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Charter's Hidden "Broadcast TV" Fee Now Adds $197 a Year to Cable Bills

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

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

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."

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Friday July 17 2020, @02:24PM (2 children)

    by digitalaudiorock (688) on Friday July 17 2020, @02:24PM (#1022896) Journal

    I've been using nothing but OTA TV (recorded in MythTV) since 2007. Some in my family pay over $200 a month for pay TV...insane.

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  • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday July 18 2020, @05:45AM (1 child)

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Saturday July 18 2020, @05:45AM (#1023268) Homepage Journal

    I've been using nothing but OTA TV (recorded in MythTV)

    What hardware (tv card) are you using with MythTV?

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A

    • (Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:27PM

      by digitalaudiorock (688) on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:27PM (#1023344) Journal

      I have three HDHR4-2US HDHomeRun units for a total of 6 physical tuners. Can't say enough about them. One great thing is that there are no drivers or kernel support needed...just network access.