Posted on 04/11/2012 8:07:07 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
Move over, $5 a gallon gas — America’s new household budget buster may soon be the $200 a month cable bill.
While wages for US workers have remained stagnant, cable bills have quietly climbed 6 percent a year and will pass $200 a month by 2020, according to an alarming industry forecast released yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
There is absolutely NO need to worry here...
Government will come in and fix things. As a result, by 2020 cable bills will only be $400 per month.
If I live to be 130 I will not run out of good educational videos and entertainment on youtube. All free.
With a time delay of a few hours I also get the news free.
Unless you’re a hardcore sports junkie, paying for TV is insane.
Mine is already $254/month (cable, phone and fastest internet)
We love to laugh at the commercials that have some dude saying how much he loves Cox.
I would love to be able to omit all of the cable and network news channels - we tuned the liars out about a year ago and got rid of the pile of bullet riddled televisions in the back yard.
The only way its going to keep going up is if the cable TV providers are content with a shrinking market. If the average cable TV bill hits breaks the 200/month mark, the majority of people will eliminate TV from their wants and needs and will settle for internet only. Many will opt for a smart phone and tablet computer only and get their internet solely from free wifi and cell phone providers.
I know I already eliminated TV and land line phone service from my home years ago. I am down to a flip phone and a cable modem. at some point in the future, I may ditch the cable modem and upgrade to a smart phone with premium data plan and a cellular modem.
Cable TV sucks ass anyway. But internet streaming and down lading is the way to go. Netflix and I hear HBO has good streaming to.
Makes DVDs look better and better.
A large chunk of this is due to the media conglomerates that require the cable/satellite providers to carry entire blocks of their networks, even the unpopular ones- and then demand ever-higher fees for each one of them. Don’t want to carry “The All Crap Network”? Then you can’t have Discovery, SiFi, and whatever. Oh, and since we KNOW you want those others, you can pay us higher broadcast fees for all of them.
This is one of the biggest obstacles to ala-carte cable. Folks point fingers at cable and sat carriers, yet it the the mandated bundling that makes it impractical to offer only what consumers want.
I would say that DirecTV could remove over half of the channels in our package and I wouldn’t care- except they would come off in chunks- taking the desirable with the junk.
Who needs cable? Never had it, never will. On the other hand, we all need fuel. One is a necessity, the other, a waste of life.
My old bones won’t last until 2020!
So who needs it? No cable for 15 years, here.
I buy old movies at the library for 25 cents. I watch them and then pass them to my daughter for their camp which does not have great tv access. It’s good to be practical....and cheap.
NOT
I hardly watch TV as it is, I am only about two centuries behind in my reading and wouldn't miss TV at all! :)
I think we'd all be better off without it anyway!
Due to this, internet companies are starting to put monthly caps on bandwidth and charging overage fees.
I love my Netflix on Roku, but I'm not upgrading to the HD Roku because of this.
By 2020 a cheeseburger with real cattle beef meat and real cheese will cost US$20 to $30 on the East Coast.
I don’t think the cable companies are going to be able to keep up with inflation, their product has lost it’s appeal and consumer consumption patterns have been irreversibly altered by ‘New Media’.
I don’t speak Spanish. I HATE Rap-crap. Not in love with TV Preachers. Yet, I pay for all that stuff in a “package.” No ala-carte. Ain’t right!
About $8/month for unlimited streaming. Add a DVD for another $8, (Blu Ray for $9). This gets you a new movie as soon as you can mail back the old one, NOT one DVD a month.
I watch what I want, when I want, on TV, Cell, Notebook, when traveling. I can get movies and shows downloaded with Verizon 3G pretty quick, I got the unlimited data plan. I do have a cable modem with the highest speed available. Kids and hubby also watch on their tvs and computers ON THE SAME $8 plan.
Kill you rTV, disconnect from the cable, stop receiving satellite. I’ve been without for about 5 years, hasn’t even been a burden at all. In fact, all of a sudden, you will find you have LOTS of extra time.
Only a Liberal could believe that prices would increase 400% even as the number of free and low-cost competitors increases exponentially.
Frankly this is probably propaganda, put out by the cable industry and intended to put a scare into sports leagues over their escalating rights fees.
Extra time and extra money too!
TV is a time parasite
Mine’s going to cross 200 with the next rate hike. Of course I’m all bundled, that’s cable (extended tier HD with DVR), interwebs and phone.
