Charter raises Spectrum prices again, boosting “Broadcast TV” fee to $16.50
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Another hidden fee for things that most consumers probably don't want but have to take anyway.
Color me shocked. /s
Color me shocked. /s
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"The Broadcast TV fee charge will apparently apply even to customers who are on promotional deals that lock in a price for a set amount of time."
Sigh. This should be flat-out illegal or, at a minimum, any material change by one party ought to be grounds for the other party to void agreements like this. Locking in term pricing that only locks in the term, not the pricing, is pretty much fraud.
Sigh. This should be flat-out illegal or, at a minimum, any material change by one party ought to be grounds for the other party to void agreements like this. Locking in term pricing that only locks in the term, not the pricing, is pretty much fraud.
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How long until the re-transmit fee is 1:1 with the overall cost of a given package?
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Plus $8 per cable box, plus taxes, right? $25 down before you even start paying your bill. At that point, they could give TV service away and still make money on it.
Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do when they talk you into a TV-and-Internet bundle.
Oh, wait, that's exactly what they do when they talk you into a TV-and-Internet bundle.
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I’m sure they’re terrified of the lawsuit. Those fines really hurt their supply of pocket money.
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$8 would be a pretty cheap cable box in this part of the country.
I would really love to know how much those cable boxes cost, because I've looked inside them and it looks like about a $20 bill of materials to me.
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these insane fees is the primary reason i cut the cord years ago and got a pair of rabbit ears. broadcast channels are free. there is no value added by the cable companies. if people want to record over the air, there are good options available.
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Under what basis is this not just part of the "Cable TV" price? I mean, taxes and fcc fund fees are one things - those aren't content. Why are they splitting out some tv channels as not part of the advertised price?
If they can do this for broadcast channels, why not say, "$30/mo for TV"
Then your bill arrives and theres:
$15 fee for CBS/Viacom channels
$20 fee for Disney channels
$10 for Turner channels
$18 fee for Fox channels
$12 fee for NBC channels
etc. Pretty soon, the advertised price is 1/8 of the actual price.
If they can do this for broadcast channels, why not say, "$30/mo for TV"
Then your bill arrives and theres:
$15 fee for CBS/Viacom channels
$20 fee for Disney channels
$10 for Turner channels
$18 fee for Fox channels
$12 fee for NBC channels
etc. Pretty soon, the advertised price is 1/8 of the actual price.
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Them:
*shows contract*
"Here is our agreement"
Copy of agreement
"*********************************"
Me: its just a bunch of asterisks
Them:"This is the industry standard agreement, dont act weird about it"
edit for: didnt intend to reply, but somehow that happened.
*shows contract*
"Here is our agreement"
Copy of agreement
"*********************************"
Me: its just a bunch of asterisks
Them:"This is the industry standard agreement, dont act weird about it"
edit for: didnt intend to reply, but somehow that happened.
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They are certainly greedy, but there is value added by the cable companies. That value is reliability of signal. If have a small indoor antenna. Even though I live within a few miles of a mid-sized city in Ohio (it's large for Ohio, but mid-sized nationally), some of the channels don't come in great, with, depending on prevailing weather conditions, occasional freezing/black screen, or image tearing, loss of audio for a fraction of a second to a few seconds, etc.
I live in an apartment, so I can't put up a real antenna for good reception. I don't have cable, but I can certainly see how it would add value by giving me a solid signal. Of course, they lose value too, because the cable company encrypts their signal - over the air, I can freely record tv programming on my PC with a digital TV tuner card, but the cable company encrypts it so I can't get anything on my PC.
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fair point. i'm sorry that you don't have the option to get a clear signal over the air. i get a poor signal occasionally, but i still feel good about the decision to cut the cord. i use an amazon recast to record over the air. cutting out these fees and box rental paid the equipment i bought in less than six months.
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So glad I cut the cable in the year 2000 and have never paid any fees for local stations.
