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Charter’s hidden “Broadcast TV” fee now adds $197 a year to cable bills:
Charter Communications is raising the "Broadcast TV" fee it imposes on cable plans from $13.50 to $16.45 a month starting in August, Stop the Cap reported.
Charter says the Broadcast TV fee covers the amount it pays broadcast television stations (e.g. affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox) for the right to carry their channels. But for consumers, it is essentially a hidden fee because Charter's advertised TV prices don't include it.
Charter has raised the fee repeatedly—it stood at $9.95 in early 2019 before a series of price increases. At $16.45 a month, the fee will cost customers an additional $197.40 per year. Charter sells TV, broadband, and phone service under its Spectrum brand name and is the second largest cable company in the US after Comcast.
Charter imposes a smaller Broadcast TV fee on its streaming TV plans, but is raising that charge from $6 to $8.95 a month, Stop the Cap wrote. Charter is also raising the base price of its TV service. "Spectrum's most popular TV Select package is expected to increase $1.50/month to $73.99/month," Stop the Cap wrote. "Customers on a promotional pricing plan will not see this rate increase until their promotional pricing expires."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:11AM
TLDR Yes, but... it's all messed up and it's all about the money. Customers get the shaft by either missing out on stations or paying to watch stuff that's available for free over the air.
Many places still have over-the-air channels available if you have the right antenna. However, the situation is a little complex due to the way cable companies handled providing those "local broadcast stations" through their subscription service.
The regulations involved are summarized here: https://www.fcc.gov/media/cable-carriage-broadcast-stations [fcc.gov]
Basically, the cable companies were retransmitting the local stations so their customers would be able to watch them without switching over to the antenna. This was rather convenient for the people watching TV. However, the local stations were upset because the cable company was basically re transmitting their channels without consent. I understand that in some cases the cable companies were even replacing the local ads with their own. So, the local stations demanded to be paid by the cable companies if they wanted to keep re-transmitting the channel. Of course the cable companies said, "We're not paying you anything. You're lucky we're letting our customers see your channel at all!"
There were some lawsuits and new regulations put in so that the cable companies had to pay the local stations to rebroadcast the content. Part of that was that legislation allowed cable companies to charge a "nominal" fee to customers in order to recoup some of that cost. Every few years contracts between cable companies and local stations expire and the local stations demand more money from the cable companies. Cable companies balk at paying more, stations get pulled off cable and both companies run ads blaming the other companies for why your favorite local station "isn't available."
All that said, part of the legislation also allows a station to force a cable provider to carry their station if they chose to designate it as "must-carry." However, if they do that the cable company doesn't have to pay anything at all for re-transmission rights.
Simple, right?