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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.
You will pay. You will not complain. You have no rights against the all-powerful CORPORATION. Unless you incorporate yourself.
These fees are just one way they have to claw those costs back.
Another method is having State Governments pass laws stopping cities and towns from operating their own networks in competition.
Verizon recently introduced a $2.80 (plus taxes) fee for my FIOS router, which they claim is old -- and to "support it" they need this monthly fee.
Never mind that this is their equipment to start with. Now, my choice is to pay the fee every month or buy a "new" ($70) router, with no guarantee that they won't pull this exact same stunt next year.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I filed a complaint about the "FIOS Regional Sports Network Fee" to the New Jersey Consumer Affairs office several years ago. We don't watch sports, and I complained that there should be an option to have sports channels blocked so as to not pay this fee. Sports channels are bundled with other channels, so there's no option of getting a non-sports package. Of course, my complaint had no result.
Wall Street investors want year-over-year profit increases. It is far easier for Comcast to just raise these fees (which really should be a part of the quoted price for the cable TV package) than it is for Comcast to spend money on things that make its customers happy (like quality customer service) and more willing to buy more Comcast products.
The best way to opt out of these fees is not to pay Comcast ANY money and switch to just watching content from streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube!
I'm sorry, I don't have Comcast so I don't know what this is.
Wasn't there a time when cable companies had to provide local broadcast channels for free?
As far as I can tell they charge a "broadcast TV fee" but DON'T show me most of the OTA channels. Don't they mean "Major network subsidy fee" ?
I find I spend more time on the sub channels which I couldn't find under channels for them :/
MeTV? Heroes&Icons?, AntennaTV? any of those make it? I know it is a tight squeeze with only 200 something channels....
Curious: What does a music station on Cable look like?
Cable providers should be required to carry the local over-the-air channels but not pay fees for these rights. The OTA channels actually benefit because, for any number of reasons, it can be difficult to pick up their signal. Plus their ratings increase through the use of DVRs. Customers shouldn't have to pay for what some can pick up freely with an antenna. The OTA channels get a ratings boost by adding viewers who couldn't actually receive those channels.
Thankfully, I live in a market with cable alternatives to Comcast/Xfinity. Their service is unreliable, their rates are extortionate, and their customer service makes it preferable to deal with Cthulhu. I ditched them ten years ago as soon as there was an alternative, and I have no regrets. My impression was that they regarded me as an enemy rather than a customer.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Comcast has usually been great about keeping the price of internet access alone just slightly more than the cost of internet access plus their cheapest $15 tv package. With the new fees it is now cheaper to just have internet access even with the increase they applied to internet only plans. I'd save $7 a month even before the new fees.
I feel like someone at Comcast fat fingered the new rates :)
Guess I'll finally turn in my free digital adapter that has been sitting in a drawer.
And then they wonder.. why people are cutting the cord faster than ever.
We need to break up corporations like Comcast. In fact, Comcast should be one of the first. It is 100% clear that the consolidation and (let's face it) monopolies of these multimedia/telecommunications corporations does not work for the American people. Break them up. Re-nationalize the infrastructure and give the newly formed companies contracts to operate telecommunications services using the infrastructure.
And its legit criminal that they can up my rate while I'm in the middle of a contract term without having ever disclosed to me that they could/would do this when I signed up. Signing up with them isn't like signing up with a T-Mobile either. My phone came with a written contract. I had to sign it at the store. My cableco didn't give me ANYTHING in writing until my first bill. It was all over the phone. These class action lawyers deserve to win this one.
Its time for the yearly rate increases. Its the time of year when contracts need to be re-upped and content providers want more money for the same content. They don't offer one more hour than they did previously and lets face it, the shows are all about the same in the end. Content providers want more money every time and the cable companies pass it on to the consumer. But if you want to bitch about Comcast and other cable companies go ahead. What do you expect them to do? HBO has stopped offering contracts and is betting on its direct to the consumer streaming service. Pretty soon all those scrubs who ditched cable will discover they are having pay twice as much to get the same content they were getting from cable. But please don't let me stop you from blaming the wrong people for the way things are.
I can see it now - they will stop itemizing your bill, and if you request an itemized version, there will be a hefty fee for that. Figure out how to charge someone who tries to figure out the charges. Brilliant!!!
(For the sarcastically impaired, yes, I know federal laws and regulations require the itemization)
No TV, no phone from your cable provider. Internet only. You can live without TV. Really. Even sports. Try it and you may be surprised.
I had one for a while when I lived someplace where TV+Internet was marginally cheaper than just Internet. The "digital" adapter output SD 4x3 TV over analog channel 3. Seriously. An OTA HD antenna (if it works where you live) is 100x better. I think the thing was that Comcast was obligated by its contract with the town to offer local TV, but nothing in the contract said it had to be HD. I bet their cheap-ass converter solution saves them a ton of bandwidth. I hardly ever bothered using it.
