Slashdot Mirror
Cable TV Price Increases Have Beaten Inflation Every Single Year For 20 Years (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: The pay TV industry is losing customers, but prices continue to climb. In fact, for U.S. cable TV in particular, price increases have outpaced inflation for every single one of the past 20 years, according to a recent FCC report surfaced by CordCutting.com. Every one! In 1995, cable cost $22.35 per month, on average. In 2015, it was $69.03. Now, it does makes sense for prices to go up for goods like cable as long as there is inflation. But cable's increases are more than double that of inflation. On average, cable prices went up 5.8% yearly for the past 20 years. Inflation clocked in at 2.2% per year, on average. Though there has been grumbling about the high prices of cable for quite some time, it has lately taken on a more serious air. That's because there is evidence that the pay-TV industry is experiencing a hiccup -- or the start of a long-term decline. The pay-TV industry lost 800,000 subscribers last quarter, according to the research firm SNL Kagan. "About 82% of households that use a TV currently subscribe to a pay-TV service," Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research said in a statement last month. "This is down from where it was five years ago, and similar to the penetration level eleven years ago."
It's like they don't know I don't have any real choices for cable or high speed internet and can't switch!
/sarcasm
"Cable TV Price Increases Have Beaten Inflation Every Single Year For 20 Years"
I don't think any of us needed a study to tell us this.
I did. I think Comcast is paying me $10/month to hold onto one of their cable boxes and list my name as a TV subscriber for a year. Haven't even taken it out of the shipping box. I know the list price of the TV is some positive number, and I'm sure that's the one the FCC claims has been rising 6%/year, but that's not what I'm paying. I've got a $60/month internet connection that I only pay $50 for, and TV is free.
At the end of the year, I send the box back. Two months later, Comcast calls up and offers to pay me some sum to hold onto another box. I really don't get the business model - you'd think they could find cheaper warehousing for all their excess cable boxes. Or maybe just not buy so many in the first place.