Back in the day before the consolidation or buyout of the local cable companies, we had really good service for $15.00 a month. Now that was over a decade ago. Ever since Comcast came in they've increased prices over the years, but added a lot of channels. The only problem is that most of the channels I don't care about.
I'd like to see an ala carte system, but they're in the business to make money and they do hand-over-fist. But $47.90 per month is crazy. That's $574.80 a year for a couple hours a night and a perhaps 8 hours over the weekend. If it was commercial free, then I could understand, but we're paying to watch commercials and mostly crappy shows. I just want my Food Network a few news stations and some of the big network stations.
Commercials are there to pay for the programming. Cable companies implement there own commercials on top of the major network commercials and charge customers. crazy.
That's basically what it boils down to. The constant bundling makes a level of service you can buy today cheaper than that same level of service that you could buy 10 years go, but your options are much much fewer.
If you examine it on the flipside, you get to pay much more for the same level of service if all the new editions don't matter to you. I was just thinking about how to get the same channels I got with AT&T Broadband before comcast took them over now with comcast, it would cost over $20/month more. That represents an over 50% rate increase from a combination of base level of service increases and re-bundling of channels to higher tiers. Granted in that timeframe they've added quite a few obscure digital stations in those upper tiers and added OnDemand, but if all you wanted was a selection of the most popular broadcast and cable networks, you are STUCK paying much much more.
I would also like to know why it is that only cable seems to be affected by these network policies of new stations and increased costs. I heard it all the time that "Your rates are going up because they are charging us more for the stations." Why is it then that my sister's Dish Network rates have been rock solid for the past few years and she's managed to get even more stations for that same rate while not being on some sort of promotional rate period?
The big difference is, companies like Echostar actually go to bat for their customers and negotiate with the networks to keep rates sane and push down their bundling requirements while Comcast just passes the rates on to the customer (while inflating the increase to give themselves a nice cut as well).
We only watch approx 15 different channels (all in HD except USA and CNN), yet pay for 700+ on Time Warner. I wonder how much $ per year could actually be saved if they provided a la carte options because I would be all for it if it provided significant savings.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
HeHaw @ Nov 5th 2008 11:57AM
Back in the day before the consolidation or buyout of the local cable companies, we had really good service for $15.00 a month. Now that was over a decade ago. Ever since Comcast came in they've increased prices over the years, but added a lot of channels. The only problem is that most of the channels I don't care about.
I'd like to see an ala carte system, but they're in the business to make money and they do hand-over-fist. But $47.90 per month is crazy. That's $574.80 a year for a couple hours a night and a perhaps 8 hours over the weekend. If it was commercial free, then I could understand, but we're paying to watch commercials and mostly crappy shows. I just want my Food Network a few news stations and some of the big network stations.
Commercials are there to pay for the programming. Cable companies implement there own commercials on top of the major network commercials and charge customers. crazy.
bull3964 @ Nov 5th 2008 12:21PM
That's basically what it boils down to. The constant bundling makes a level of service you can buy today cheaper than that same level of service that you could buy 10 years go, but your options are much much fewer.
If you examine it on the flipside, you get to pay much more for the same level of service if all the new editions don't matter to you. I was just thinking about how to get the same channels I got with AT&T Broadband before comcast took them over now with comcast, it would cost over $20/month more. That represents an over 50% rate increase from a combination of base level of service increases and re-bundling of channels to higher tiers. Granted in that timeframe they've added quite a few obscure digital stations in those upper tiers and added OnDemand, but if all you wanted was a selection of the most popular broadcast and cable networks, you are STUCK paying much much more.
I would also like to know why it is that only cable seems to be affected by these network policies of new stations and increased costs. I heard it all the time that "Your rates are going up because they are charging us more for the stations." Why is it then that my sister's Dish Network rates have been rock solid for the past few years and she's managed to get even more stations for that same rate while not being on some sort of promotional rate period?
The big difference is, companies like Echostar actually go to bat for their customers and negotiate with the networks to keep rates sane and push down their bundling requirements while Comcast just passes the rates on to the customer (while inflating the increase to give themselves a nice cut as well).
Vic @ Nov 5th 2008 2:05PM
+1 on a la carte
We only watch approx 15 different channels (all in HD except USA and CNN), yet pay for 700+ on Time Warner. I wonder how much $ per year could actually be saved if they provided a la carte options because I would be all for it if it provided significant savings.