Except that they know you're a trouble-maker that needs to be delt with.
Scary...
CAP === 'micros'
Every major cable company in the states does this. its not directly about profit. Broadcasters constantly decide when contracts are almost up that their content is worth significantly more, and demand the cable co needs to pay tons more for the exact same content. after a while of this stupid game, they decided to just keep the rates the same, and add on these surcharges to cover these increases.
I wouldnt give comcast a dime, but not because of this. this is specifically the greedy broadcasters fault. and suing comcast over it won't affect them in any way.
I rely on Comcast for broadband because in my town its the only real broadband choice. Sure others offer DSL, wireless, and expensive T1 fiber. But for the price Comcast is OK for broadband internet. However, I wouldn't give them a dime for any TV package they offer. If satellite providers can charge have what Comcast does and make a profit. Then Comcast surely can offer these packages and be competitive. If they cannot, then they need to rethink their business model is.
The cost of communications keeps going up and up. Don't really know why. Fucking monopolies.
I don't feel sorry for the majority of people. You guys put us in this boat by voting in politicians that push for big government and regulations that have created these monopolies and eliminated choices in the market that may not have been so manipulative. I'm going to remind you how this went down and where these monopolies came from. Back in the 1980s and 1990s when cable companies started rolling out services municipalities granted exclusive rights for lengthy periods of time. The cable companies argued that they had to recoup their investment and they couldn't do that if there was competition in the market place. The problem is when you put in monopolies they never go away. You just guarantee that more regulation will later be needed to stem the ever increasing costs. What municipalities should have done was refuse to regulate and open the market to competition instead with rates for access to polls and such at the cost of maintaining said polls. There is already going to be a limit in what the market can handle so charging excess fees to connect does little more than raise funds for other projects that shouldn't exist and hinder competition.
Cost to connect my neighbour to fiber despite that fiber is *already* nearby and there is a local junction box in which to connect? $17,000 USD and that's a steal compared to what Comcast is asking in many areas. I've seen $60-80,000 quotes. Comparatively the cost to connect me to fiber was only $3,000 one time fee. Why was it so much higher for my neighbour? The poles are licensed already so despite that they had to run a lot of fiber to connect me and it would be significantly less for my neighbour the charge from the city greatly increased the cost to absurd levels.
The only way we're going to solve these sorts of issues is liberty-minded people who believe in private property and the free market get together in one place to eliminate laws where the are no victims. If there is no violence, fraud, coercion, or theft there should be no law against it. The poles should be readily accessible at cost for those who wish to provide services to the towns residents and on reasonable conditions to provide fair competition in the market. They should be treated like the roads we all drive on.
If you want more personal liberty and a free market you should join us in New Hampshire. The Free State Project and the Shire Society (may be more appetising for anarchists) among other organizations, individuals, radio shows, and groups are organizing in a decentralized way a migration for liberty. Thousands of people are fleeing tyrannical governments across the United States and around the world to help us eliminate the state to whatever extent we can manage.
We aren't against charity, we aren't conservatives, we aren't republicans, we aren't democrats, we aren't socialists. We don't believe the government has any authority over what we can put in our bodies or who we can marry (or even how many people we can marry). We don't want to build a wall. We want the freedom to travel without hindrance of government permission slips. We want the freedom to conduct business without intrusions on our livelihoods. We don't believe in copy"right" and intellectual property. We don't buy into the hype that we need a state police or even any policing at all. We believe we can develop solutions to security issues outside of a theft-by-state paid monopoly. From free apps for smart phones like Cell 411 which enable people to reach out to friends, family, and neighbours to volunteers for help in emergencies to commercial security services (including neighbourhood patrols). Detroit's gone bankrupt and can no longer maintain decent response times. It's resulted in private security service companies being setup to replace government policing. We believe by ending these socialist programs we can increase individuals personal assets across the board. If we eliminated all taxes peoples incomes would roughly double. The vast majority of us would be able to take care of our own health, retiremen
s/Fucking Comcast/ .Comcast/g
Remember that these fee increases are driven by the spiraling costs the content providers are demanding, especially the sports networks.
Right of Way Use Fee - $1.05
FCC Regulatory Fee - $0.08 (not a government imposed tax)
HD Technology Fee $9.95
On top of that. I have six televisions. It would be an extra $50 a month just for set top box rentals.
If you use their router it's an extra $10 a month.
And if you want unlimited internet it would be an additional $50 a month.
