The Average Cable Bill Has Increased More Than 50 Percent Since 2010 (streamingobserver.com)

According to new research, the average cost households pay for cable is now up to $107 a month -- that's a 50% increase since 2010 when cable bills were $71.24 a month. When compared to last year, it's only a 1% increase, "thanks in large part to increasing fees for things like regional sports licensing and taxes," reports Streaming Observer. From the report: Leichtman Research Group's data was gathered through a telephone survey of 1,152 households from throughout the United States. The research found that 78% of American households still subscribe to a paid TV subscription. That percentage is down from 86% in 2013, 87% in 2008, and 81% in 2004, but 78% is still a pretty high figure given how high cable costs continue to rise each year and how affordable streaming video services are in comparison.

Comments

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[cervesaebraciator]

We don't get cable TV along with it.

Average cable internet bill has gone down 100%

[cervesaebraciator]

... for a big part of the market. These companies need to understand that by hiking rates they're causing more people to cut the cord. They need to go for volume if they're to survive as TV businesses (and not just ISP's).

Re: Average cable internet bill has gone down 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if they didnt bundle crap channels with basic packages, people may be more inclined to keep cable. Do I want OWN, Lifetime, FYI, Hallmark or any of that crap? Nope.

Re:Average cable internet bill has gone down 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

so thank you to all the fucking 'cord cutters' that raised the rates for everybody else.

our bill went from $110 with all the premiums and extra tiers and '1 tier higher than slowest' internet to $140 with NO premiums, no extra tiers, about a dozen LESS channels in the base package than there used to be, and slowest-available internet.

so $30 more for less, and 15x4 + 10x2 + 5 + 20 = $105 for what we gave up = $135 + 110 = $245 to get what we had. that's well over 100% increase since 2005 when we had to start downgrading services.

Re:Average cable internet bill has gone down 100%

[WaffleMonster]

so thank you to all the fucking 'cord cutters' that raised the rates for everybody else.

You're quite welcome.

so $30 more for less, and 15x4 + 10x2 + 5 + 20 = $105 for what we gave up = $135 + 110 = $245 to get what we had. that's well over 100% increase since 2005 when we had to start downgrading services.

You're welcome to join us and become a cord cutter too. We have cookies.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[jshackney]

Precisely.

There's next to nothing on television I want to watch. Internet service is adequate (and has been since my 2009 DSL line) for my tele-viewing needs.

Comcast. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

[AlanObject]

I had been a Comcast customer for years. I had Internet, Phone, and Cable TV service. Rate was about $180/month. Two year contract.

The Internet service is excellent. Not only is it fast and reliable (wasn't always but they fixed things) but they actually do IPv6 right.

So last year (about 18 months ago) they decide I must be too pleased some it's TIME FOR A FLEECING!

My contract is up. I want to renew. NOT AN OPTION. I say what do you mean you can't. I'm using it right now. Yes but the 3-service deal is no longer offered. You have to get the 4-service deal. It is called "quad play." In addition to the other services you get home security.

I say I don't want another security service. I have ADP and have invested $1500 in sensors that would be thrown away if I changed now. Not to mention I would have to purchase more sensors.

I won't bore you with the details but the choices boiled down to this: 1) ditch Comcast (and I lose the Internet service i depend on for my business). 2) Get the three services I have been using which will cost about $100 more than what I have been paying, or 3) get the FOUR services for about $40 LESS -- FOR NOW -- than I have been paying.

Now get this. I say ok I'll take the quad play but I'll just not use the home security. So no need to schedule the installers --- hold your horses right there son. We WON'T give you a new contract until AFTER our installers show up to your house, burn a half day of your time, and certify that the service is installed. And there is this wireless pad thing that has to be in the house somewhere.

I bitch enough that the gal gives me a "free" camera.

So now I have two security services running at my house -- I never arm the Xfinity one but I do use the camera which is pretty well implemented. I have to feel grateful that they didn't make me unplug the ADT system.

