Posted on 12/26/2013 4:29:40 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
Pay TV service providersare among a few groupsof companiesthatcustomers loveto hate, and sometimes they go out of their way to reminduswhy. As familiesacrossthe country come togetherto celebrate theholidays, satellite TV giants DishNetwork andDirecTV arewishing them a Merry Christmasby hiking the cost of theirserviceplans. In line with years past, both companieshave confirmed that they will raise the pricesof various television packagesand increase service fees as well.
The increases come ata time when “cordcutting,” or canceling pay TV service in favor of onlinevideo streaming services, is becoming an increasingly common trend — to thepointwhere cable companiesare producing awful, awful anti-cord cutting campaigns as a last-ditch effort to win back lost subscribers andprevent current customersfromleaving.
(Excerpt) Read more at bgr.com ...
Buy a Roku or Wi-Fi Blu-Ray player.
I now own Netflix through my flatscreen TV (and up to what, six other devices?) and outside of my wifi, Cable and Dish can go to hell.
Difficulttoread.
We cut off Directv for 1 year and installed a antenna - difficult to get reception - we got the ROKU and sign up for HULU - that was a decent program EXCEPT they don’t air CBS shows - and we missed getting daily news - we signed up for COMCAST for a year very special decent offer - and we are hoping for new alternatives and/or learn of new ideas before it ends in Sept 2014 - then we are back to bad antenna reception!! (Plus getting back on cable - we just HAD to see the season finale of BREAKING BAD - couldn’t wait for that!!
Yep. I just wished DirecTv a Merry Christmas by terminating my contract. Bought a Roku.
Curious is anyone has news/perspective on bills in Congress to require unbundling..if that passes..and it should, IMHO it completely destroyed the economics of cable as it now exists. I’ve read that about 50% of cable customers do NOT watch sports, yet the fees for sports channels, like ESPN, are more than HALF of the cost of the average cable bill.
“I’ve read that about 50% of cable customers do NOT watch sports, yet the fees for sports channels, like ESPN, are more than HALF of the cost of the average cable bill.”
Professional sports in this country is heavily subsidized and shielded from market competition. From grand stadiums built with hundreds of millions of dollars of tax money, high salaries made possible due to the forced payments of the 50% of cable viewers who don’t watch sports, to tax subsidies at all levels of government the professional sports industry benefits from big government.
It is difficult to imagine the Congress critters, who are wined and dined in private boxes at professional games, will be quick to pass legislation unbundling cable TV and thereby knock one of the financial props under the industry.
I know its easy to lay blame on the delivery medium - be it cable TV or satellite, however in most cases these price jumps are a pass through of the cost of the feed.
I am a small cable operator and our feed costs jump every year between 5 and 15 percent per channel. The recent largest jump has been the local broadcast channels retransmission fees - as you may have read in the news where the CBS stations in major markets wanted a 300% increase in their feed costs.
As a cable operator it is almost impossible to remove the broadcast channels from the mix and as a consumer it is almost impossible to obtain the local programming any other way with any kind of reliability.
No matter the delivery method there is an underlying cost to get the signals to the home (wires, satellite, or Internet delivery) and those costs are pretty consistent from year to year so the bulk of price increases are a direct result of increases in feed costs (at least in our case). We make every effort to keep our fixed costs as low as possible so as to keep the annual price increases to a reasonable level.
As a cable operator we do what we can to negotiate the lowest possible feed costs, but at the end of the day we have to pass increases on the the end user in order to stay in business.
I know it doesn’t help the check book. I have DirectTV because I can’t get my own cable tv service so I get to see both sides of the equation.
Wait. I thought only greedy cable companies raised their rates while the sympathetic satellite providers were there to offer great deals! Every time a cable company has a price increase, Dish and DirecTV run ads poaching customers insinuating that the cable companies are just greedy.
The honest answer is that all channel providers have to raise rates as contracts are renewed by the channel heavyweights (Disney, Turner, Fox, MTV, etc.) and the carriers are basically stuck between raising rates or pulling the plug on channels.
Satellite carriers are no different. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe ala carte is the answer but be careful what you wish for. Individual channel prices, when added together, could become far worse than the package prices offered now.
I have one more year on my Verizon Fios Triple play package, which went up significantly after my first two years of it. I don’t need a home phone line, but it was cheaper to bundle. I’m considering paying the early termination fee to try another option.
Stopped the cable TV 3 months ago. We use an antenna and get all the local stations plus have been a netflix subscriber for about 3 years. Have no reason to go back to cable.
I had DirecTV for about 15 years. Good service, good product. No real complaints. Well, except that I was paying $96 a month with no premium or movie channels.
But, I dropped it last February and have no regrets. I don’t miss TV a bit.
I have Netflix an Amazon Prime streaming, mostly to watch kid’s movies with my daughter.
Pay TV is an expensive waste of time.
The bastards wanted to charge me $100/mo for BASIC service (no movie or sports channels) so we dumped 'em. I installed a $39 OTA HD Antenna, and subscribed to Netflix and Hulu instaead.
Net Savings: $84/mo. We haven't missed Satellite/Cable at all.
The only thing I subscribe to sports wise on my Roku is MLB Network so I can watch all the Chicago White Sox games. It won't be long until NHL Network and NFL Network follow suit.
I ‘m like you + I have a digital rabbit ears for all the local channels. How many FREE channels are their in
DFW? more than 50. Most of the stuff is the same “crap” as on cable - home shopping, reruns of criminal Minds, Criminal intent, or other NYC crime shows. Then there are the endless old TV and Old Movie channels, if a kid didn’t know what their grandparents watched 40 years ago, it’s over the air, in black and white and FREE.
There are a couple of offers at 29.99 for Direct for a very decent package. It goes up a bit the second year, but you can always change after another 12 mos.
http://www.braylog.com/id48.html
A couple of years ago, my town of 14k was considering becoming an internet provider. They already operate the city electric utility. One of the big anti factions was Cox Cable.
When the measure came up for a city-wide vote, it was voted down almost by a 2-1 margin.
A couple of months after the vote failed, Cox showed their appreciation by significantly raising the prices of most of their services. My bill with up $10/month, which was quite a jump from their previous price increases which averaged about $3 per month yearly.
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