My local stations have been cost free and no fees because I use an OTA antenna on my roof and Windows 7 Media Center as my DVR. I use VideoReDo TvSuite to edit out commercials and transcode to H.264 and save to my NAS for future viewing.
My local stations have been cost free and no fees because I use an OTA antenna on my roof and Windows 7 Media Center as my DVR. I use VideoReDo TvSuite to edit out commercials and transcode to H.264 and save to my NAS for future viewing.
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While I agree that it should be included in the advertised price, I also appreciate it being itemized in the bill. Because this is what the stations charge the cable provider to re-broadcast what they transmit over the air FOR FREE.
I like that cable companies call out stations raking me (and the cable company) over the coals, but it should absolutely be part of the advertised TV package price.
I like that cable companies call out stations raking me (and the cable company) over the coals, but it should absolutely be part of the advertised TV package price.
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that's half true. the most watched programs at any given time get the most bandwidth. the least watched, less. Try watching STARZ during a big sports game, it looks like it's the 1980's again.
and charter is only passing on the higher costs from those who supply the channels
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Sorry to those of you still paying these obscene prices. Those of us who cut the cord years ago are leaving less of you to keep paying
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I'm curious what you misspelled. You only typed ten words, and one of them is a repeat ; )
The simple, and equitable, solution would simply be to allow users to opt-out getting local channels. You know, since they probably live locally and can probably get those channels OTA. For some with poor reception, it might be worth it to opt-in. Luckily, Charter has a long standing reputation of being equitable. I'm sure they'll do the right thing.
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Do you have a balcony or patio? You are within your rights to mount an antenna there.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/over-air-rece ... vices-rule
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This needs much larger exposure, but of course you won’t see it because mainstream media won’t allow it. The sad truth is much of the general public doesn’t even blink at the fees and the cable companies know it and exploit it.
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This is why I haven't and won't have Spectrum provide my TV service. Internet, sure, but that's it.
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16.45 a month and that's before the actual cable bill.
Meanwhile, as of the time of this post, Netflix's prices are:
Basic, $8.99 per month (up from $7.99 in 2018). Netflix's basic plan doesn't provide high definition viewing and its programs can only be watched on one screen at a time.
Standard, $12.99 per month (up from $10.99 in 2018). The Netflix standard offers HD videos and allows for two simultaneous viewings.
Premium, $15.99 per month (up from $13.99 in 2018). The top tier offering includes the ability to watch four screens at the same time. It's also the only item on the Netflix that offers a 4K viewing option.
What a fucking joke. They must know their days are numbered once the old people who couldn't setup Netflix if their life depended on it die off and are, in typical capitalist fashion, squeezing as much blood from the stone as they can instead of offering a better deal.
Meanwhile, as of the time of this post, Netflix's prices are:
Basic, $8.99 per month (up from $7.99 in 2018). Netflix's basic plan doesn't provide high definition viewing and its programs can only be watched on one screen at a time.
Standard, $12.99 per month (up from $10.99 in 2018). The Netflix standard offers HD videos and allows for two simultaneous viewings.
Premium, $15.99 per month (up from $13.99 in 2018). The top tier offering includes the ability to watch four screens at the same time. It's also the only item on the Netflix that offers a 4K viewing option.
What a fucking joke. They must know their days are numbered once the old people who couldn't setup Netflix if their life depended on it die off and are, in typical capitalist fashion, squeezing as much blood from the stone as they can instead of offering a better deal.
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What is it about the cable market that makes it normal, much less legal, to randomly designate certain production costs(or what you allege them to be) as mysteriously not part of the product cost until billing time?
Basically every product or service in the economy as we know it includes a wide variety of inputs from various sources and has the vendor incur production costs from various different suppliers; yet most products just have a price at which you can purchase them that presumably reflects the supplier's costs to some degree; but doesn't make them your problem.
What makes cable especially dysfunctional in this regard?
Basically every product or service in the economy as we know it includes a wide variety of inputs from various sources and has the vendor incur production costs from various different suppliers; yet most products just have a price at which you can purchase them that presumably reflects the supplier's costs to some degree; but doesn't make them your problem.