Luckily, I have AT&T as an option (I never thought I would be saying that). $70 a month for unlimited gigabit internet - no additional fees or taxes. I have 4 Roku boxes and three 3rd gen AppleTVs connected to my TVs and my house is wired for Gig-E.
I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Sling and I have an Amazon Prime account (Amazon Video). My total TV cost is Round $50 a month plus whatever you want to allocate toward the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription to Amazon video.
You are the person blaming the wrong guy.
When Comcast signed a 1-year pricing contract with their suppliers and signed a 2-year pricing contract with me that means Comcast took on the risk of *their* suppliers raising rates in contract year 2 by more than they assumed when deciding how to price the contract for supplying me.
During the first year of the ACA when health insurance companies realized their actuaries fucked up, were they allowed to jack up co-payment fees or invent BS paperwork fees and claim "but we're not raising rates!" ? Hell no.
In some ways cable companies get the same rap as insurance companies for costs largely beyond their control. This of course is not to excuse Comcast for playing games with HOW that cost is recorded and associated indefensible marketing schemes which essentially lie about actual prices and fuck over those on contract.
Used to be broadcasters were thrilled to get as many eyeballs as they could to tune in as bigger audience translated into more advertising revenue..at some point long ago cable stopped being dominated by access fees and is now dominated by carriage fees. Now even local broadcasters who broadcast the same signal over the air for free to anyone able to receive it are in the business of extracting carriage costs from cable and satellite providers just because they feel they can get away with it to make more money.
The FCC never said cable companies were REQUIRED to carry local stations for a price other than FREE. Consumers should have the right to opt out of the local crap and should not be forced to pay if they don't want it. I can throw up an antenna in the Attic for $30 and an hour of my time if I want local channels.
Price insanity is particularly egregious given cable/sat industry is on the brink of becoming the next home telephone/portable cd player.
How much can they be paying broadcasters who...broadcast their content for free? The cable co is giving them more eyeballs to sell to their advertisers, the broadcasters need their access as much as the cable cos need their content. I doubt they're jacking up their fees...would be interesting to see some real data.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The sooner the cable TV oligopoly dies, the better for all of us.
Cord Cutters Unite!
I am baffled. Why don't more people go out and play sports, instead of sitting on a couch and watching somebody else have fun? And yes, I do have several TVs and I sometime watch some content. But there are no monthly fees involved.
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.
They are actually 'Fuck you" and "fuck your mother too"
... would not even be in business any more if even a large percentage of their customers felt they had any other choice.
This is how the free market works. Cancel your service and say "due to you charging these fees, which push my rates above the advertised prices, I am canceling my service". Do not accept any alternative service or retention deal. Tell them that if they refuse to cancel service, you will not pay the bill. You do not need boradcast TV. That will shut it down very very very fast. Otherwise, you're a whiner with no solution.
This sh*t should be a utility, not a f-ing unregulated business.
Comcast's billing systems are clearly designed to overcharge.
I recently returned a rented cable modem because I bought my own. I can log into Comcast's account page and look at "Devices" and the rented modem is no longer there.
Yet they still billed me for the rented modem. How can their systems know that I don't have the modem, yet continue to charge me for it?
I expect that, if challenged, they would claim that there are two separate systems that don't interact properly and their agent simply did not do his job when I returned the equipment, but why maintain two systems? Why not make them interact better? Probably because mistakes like this almost always work in Comcast's favor, so they have an incentive to not fix the problem.
Someone has taken a decision to not fix a problem that screws up frequently and almost always benefits Comcast. Design can be implemented through concious inaction as well as action. After all, fixing the problem would improve productivity.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
And this is why I have internet only.
Fuck off and die Cable TV companies. Fuck off and die.
M 100mbps for $40 month gets me everything I need.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
as cable TV. Meanwhile as my options to watch online content increase so does the cable Internet bill needed to support them. It's pushing $70 now. It was $40 when I started. And net neutrality just died with our last presidential election. That means you won't see you're cable bill going up because they'll be charging Netflix $10/mo per user for access.
You're only option is to stop consuming. That sounds good on paper, but TV brings people together. How much water cooler talk is about TV? How much Ice breaking? It's part of our shared culture, and if you're not in, you're out. Try talking to your Boss about the last great book you read and see his eyes glaze over and him look down his nose at your 'elitism'. We Americans at least don't like elites...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Consumerist stories about Comcast. One of the stories: Comcast: 2014 worst company in America. Comcast was selected as worse than Monsanto!
Comcast is disliked so much, now the company is calling itself Xfinity.
I will NEVER watch any sports so FUCK YOU if you think I'm going to pay for or subsidize that bullshit !
Stick you sports up your ass sideways and your bullshit fee for it.
I will NOT give one red cent for bullshit ass sports. Eat shit and die.
... was gained.
