Comcast Raises Controversial 'Broadcast TV' and 'Sports' Fees $48 Per Year (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's latest price hikes include a significant increase in the company's widely despised "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees. The Broadcast TV fee is moving from $5 a month to $7 a month, while the Regional Sports Network fee is rising from $3 a month to $5 a month, according to notices sent to customers in several cities. Combined, that's a change from $8 to $12 a month, giving Comcast an extra $48 a year from each customer that has to pay the fees. Comcast began charging these fees a few years ago, which have risen quickly. Just over a year ago, Comcast raised the Broadcast TV fee from $3 to $5 and the Regional Sports fee from $1 to $3. The two fees have thus gone from $4 to $12, combined, in little more than a year. Comcast customers recently sued the company, saying that Comcast falsely advertises lower-than-actual prices and then raises rates by tacking on these two fees. Comcast falsely portrays these fees as being required by the government, the proposed class action lawsuit said. Charter is facing a similar lawsuit. Comcast says the fees recover a portion of the price it pays broadcast networks and regional sports networks to air their content. But paying for programming is simply part of the cost of doing business as a cable TV provider, and programming costs have always been passed on to consumers in their cable TV bills. By charging fees separately from basic rates, "Comcast has found a way to secretly and repeatedly increase the monthly price it charges for its channel packages" even when customers are supposed to be getting a flat rate during a contract term, the lawsuit said. The Broadcast TV fee was introduced in 2014, initially as $1.50 a month, and the Regional Sports fee was added in 2015 at $1 a month. Comcast charges the sports fee even though it owns many of the regional sports networks that broadcast sporting events in local markets. The price increases were reported by TVPredictions and DSLReports, and customers have been posting letters they received from Comcast detailing the price changes.

Comments

Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc.

[cayenne8]

I'm actually getting ready in the next couple of days, after I watch the last couple items off the DVR....to cut the cord on ATT Uverse.

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

Re:Best way to opt out? Streaming Services!

[cayenne8]

I would cut the cord but my only high speed option is the same shitty company that I get cable TV from. And they've priced their options such that cutting the cord doesn't save that much. Oh, and of course then data caps are coming into vogue to ensure that you don't get too excited about those streaming services or have "unlimited" data. Which means you are going to pay them yet again for overages, or more per month to get rid of the caps. And that price will keep going up.

Look into getting a 'business' connection. Most places don't really require you to show much official business documentation....but you can get truly unlimited internet, no caps AND you can run servers if you want.

I have one from Cox cable, have for a couple decades now...$69/mo...decent up/down speeds, works for my needs both with servers and my TV streaming.

Seems pretty simple

[Solandri]

Just ask them to remove local channels and local sports from your cable package. Buy an eternal VHF/UHF antenna to pick up those channels. Yes your TV will look retro like something from the 1970s. Who cares, you look at the screen, not the antenna.

If Comcast lets you remove those channels, then you won't have to pay the fees and you'll make back the cost of the antenna in a few months. You can pocket the savings every month thereafter.

If Comcast says you can't remove those channels, then they've basically admitted that they are falsely advertising their prices. If there's no way to remove a fee from the price, the fee is a part of the price, not an optional add-on. And they will lose the lawsuits and be forced to include these fees in their advertised prices.