Why Cable TV Prices are going up to the moon.....

Macfanforever · #1 03-11-2010, 11:13 PM

Hi All, I found some good info on another forum I hang out on, about why cable tv rates are going up to the moon.Freakin' ESPN is charging the cable company $4.08
a month for their service and others like TNT,Disney and the 1 cent deals like MTV his. To me thats a ripoff,I dont watch ESPN and Fox Sports or any other sports channels on that matter.Here the story from All Things Digital's Peter Kafta with the scoop.

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/2010...he-reason-why/

P.S. stroll down and chick and enlarge the list of fees.

vermicious knid · #2 03-12-2010, 12:15 AM

ESPN can go to hell! I had no idea they were hogging all our money. I'd rather watch the Jar Barf channel than ESPN.

Check out the Jar Barf Channel

Rochelle | MySpace Video

Nearly every one of those channels that charge more than 50 cents a month could get lost. I'm convinced. Bring on the a la carte cable.

Nikolaj · #3 03-12-2010, 12:38 AM

Interesting, and true. I may even have the same cable company as you, I'm just about 30 minutes north of Wallingford, and I was told the same thing as what you wrote, about 4 years ago (by Cox Communications)- Sometime around 2006, my "basic extended" was up to $60, not a fortune I know, but it had tripled in cost from when I got it, and they got rid of my main reason for cable- Turner Classic Movies. I had already lost a couple other channels I liked, but TCM was the final straw for me, and I didn't want to upgrade to get it back, so I called and downgraded to regular plain old cable, just channels 2 thru 13 and I get one or 2 others (FX)-- it lowered my bill from $60 to $9.99 and within a few months, 'basic' was raised to $15.01 where it's remained for a while now.
When I downgraded, Cox offered to let me keep basic extended at a big savings- I think they offered it to me for $39,99, saying 'you really are paying too much' and maybe I should have taken the offer. At the time, though, I was so pissed about TCM that I declined the offer- but should you want to try it, it works- Call and say something like 'I decided I can live without all the channels and I just want basic cable" and to try to keep you from cancelling the bigger package, they will offer you a substantially lower price, and I think they offer to lock in that price for six months or a year.
The woman rep at Cox told me it was ALL of the sports channels that made the cable bill keep rising, it was ridiculous how frequently the cable rates went up by a lot, and the woman told me it was mainly the salaries of the sports-stars... that somehow, the teams owners can make the cable companies offset a lot of what they pay to keep their highest-paid athletes. So, who pays for these zillion dollar athletes-- cable subscribers!
I don't miss the channels very often, except for CNN, Bravo and VH1. But I just watch them at my parents house, they get like 400 channels through AT&T Digital, it's ridiculous.
I now own more than two hundred DVDS, so basically I have my own classic movies channel courtesy of my dvd player.
It was a slight adjustment, but it sure felt empowering to dump the channels, most of which I didn't watch, because there were so many sports channels. Feh.

iamnotafraid · #4 03-12-2010, 12:48 AM

Don't forget to add the almost $300.00 I spend on the NFL Sunday Ticket
subscription every year.

Of course you can "deal" with some companies better than others.

**mylittledemon** · #5 03-12-2010, 02:45 PM

At least you don't live in New Zealand, if you're a TV lover... you get about 25 channels a month for $60. It's ridiculous. Even if you Mac Daddy it out, its only like 40 channels. Lame.

ButterCookie · #6 03-12-2010, 02:55 PM

I thought ESPN was something to do with being Psychic?

Or is that off Mean Girls?

Macfanforever · #7 03-12-2010, 09:50 PM

Nikolaj ,Hi neighbor.I have Comcast here.Yes once my package runs out ,I will downgrade to basic here.mylittledemon Wow thats alot of money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamnotafraid

Don't forget to add the almost $300.00 I spend on the NFL Sunday Ticket
subscription every year.

Of course you can "deal" with some companies better than others.

Yes Comcast It might be a struggle,AT&T {my ISP} they are easy to get deals with.Also I'm not anti sports as I sounded like earlier.
I did enjoyed watching the winter games.Hey ButterCookie,that was funny,