Cable prices keep rising; customers keep paying

The resiliency of cable in the Internet age is all the more remarkable considering that prices have risen 77 percent since 1996.
(From The New York Times)

The story "Cable prices keep rising; customers keep paying" published May 24, 2008 at 9:55 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from The New York Times expires after 7 days.

[paulsecic]

I don't watch network junk. dribble.

[Lerianis]

My parents and I have been watching it online lately, so I might bring up dropping our cable service to my father and just going with cable internet from Comcast.
They do bring up a good point: why have cable prices gone UP when most other prices have gone DOWN? There is something wrong there, and I am betting is the old price-fixing again.

[sanenazok]

It's a trade off.

People pay for the convenience of cable. I pay $18 per month for Netflix and have all the entertainment I want. In fact, more than I need. I guess if I didn't work/go out I would watch more TV, but if someone gets cable then it's their own fault. OTA is free and is only slightly worse than cable.

[azcomicgeek]

The main reason prices keep going up is lack of competition. What incentive is there to lower or keep prices down when you are a monopoly. Satellite & DSL are not real alternatives to cable.

[humanssssss]

I watch TV on the Internet. There are a lot of international channels that you can't find on cable. I'm not sure why people would buy cable. *shrug*

[siouxmoux]

For anyone signing up for U-Verse now. You will be paying $20 dollars more a mouth since they have discontinued their $10 bundle discount and the free 2 stbs early adopter offer.

So What next price hikes for U-Verse, No more free DVR and Free Installation. And Will ATT tack on addition fees for WHDVR, Muli HD Streams, Media Room And those stb Apps like flickr, yahoo games, peg channels.

[baggyguy1218]

I pay alot for cable. I am cornered by the packages offered. I have been forced into a tier 2 cable package to get HD channels, yet those HD channels are all I watch. If I could pay half of what I am billed just for the 30 or so HD channels, I would gladly change, but that would be a blow to Comcast's profits, so I am not holding my breathe.

siouxmoux I have no idea what your acronym ladened rant means, but I feel your pain; DAMN YOU....U-Verse! (what the hell is U-verse...and stb's ) Anyway, PEACE!

[skellener]

It's called monopolistic abuse and the entire cable industry needs to be gutted like a fish. You have no choice when it comes to cable. Most areas have one cable provider. Of course people pay when they raise the price....nobody has a choice! Gut the whole freakin' thing! This is ridiculous!

Besides the already mentioned issues, Time Warner Cable is rolling out an upgrade that makes it so TiVo units can't change the channel at program start times ( Hundreds of posts on this: http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10381467 ). TWC won't acknowledge the problem, but of course recommends you get a TWC DVR to fix the problem. Awesome.

[Imalittleteapot]

Bandwidth almost still sucks too much to watch content over it. It's close though. Anyway, I have never had cable or dish except when it was included in the rent. I never understood why people pay so much to watch it. Even if a show is "good" that really only means one or two episodes in a row is good. Then you'll have a couple episodes of suckage in between. Then they constantly show reruns to ruin the good episodes too. This is why I don't have a DVR or anything. Why record it? It isn't like it'll never be on again. They will probably re-air it three times this week alone. I guess the best way to say it is, You have 500 channels and there is nothing on? Yeah, I'm not paying for that. I didn't fall for the HD lineup thing either. It wasn't the quality of their camera I had the problem with. It was the crap in front of the camera.

Anyway. I don't think cable really needs competition. It isn't food. You don't need it to survive. I think this is one instance that the company should charge whatever they can get for it plus ten dollars. If someone is dumb enough to pay "too much" to watch crap they've already seen you really can't help that kind of person. Most people I know don't even enjoy watching TV. They're just afraid they'll miss something if they get rid of it. Like all of sudden something will be on tomorrow or the next day or the next day. But while they have it they just flip through all the channels until they realize nothing is on, and then they put a movie in. The behavior looks really weird from someone like me.

[Lerianis]

Everything needs competition. That is why the prices for computers have come down SO MUCH in the past 20 years, since my parents bought our first Commodore 64 computer years ago.

[Imalittleteapot]

Lerianis:
You don't need cheap cable. It might be nice, and maybe even beneficial to society, but you don't need cheap cable. I know this because I live just fine without it even though I can afford it now. Not only am I not dead, I haven't even been put in the hospital for it. I think cable is expensive because I don't like TV to being with. Really though, it isn't that expensive if you think about it. Go out for dinner and a movie, and then come back and tell me that cable is expensive. Get a grip. If you can't hack $60 a month then your problems go far beyond needing cheap cable. Have it shut off. The cable company is just charging what they can get. That is what companies are supposed to do.

I love it when other people complain how expensive it is, but somehow magically come up with the money every month. Do you know what some people do when luxuries are too expensive? They go without. Maybe you've never experienced that. However, if you continually come up with the money every month then it isn't too expensive. It's just a bill. Every time I buy something I pay more than I want to. I don't want to pay anything, but the world doesn't spin that way.

Competition is good, but until then, maybe all the precious little snowflakes that are upset because they moved out of mommies and realized they have to pay the bills now will go get a second job to pay for it. If it helps I'll remind them that some people work two or more jobs just to eat.