Totally sat TV-free since last June.
We have been catching up on science fiction series and movies via Netflix. We had dropped the alphabets back in 2004. Now, I realize that Syfy would take series episodes totally out of context, plus, they were so chopped up for ad breaks that it was difficult to follow the plot lines. Movies and mini-series, as well. The DVDs and streaming episodes/movies are a joy, with all the content, no commercials, the ability to pause or resume later and, more and more often, now, closed captions.
We watch The Real News from the Blaze for current news. We may cut our GBTV subscription back to $5/month, since we don’t watch their other offerings very often.
I wouldn’t pay $70 for DirecTV, why would I ever pay $200? We can also get many Food Network shows on streaming, NOVA, the few real history shows, etc, etc. Unless you _have_ to have the absolutely most current show in real time, there is no reason to sub to any TV service, IMO.
Government is beginning to subsidize cable and cell phone service for low income households.
So, like any other business with a guaranteed payer, prices will soar.
My Dish bill is $22 a month if and when it gets to $30 it gets turned off......
One of the ONLY reasons I’ve kept cable in recent years has been because of FoxNews. Yet, in the past six months, thanks to all the Romney-cheerleading, I’ve now all but stopped watching Fox. Only tune in for an occasional Greta interview or Palin appearance. My viewership of the station is down by a good 95% I’d say. So it’s really become pointless for me to continue subscribing to cable. I’m truly just inches away from cancelling.
Who uses cable anymore?
The only wire into my home is broadband internet, and even that’s glass.
You can get TV (including commercials) free on the internet.
The VOIP can be had for under $10 a month, so you don’t need phone either.
You can’t really go to the cellular network for broadband. They are having issues keeping up with demand. ATT recently jacked up their data plan from 25 for 2gigs to 30 for 3gigs. You go over that, you spend another 30 bucks. Streaming videos to watch instead of cable will not be practical like that. Every carrier except Tmobile that I am aware of, have got rid of their unlimited data plans.
Cell phone companies on the whole are experiencing rapid growth in data usage due to the smart phones. They will rapidly hit the wall where there is no more spectrum to buy.
Oh, I am very certain that mine won’t.
Now that they've all become subsidiaries of the Hillbilly Reality Show Network, forget it.
I think they will get it figured out before a wall is hit. They are always figuring out ways to cram more data onto a carrier wave. They are even working on eliminating carrier waves completely...as in ultra wide band radio transmission. If we have to switch to sat phone/cell phone hybrids that operate in the microwave spectrum, so be it. Or if we have to switch to cell systems that use more towers spaced closer together, so be it.
I cancelled my cable early last year. Every time I tried to watch a show, they would cover it up with advertisements for other shows - they wouldn’t let me watch the programs that I was paying for. I now own all of my favorite TV shows on DVD (except for a few that haven’t been released) and I can watch them whenever I want.
That’s right...this is actually DESENSITIZATION, and these companies will be right behind pushing big government payrolls government workers being their consumers with our stolen money.
My Verizon Wireless LTE/WiFi adaptor costs $50/month with a 5 GB monthly cap. I use every bit and on a rare occasion I've stepped over 250 MB and had a $10 overage charge. That device will never be used as a Netflix path. It is barely adequeate to keep my 3 Linux and one WinXP machines patched plus some minimum web surfing/e-mail. Pretty damn expensive for so little utility.
The government gives money for people to eat.
The government gives cell phones to the poor.
The government gives free healthcare to the poor.
How long before they give free cable to the poor? This country is rotting away right before our eyes.
Bingo. Netflix.
$62/mo for fast internet* + $8/mo Netflix + $99/once** for AppleTV = way more video than I can consume, when I want, commercial free.
* - price just went up, wondering if they refactored tiers and bumped customers hoping they wouldn’t notice. I noticed, will look at downgrading.
** - upgrade every few years. The latest 1080p upgrade would be nice, but 720p upscaled is plenty good for us now.
For recent movies, there’s Redbox at ~$1.50/night for Bluray.
For “I want X right now”, there’s iTunes at $1-5/rental.
For anything else, there’s get a life. Way too much else to read/watch/do.
Only thing missing is streaming live news. BIG opening there for someone to make $$$.
Remember: feds gave away Digital TV converters not long ago.
The old movies ARE VHS. Our library will have a sale next month...Both VHS and DVD....stupid cheap.
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