. Satellite services took one of three video customers over the last decade, he says, which eventually "made us a better industry."

Watching more TV than ever

And TV use continues to increase, even as Internet video, computers, and gaming consoles compete for attention. Earlier this year, Nielsen estimated that Americans watch an average of 151 hours of TV every month, a time commitment approaching that of a full-time job.

The news is certainly good for the cable business: whatever its problems, Americans are absolute fiends for its television programming, and Internet video has yet to erode its dominance. On the other hand, what's good for the cable industry may be bad for America—can watching 151 hours of TV each month produce happy minds and healthy bodies?

Not even cable's top lobbyist will say "yes" to that one. "As a parent—and I'll probably get fired by my board—I can't imagine that those numbers reflect something good for America," he says with a laugh. "I have to imagine it has some impact on our productivity as a nation."

On the other hand, the fact that we have enough time to watch that much TV also says something good about American productivity. And who knows, perhaps all this TV-watching time is being put to good use stuffing our collective brain pan with episodes of Frontline and NOVA—though part of me fears it's really spent with Seinfeld reruns and episodes of Two and a Half Men.