We need internet fees of $5.00/Mo for 50Mbps/10Mbps, but a few small extra fees:
-Data priority Fee [ streaming: 0.01Mb ]
-Data distance Fee [ 0.001Mb/mile ]
-Data Collection Inspection Fee [0.01/Mb ] NSA Fee
-Data Collection Inspection Fee Recovery Fee 0.001/Mb
-Advertisement Recovery Fee Due to Ad Blocking: 0.01/Ad
-Fee Payment Fee 1.00
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee: 0.50
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge: 0.50
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy: 0.50
-Data Storage Fee: 0.02/Mb/Mo
-Unlimited Data Fee: $10.00
-Early Payment Fee: $10.00
-Late Payment Fee: $10.00
-Unused Data Fee: $10.00/Mb
-Data Fee Electricity Fee: $0.001/Mb
Trump will MAGA, and also MTIGA [Make the Internet Great Again]
F*ck Co mcast - F*ck Com cast = F*ck Comc ast + F*ck Comca st * F*ck Comcas t & F*ck C omcast ^ F*ck Co mcast % F*ck Com cast $ F*ck Comc ast # F*ck Comca st
You forgot to mention that none of what you said absolves Comcast from being the greedy corprotist douchebags that they're being. You DID forget, right?
I recently returned a rented cable modem because I bought my own. I can log into Comcast's account page and look at "Devices" and the rented modem is no longer there. Yet they still billed me for the rented modem. How can their systems know that I don't have the modem, yet continue to charge me for it?
I can top that. I am a Comcast customer and I own my own cable modem. I've never rented a modem from them at any time. But last month what do I see on my bill but a rental fee for a modem. I also got a notice from them telling me that my modem is obsolete and that I need a new one from them. My modem is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and always has been and no service that would require DOCSIS 3.1 is in my area. Comcast knows what equipment I have (or they should since they set it up) and it hasn't changed in 5 years. But that didn't stop them from trying to slip in some charges for renting equipment I never rented from them. Douchebags...
I'd consider going to another vendor but Comcast is the only realistic option where I live. My only other "high speed" internet provider is Frontier Communications which offers substantially slower DSL connections.
The best way to opt out of these fees is not to pay Comcast ANY money and switch to just watching content from streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube!
Since Comcast is my internet provider and is the only realistic option for internet in my area, exactly how do you propose I cease paying Comcast any money? Streaming doesn't solve that problem. It allows me to pay them less but I spend more on my internet connection than on cable. You have to have internet service to stream and there are no other service providers in my area worth mentioning.
Why don't more people go out and play sports, instead of sitting on a couch and watching somebody else have fun?
Because the options to play sports for people who aren't children or professionals are rather limited. In my sport of choice (wrestling) it's rather difficult to compete in any meaningful way after college if you aren't an elite athlete. Even if you have the time (which can be challenging if you have a career and/or family) there is basically nobody to practice with and few events to enter. Some sports are easier to participate in as an adult (running, cycling, etc) but most aren't. I coach my sport but I haven't wrestled a competitive match since the early 1990s when I was in college.
There also is the fact that actually playing sports is a lot of work. Sitting on the couch and watching requires zero effort and carries no chance of injury and still can be pretty fun. You don't have to block out hours of time which can be nigh impossible if you have any family responsibilities or a spouse that doesn't share your specific interest. You don't need anyone else to watch with you to be a spectator either which is not true for a lot of sports. Unless you are lucky enough to live in an area that happens to have adult rec leagues in your sport of choice then you are kind of out of luck. A lot of the fun of sports is the camaraderie with the people you do it with. Most sports are social activities at some level.
Maybe its your area but in my city there are pretty active rec leagues for all sports.
"All sports"? I very much doubt it is true for all sports. Maybe there are for the sports you care about but I very much doubt you have leagues for quite a few sports. The options for adults tend to be rather limited even in the best of circumstances. I don't even need to know where you live to know that there isn't an adult rec league in your area for my sport (wrestling) because such a league simply doesn't exist anywhere. The best I could do would be to do something like train at an MMA gym or judo dojo but it's not the same sport.
Even if you live near a major city with lots of rec league options not every sport has such options or is compatible with the life of a busy adult. Most places in the US do not have much in the way of rec leagues for adults available. That's certainly true near me unless I want to drive a considerable distance and play a sport I don't have any interest or skill in.
Comcast only startes telling people about the broadcast TV fee. The fact is cable companies have had to pay for broadcast TV since 1992/3. Don't blame Comcast or Trump for this....this went down during Bush 1.
I'm not sure what is meant by "comopetition" when it comes to the larger ISPs in the US, because they go out of their way to make sure they will have as little of it as possible.If anythng the fees are probably an attempt to adjust for all the cord-cutting.