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posted by mrpg on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the read-soylentnews dept.

Cable and satellite TV providers are ringing in the new year with an unwelcomed gift: higher cable bills.

Comcast, for instance, says customer bills will rise 2.2 percent, on average, in 2018. AT&T is raising DirecTV's prices by up to $8 a month in mid-January. Smaller providers are planning increases, too.

Over the past decade, prices for TV service have risen almost twice as fast as inflation, according to an analysis of government data. Data provider S&P Global Market Intelligence says customers' cable and satellite TV bills have soared 53 percent since 2007, to $100.98 in 2017.

Annual rate hikes are as guaranteed as death and taxes. But you can push back and trim your bill.

What are you gonna do instead, read?


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:57AM (2 children)

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:57AM (#618604)

    I'm far enough outside the closest major city that your "reception if you live out in the country" applies to me.

      I ditched my paid service and set my television up with an antenna. I had forty channels including CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. A few years later it was down to fifteen channels including CBS and fuzzy ABC but not NBC or Fox. I switched antennas, moved both antennas around, switched televisions, it didn't matter. I'm happy to live without television, period. But my wife wants some shows at first run. So we're back in the grind, going to try Youtube TV first.

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  • (Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:10PM (#620130)

    So much for Youtube TV. My little Chinese Android box can't run Youtube TV because Youtube TV requires location services to be on, and the gadget doesn't have a GPS. I bought a Chromecast, but it turns out you control them from other devices and the only remote integration is pause and play. As a result I'm returning it.

    Okay, to get scammed by Comcast or one of the satellite providers? Decisions, decisions...

    • (Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:07PM

      by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:07PM (#620903)

      Everybody stopped paying attention by now, but for the sake of completeness: I had been using Tivo with my HD antenna. I called Tivo to cancel the service, and they talked me into working with one of their support technicians. He had me reset my Tivo box, disconnect all cables and leave it off for five minutes, plug it all back in, and go through channel setup again. I got every single missing channel back. I am happy I won't need to buy Youtube TV or paid cable service to keep my wife and kids happy. I would be happier if the Tivo hardware would not require these periodic resets.