Cable TV rates are going up again locally. Charter Comm is “trying” to keep the increase to 5% or less, according to local “news” stories.
News? More accurately some kind of Charter press release that the local media are picking up and repeating uncritically. Charter claims that it’s all due to high priced athletes driving up the cost of TV coverage by stations like ESPN, which pass on their increased costs to the poor downtrodden cable providers like Charter.
Hey Charter, maybe you ought to drop a sports channel or two to keep your rates reasonable.
Outside of rent and food, cable is my biggest household expense. I bet there’s more profit in cable than in crack. Of course this is a wild, unfounded accusation from a pissed off customer who only ordered cable a month ago, and whose rates will go up next month.
Next year it’ll be blamed on those damn pricey historians who comment on History Channel documentaries.
“Gee, Paul, [tee hee] it looks like we overspent a little on acquisitions, what shall we do?”
“Aw, hell, I dunno, lay off some people or something…and, hey, hand me those statistics while you’re up, wouldja? I wanna work with them a little more before I hand them in…”
Must be a strange balancing act they’re running. I believe the fees they pay to cable channels like ESPN are based primarily on the number of their subscribers. So their incentive would be to keep that number low. OTOH, their advertising rates, also pegged to viewership, gives them an incentive to keep the same number high.
I got a new big-screen HDTV, so I kind of think I do. I’m reasonably sure, given my past history, that in another 6 months or so I’ll be so disgusted by the high price and crappy offerings that I’ll cancel. I go though about 5 year cycles – 6 month on, cancel out of disgust, 4 years without, then some special deal hooks me into re-upping (in this case, HBO and high speed internet combined add-on for $25 over the normal extended basic rate).