AT&T, he added, could choke off Starz's access to AT&T subscribers and put the programmer in a difficult position: reduce costs by scaling back production, making it an inferior product, or raise prices to compensate for the shrinking audience.
Earlier this year, breakfast cereal producer Weetabix said it would have to temporarily scale back production of some of its products because of the poor wheat harvest.
Businesses in the service sector, which makes up a vast majority of American companies, scaled back production last month to reduce their product inventories, which have become bloated as Americans spend less.
Audemars Piguet meanwhile has scaled back production by about 10percentt.
Manufacturers have temporarily shut down plants or scaled back production to trim inventories because sales are slowing.
Volvo cut 1,000 temporary workers in North America and scaled back production in the first half of 2000.
This year, Caterpillar has laid off more than 22,000 workers as it scaled back production because of the recession.
As corn prices have risen, refineries have scaled back production, idled dozens of plants and sold ethanol inventories.
As sales of new cars fell 49percentt from 1999 to 2001, major carmakers like Daewoo and Fiat scaled back production in the country.
Instead, Congress last year scaled back production of the F-22 fighter for the current fiscal year, in protest of the plane's escalating costs.
Other companies scaled back production during the economic downturn, said Phil Phillips, the managing director of the Chemark Consulting Group, which analyzes the coatings industry.