[Lerianis]

The cable company is not 'charging what they can get'. They are a monopoly in most areas, with no one else to compete against them. When that happens, it is KNOWN that they start hiking up the prices, no matter what industry it is, because of that lack of competition, unless they are government regulated.
Frankly, me, my mother and my father can eat out for LESS than 20 dollars, and we don't bother going to the movies anymore BECAUSE it is so expensive.
Your posting is so full of absolute DRIVEL, Imalittleteapot, that I am 99.999999999999999% sure you are a cable company shill.

[gefitz]

Please explain to me what previous comments meant: "Cable is a monopoly." As far as I can tell, in most areas of the country you do, indeed, have a choice of providers of content. Over the air, satellite...

Yes you are right, there usually is only one CABLE provider. But let's not confuse the issue here...the only way a monopoly exists is when the CONTENT is only provided by one entity. Unfortunately (or, fortunately for those who have a clue enough to actually move to satellite TV) for those who argue cable monopolies, there are more choices. I'm just not sure why people aren't moving in droves to other providers, when they can do nothing but complain about cable companies and their habit of being milked dry.

All you have to do is call a Dish or Direct TV provider. They'll switch you and you'll pay less. Sure, maybe the feature set is a bit more limited, but I'll wager that most people wouldn't even notice.

[The_Decider]

You do realize that not everyone can choose satellite, don't you?

[Lerianis]

You apparently miss the fact that a lot of people CANNOT use satellite, for various reasons. I, personally, cannot use it because I live near a live-firing Army base, and their exercises shake up the dishes too much unless you add a LOT of support onto them, which costs about 500 dollars.

[stephenpace]

@unnamed: Regarding SDV and HDTV issues with your Tivo, Tivo announced they are working on a fix for that problem, so hopefully you'll have a fix soon:

http://investor.tivo.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=310977

@skellener: I'm with @gefitz. So your view of the fix is there should be yet another entity in between you and the cable company, similar to electricity providers? No thank you. I would like "one throat to choke" when there is an issue with service (be it digital cable, phone, voicemail, alarm, etc.). I don't want finger pointing about if the issue with the line or something upstream like incorrect authorization for a CableCard. You already have other options including DISH or DirectTV. In other areas, you might also have AT&T U-verse or Verizon FIOS. So I don't think your monopoly comment holds much water.

[Lerianis]

They are a monopoly, period and done with. Even their OWN PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THEM, say that they are a monopoly, like my cousin who works for Comcast. When you are the ONLY PERSON IN YOUR SECTOR, and Comcast IS just about, in most parts of the country, the only outlet for cable TV, they are a monopoly.
Same thing for DirecTV in the satellite TV business, although they are smart enough to negotiate with these companies more and keep their prices down so that they cannot be called a monopoly and be regulated by the government.

[The_Decider]

The reason is bandwidth. The greedy ISP's won't pay for getting everyone proper connections, which is why the US is nowhere near the top 10 connected country list. They reason why they won't(greed motive) is the same reason the US economy and innovation is in the sewer.

[Imalittleteapot]

Does the economy suck because we don't have more bandwidth investment, or is the reason we can't afford more bandwidth investment because the economy sucks?

Tax payers should invest in broadband. However, there are some major problems with that.
1. America is broke. Even if they taxed for better broadband the money would get spent on something else, not broadband. This is the same reason kids are as dumb as rocks, but every school has a new football field/basketball court/swimming pool. They spend it on the wrong crap.

2. The ISPs could get a windfall profit. Then they create an artificial shortage by simply not building anything with it. It's supply and demand. Sometimes you make more money by not selling your product, but it is their right to not sell their product.

3. They'd charge tax payers the same service fee for whatever they did build even though tax payers paid for it already. Paying twice does not sound fun.

4. Our leaders are too old and stupid to understand how important technology is. Now, how do you suppose we solve that? By voting in people with "experience"?

These are the only real solutions. 1. Start your own ISP and compete. You'll probably go broke, but you may bring the price down. 2. Convince an ISP they can make more money off your area by supplying more bandwidth. That probably means everyone pays more, nothing is free. 3. Vote in leaders that will create a decent broadband policy. Make broadband a campaign issue that the average voter doesn't understand. If they understand it they'll vote wrong. If it confuses them there's a 50/50 chance they'll vote the right way. However, that means higher taxes. Someone is still going to have to pay for it, and the money will probably get spent on something else anyway.

[YankeePoodle]

Naked DSL or broadband. I have no use for my television but I have to pay for cable to get broadband and not only that because of the apartment and cable nexus, I have only one provider to get it from. So effectively, Cable and Telecom florish as cartels, not that they are doing good to consumers. Consumers in USA are being robbed by cable and telecom companies, for the channels they dont watch and the minutes they dont use on a legacy infrastructure.

[Lerianis]

You hit the nail right on the head with your statement about "channels they don't want and minutes they don't use" for cable/satellite and cell phone service, respectively. We really need a government in place that realizes that charging someone each MONTH for cell phone service is stupid, and that cell phone minutes should roll over from month to month INDEFINITELY. We paid for them, therefore we should be able to get full use out of them.
Same thing for internet and high-speed internet: no limiting of my bandwidth on a supposedly 'unlimited' connection. Let me download all I want, when I want, or I will simply DROP your service and move to someone else that will allow me to do that.