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You're Paying 40% More For TV Than You Were 5 Years Ago (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tv-charges dept.

According to data from Leichtman Research's annual study, pay TV subscriptions keep going up and up. So much so that in the last five years, they have gone up by 40 percent. In 2011, subscribers were paying an average of $73.63 for cable or satellite, but now that average stands at roughly $103. From a BusinessInsider report: And it's not helping subscriber growth. "About 82% of households that use a TV currently subscribe to a pay-TV service," Bruce Leichtman said in a statement. "This is down from where it was five years ago, and similar to the penetration level eleven years ago." The pay-TV industry lost 800,000 last quarter subscribers last quarter, according to the research firm SNL Kagan. Putting that on a personal level, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke recently said his own kids don't even pay for TV. Burke has five "millennial" children, ages 19 to 28, and exactly "none" subscribe to cable or satellite, he said at a conference last week.

2 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Math checks out 1.40 * 0 = 0 by netsavior · · Score: 5, Funny

    actually it looks like I may be paying a quintillionteen jillion percent more for TV than I was 5 years ago.

    Since I haven't paid a television bill since 2004.

  2. Well, let's discuss ethics then by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you have no ethical issues pirating content? Please no BS about sticking it to the media corporations--that is just rationalizing the fact you are just a cheap jerk with no morals.

    Is it ethical to give your money to an organization that will do this sort of skullduggery with it?

    I'm being serious.

    It's theft if you download content and view it for free, sure, but you're not exactly morally in the clear if you do pay. Your money is lining the pockets of famously and spectacularly corrupt middle men, with only pennies on the dollar going to the artists you love.

    The correct thing to do isn't as clear as you might suppose. Morally, it may be more correct to pirate their content then buy a t-shirt or something from them, because they'll see most of that money. Most notably George Lucas is wealthy because of merchandise, not movies.

    I'm not saying what to do, what not to do, or what I do - I just want you to think about it a bit before tossing out moral absolutes.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.