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posted by martyb on Thursday July 16 2020, @09:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the double-dip dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:40PM

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:40PM (#1022536)
    When cable became the majority TV source for most households, the local affiliates began to switch over from the "must carry"* arrangement to a paid-but-optional arrangement with the cable networks. Today those cable carriage fees account for about 50% of the revenue for the big broadcast networks and their affiliates. They know the cable companies won't shut them out completely (sure, they get into spats over new contracts but it usually gets worked out) so they get the cable audience numbers for advertising AND the carriage fees.

    *BTW, this "must carry" carriage rule is why you see home shopping channels with broadcast licenses in a lot of major cities. Home shopping networks normally have to pay the cable company to pay the cable company to carry them. However where they can, they buy low power stations in bigger markets and use the carriage rules to force the cable companies to carry their channels, for free. Ditto for those religious channels you see if you flip through the local broadcasts. Drives the cable companies nuts but so far the FCC hasn't be willing to get rid of the rule.
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