Somehow the monthly bill has creeped up on me. Now it's $225/month not including the occasional movie my wife buys. Instead of $40 less I was pitched I am now paying $40 more.

That's my Comcast bitching for today. Thanks for listening.

Much like Apple's business plan

[Tough Love]

The plan: squeeze more money out of each diehard customer in a shrinking market. Obvious issue is, it makes the market shrink faster. One uncomfortable detail: the demographic of those diehard customers is increasingly on fixed income.

Whoa

[93 Escort Wagon]

"The Average Cable Bill Has Increased More Than 50 Percent Since 2010"

Man, I'm glad I happened to be sitting down before I read that shocking headline.

Bye-Bye Comcast

[prisoner-of-enigma]

I was paying right at $200/mo for Comcast XFinity. About half that was for 150Mbit (downstream) Internet with no data cap (that's extra, of course). The other half was for STANDARD DEFINITION basic cable.

I'd happily have taken Google Fiber if it were available but AT&T GigaPower got here first. Now I have 1000Mbit down/800mbit up, HD cable channels (and many more than Comcast offered), three set-top boxes (only one with Comcast), and a DVR (none included with Comcast)...all for only $80/mo.

Is it any wonder people are ditching traditional cable companies?

Cable companies are just passing on cost

[Revek]

You probably are not going to agree but I work for a small cable company and some media companies double their cost per sub every time contracts come up for renewal. Cable companies make almost nothing on video these days. The exception is Comcast. Comcast owns several networks and the HITS platform. As for the rest of us the profit margin is hair thin. If it wasn't for internet sales most small cable companies would have went out of business years ago. When I started working for this company they had twelve systems. Ten years later that number is three. one of the three is actually three towns tied together by fiber. The captive market doesn't allow for true negotiations, so expect more of the same in the future.

Re:Cable companies are just passing on cost

[sabbede]

Then there is something wrong in the market. Cable companies should not be willing to accept and pass on the kind of cost increases you describe. They really shouldn't be in that position at all. What are the content companies charging cable companies for anyway? They make money off advertising or subscriptions, so the more homes their content goes to the more valuable their ad time. By all rights, they should be paying cable companies to bring their ads to our homes, not the other way around. Having your content run on cable TV means you don't need a nationwide network of broadcast towers to sell adds that run in all our homes, yet somehow their savings get passed on to us as increased cost? That's not right.

Re:Cable companies are just passing on cost

[jdharm]

Preach.

We charge cost on content and our cable operations bill hasn't gone up in 20 years. We lose money on cable TV. The internet department is supporting itself and TV and has been for 10 years because the customers would never stand for the price increase if we passed on the rate hikes of the content providers and a little for ourselves. We've just been passing on the content costs, watching our operations margin shrink to nothing, then slip into the red as we lose ground to inflation.

Re:Cable companies are just passing on cost

[Revek]

"Yes, it's called lack of competition. The physical plant should be maintained by the municipality and the content and content management equipment should be owned by a plethora of providers. "

No, thats not what it is. That municipality will still have to charge for content and infrastructure. Our state has one city owned cable company and they still have all the same problems that the rest of us have and their rates are in line with ours. The problem is that the content providers are not required sell their product at a consistent rate. They charge smaller companies more for the same content. If you don't agree to pay the price you have to remove the channel. No other choice and negotiations really are just take it or leave it.

"At this point the only reason to sell cable is that a lot of people want to watch the same content at the same time, so you can broadcast it to them. As that becomes less true, it will make less and less sense to do that, and more and more sense to do everything based on IP."

It would make more sense if the majority of the USA wasn't 20 years behind the rest of the world. We looked into a IP based service called skitter. It looks good and would make video more profitably and allow customers to view content more in line with current consumer preferences. The problem with that is we would have to replace all of our set top and rf infrastructure to support it and that is something the smaller companies just can't do. We don't expect the government to give us any help either. They reserve that kind of help for larger companies and leave nothing for rural systems.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[nehumanuscrede]

Yet, my internet only package is ~$100 / month. ( My router, my cable modem )
What you pay differs VASTLY depending upon where you live and if any competition ( Fios, Google Fiber, AT&T Gigapower, etc ) exists in your neighborhood.