What makes cable especially dysfunctional in this regard?
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I'm jealous. Where I live, we have limited internet providers. So the internet/cable only com as bundles. They price it so that I'd only save like $15/month by dropping cable.
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I'm not sure that I save any money but I don't have to worry about rising prices due to these fees.
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The 2nd statement has a surprising amount of truth to it. The amount that content suppliers (especially ESPN and the broadcast networks) charge has been going up ridiculously quickly. Most cable companies make almost no money from TV service (they make it from selling video on demand services, and from selling internet service). Of course, they shouldn't hide that fact; they should engage in wide scale PR to shame the companies doing it, but cable companies don't really exist in a world where they've totally pissed off those content companies . . .
The statement about real-time BW encoding is widely believed, and rarely true. Most cable systems do not have the ability or equipment to make encoding decisions in real-time. (It would mean moving channels around in the lineup in ways that many of their existing digital boxes would not be able to respond to).
In reality, most BW allocation decisions are made statically, and only changed when the physical lineup changes (which probably happens slightly more frequently than when the user-visible lineup changes). ESPN always gets much more BW allocated than the Hallmark Channel, and Starz will always be somewhere in between (but probably below HBO).
If the channels mostly shows video of
people talking to each other (easy to encode), and
is watched by people who don't make buying decisions based on picture quality,
then it's much more likely to be highly compressed.
If the channel shows video which
tends to slew around a great deal (much harder to encode without obvious artifacts),
in which small details are constantly being nitpicked over, and
to an audience that's much more likely to make buying decisions based on picture quality,
it will be less compressed.
All of the above are going to be more or less of an issue depending on how much bandwidth the cable system has available, which is likely to change as you go across a county line, even if the cable company's name stays the same. And if you're not a video engineer working at that company, it will be very hard to figure out which channels are compressed and by how much, other than by very subjective measurements. (Or if you hack your TiVo and look at the rate at which bits get put down on the HD when recording a given channel...)
Edited for grammar and spelling, and again to make it clear I don't agree with hiding the fees, and adding the last 2 sentences.
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Charter has a golden opportunity here. Charge 10.00 a month for a broadcast antenna they install at the home and not pay the broadcast stations anything.
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I say keep raising it, along with the base price. People will keep leaving!
Eventually cable tv will be dead.
Eventually cable tv will be dead.
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Replaced by streaming services and packages at even higher aggregate prices.
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And yet, I put an antenna in my attic and I get the exact same video feed covered by the broadcast fee for free.
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We found out the other day that my mother in law was paying Spectrum $230/month for TV and internet. She watches like 3 channels and only uses the internet for email. My wife took them to task and managed to get it down to about $100/month. Still insanely expensive for what she gets, but I feel like I gained a lot insight into how these companies are still making billions. They're just screwing old people who don't know any better.
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LPT: Give you brother in law the beer *after* he installs the antenna, not before.
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But all with cancel anytime policies, so you only need to carry the one you are actively watching. Build up a pile of content on one service, watch it all, then cancel and move on to the next.
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I cut my cable TV service about 2 years ago. I had both internet service and TV service for a great price but after the initial pricing was over, I had to reconsider removing the Cable TV service. What made up my mind was having the TV service flake out about once every month or two, having to reset the main TV box which also dropped the internet service. Since removing the Cable TV option, internet service has been uninterrupted. Also going to subscription service for shows, is a whole lot more cheaper that with Cable TV. I spend about $20-$30 per month for subscription channels that we actually watch than about $60 per month for Cable TV. Also, like the fact that I can unsubscribe a channel easily once it runs out of anything interesting to watch, and easily subscribe to another channel.
I have one of those HD TV antennas for broadcast TV, I just propped up by the window, no mounting or anything. Signal is pretty good, but not really much to watch anymore when can easily watch shows via the internet. Also, there are several free internet options to watch movies and series, albeit with commercials.
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