If Google rolled in here tomorrow, Comcast would probably cut my bill in HALF just to keep everyone from jumping ship.

Naturally it is because...

[EzInKy]

...they give 50% better service.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[grep -v '.*' *]

Bingo, me too. I'm too poor to get an iPhone, I've got a years old Android or two. I get internet ONLY (29Mb/6Mb), and then OTA for Tivo. Well, and then add in Roku, Fire and Plex, and HiDive. I also (accidentally) have Verizon unlimited* internet as a backup for the few times Comcast goes down.

* the OLD actually-unlimited plan, with limited voice and text. Which is full speed unlimited data until 100GB DL, and then it switches to 0.0T since they drop you next month, so I hear. And if you heavily target a single site it's magically unreachable the next month but works fine elsewhere. It's amazing how sensitive the internet is.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

There's next to nothing on television I want to watch. Internet service is adequate (and has been since my 2009 DSL line) for my tele-viewing needs.

^^^^^^^^^^^This this this

I was browsing at a friend's place who has a cable package of a bazillion channels...I went through about 100 channels and found nothing, literally nothing worth watching or paying for.

I have an Amazon Prime account, and between that and Youtube and PirateBay I don't see the need to buy cable. As Newton C. Minnow said waaaaaay back in 1961:

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

And nothing has changed except the wasteland is far bigger. Yippee.

A tax on dumb

[locater16]

At this point cable is just a tax on anyone too old, or too dumb to switch to streaming services.

Not my cable bill.

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

My cable bill has decreased 100 percent in the same interval of time. I like it that way. Pink Floyd said it best: I’ve got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from.

That’s about how many I get over the air. But whenever I go somewhere where they have cable, I find that there’s a larger selection but it’s just as much shit as the dozen or so air channels I can pick up with rabbit ears. So why pay extra for... more shit?

Thanks to ATSC, the channels I CAN pull down are pretty clear; although I never watch them. I just leave it hooked up there because I already own it and in case the shit hits the fan and I have no internet... in inclement weather, for example, I have the ability to watch news broadcasts. I don’t thinks I’m missing out on anything actually worth watching. Also, I have an extensive po...er... um... DVD collection.

Otherwise, I just pay the 15 a month for HBO GO when they’re airing Game of Thrones, and leave it off the rest of the time.

Internet Only

[KalvinB]

The issue is bundling. They want you to buy more and more services so of course the bill goes up.

I have only internet service with the local cable provider. It's $90 a month for static IP and 25Mbit or so both ways. Years ago I was paying $70 a month for 256K both ways. Toss in Netflix and HBO NOW and it's over 100 a month for internet and TV.

The only reason people still pay for cable TV is sports. If you don't care about sports, it's not hard to get your bills down. The only necessary service is an internet connection. Everything else is a luxury.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[DanDD]

I have an Amazon Prime account, and between that and Youtube and PirateBay I don't see the need to buy cable.

^^^^^ THIS :)

I cancelled my cable TV subscription and discovered I have a WIFE!? We started talking more, playing board games, card games, and taking the dog for walks together.

Damn, she's an interesting human. Fortunately I've realized what a soul-sucking waste of time television is before either one of us died of ennui.

Re: Stagflation

[c6gunner]

If you're counting a 1,000 channel cable package as "cost of living", you're kind of an idiot.

Way to many

[Evtim]

Situation was not better with only 13 channels....

I've got a little black book with my poems in
Got a bag with a toothbrush and a comb in
When I'm a good dog, they sometimes throw me a bone in

I got elastic bands keepin' my shoes on
Got those swollen-hand blues
I got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from
I've got electric light
And I've got second sight
I got amazing powers of observation
And that is how I know
When I try to get through
On the telephone to you
There'll be nobody home

I've got the obligatory Hendrix perm
And the inevitable pinhole burns
All down the front of my favorite satin shirt
I've got nicotine stains on my fingers
I've got a silver spoon on a chain
Got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains

I've got wild staring eyes
And I've got a strong urge to fly
But I got nowhere to fly to
Ooh, babe when I pick up the phone

there's still nobody home

I've got a pair of Gohills boots
But I got fading roots

Songwriters: Roger Waters

Nobody Home lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Re: How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[tepples]

Drive 200 miles on icey roads to use library internet, what could be the problem with that?

Don't live 200 miles away from books

Pay tens of thousands of dollars for real estate near a library to use library internet, what could be the problem with that?

Inconvenient hours

[tepples]

Many public library branches keep inconvenient hours. By the time you take the city bus from work to the library, it may have closed for the evening at 6 PM. Visit on a day off? The branch near me is closed Saturdays and Sundays from the weekend before Memorial Day until Labor Day. (Source: ACPL.info)

Lifeline phone with no data

[tepples]

Assuming that "Obama phone" means a phone issued to Medicaid recipients under the Lifeline program, which began under President Reagan and was expanded to cellular under President Bush: A Lifeline cellular plan probably includes metered voice and text and 0 MB data.

Re:Comcast. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

[tepples]

Many professional and collegiate sporting events and political news-and-opinion shows are exclusive to traditional multichannel pay TV (that is, cable and satellite). They are not available over-the-top on the Internet.

In addition, many cable system operators offer only lower Internet access speeds (per second or per month) to Internet-only subscribers. Someone who doesn't watch TV but wants Internet access faster than a pittance of GB/mo must subscribe to TV that he or she doesn't watch in order to become eligible to extend the cap. Want business Internet? Better form an LLC and get your house re-zoned.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[nine-times]

What made you think that was a proud proclamation? I read it as a complaint.

It seems like nehumanuscrede is complaining that their internet-only plan is $100/month, and that it should be much lower, and would be much lower if there were any competition.

Business Account

[bill_mcgonigle]

Do you not have a business account? Plenty of people have Internet-only business accounts for less than $225.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[Oswald McWeany]

We don't get cable TV along with it.

The problem with just internet (I'm one of those with just internet), is that the cost to have just internet has quadrupled in price over the same time period too.

I pay more for just internet than I paid for internet and cable back in 2010 (which is about when I cut out cable TV completely). If you're in an area with competition for broadband you have a little flexibility- for the majority of America living in cable monopolies- cost to get internet is ridiculously high for poor service.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[Oswald McWeany]

^^^^^ THIS :)

I cancelled my cable TV subscription and discovered I have a WIFE!?

The same thing happened to me. I'm considering getting a cable TV subscription again.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Playing board games" WTF, get a freaking life.

Pro Tip: Get a wife or girlfriend and maybe you won't be such a bitter cunt.

Re:How Do Poor People Afford Internet?

[DanDD]

Yeah, lately it's been Catan, which isn't very good for just 2 players, but we get lots of practice in order to decimate our children and their significant others for when we all visit during the holidays. The kids don't watch much television either as they are rather active and socially well adjusted, and always rather busy.

On one recent game I played nothing but development cards and the robber, and won handily. The wife was so pissed I damn near had to leave the house for a while, and the dog was traumatized. That was a good game, for me :)

Our big family games usually descent into winners vs losers arm wrestling matches, pull-up competitions with taunting and talking smack, lots of dead-arm shoulder punching, and obligatory shots of tequila. The bruising usually fades by Easter.

Your idea of board games must be the kind that pacifists play, where everyone is happy, there's no strife, taunting, or name calling. Either way, sitting face to face with other humans is something that I suspect you haven't had enough of, based on your response. Try it, it might mellow out your temperament a bit. I'd invite you over, but I'm afraid you'd just get injured.