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Television The Almighty Buck AT&T Businesses

AT&T, Dish, Comcast All Raising Cable TV Rates To Counter Cord-Cutting (dallasnews.com) 283

Posted by BeauHD from the what'd-you-expect dept.
AT&T's DirecTV, Dish, and Comcast are all planning to raise their rates again in the new year, "a move that could boost revenue but risks alienating subscribers who have been ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in record numbers," reports Dallas News. From the report: Cable and satellite providers are hoping to squeeze more money from consumers who remain loyal to their packages with hundreds of channels, Philip Cusick, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, said in a note this week, even though "this strategy could accelerate video sub declines." The latest price increases come as cord-cutting accelerates. In the third quarter, the TV industry saw its largest ever rate of decline, with subscribers shrinking by 3.7 percent, according to MoffettNathanson LLC. Consumers are dropping traditional TV for lower-cost online options like Netflix Inc. and slimmer TV options from Hulu and YouTube.

DirecTV is raising rates on all English-language video packages by $3 to $8 a month while hiking fees for regional sports networks by $1 to $1.90 in most markets. Dish said it's increasing prices for English-language video packages by $3 to $5 a month. Altice USA, the fourth-largest cable operator, recently raised rates by 3 percent on Optimum subscribers. Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, is raising its fee for regional sports networks by $1.50 on average and its fee for broadcast channels by $2 a month, according to Cusick. Charter Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. cable provider, recently boosted its monthly fee for a set-top box by about 50 cents and its broadcast channel fee by about $1. Charter operates as Spectrum in Dallas-Fort Worth.
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AT&T, Dish, Comcast All Raising Cable TV Rates To Counter Cord-Cutting More

AT&T, Dish, Comcast All Raising Cable TV Rates To Counter Cord-Cutting

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  • Guess I'll be cancelling my comcast then (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:31PM (#57921714) Homepage Journal

    A shame, but if they jack up my costs, I'll just pull the plug and get free HDTV from my HDTV antenna at 1080p resolution.

    • I was surprised how many channels over the air (Score:4, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @10:20PM (#57921938) Journal

      It really surprised me how many channels you can get with an antenna. Something like 40-60 here in Dallas. Growing up, there were four.

      • I get a ton in Fort Lauderdale, every station from FTL, Miami, West Palm, and many from the west coast of FL.

        Theres a LOT of duplication though. 4 different ABC affiliates for one.

        ANd a shitload of religious and spanish programming that are of no use to me at all.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Effectively what will happen is that it will accelerate cord-cutting so they just try to squeeze the last out of the market before it dies a slow death.

    • I picked up an RCA ANT3038XR for under $130 inc. shipping, took an hour to assemble, is enormous... and gets 80 channels.

      Yup, most OTA is not of interest, but sometimes it's fun to observe the selective opinion masquesrading as news.

      Also... the Channelmaster DVR is not free to buy, but there's no program guide subscription, and it's easy enough to set up to record half an hour on news every day that you can watch anytime or ignore at your convenience.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      All this will do is speed up the number of people "cutting the cord" anyway. It's the high cost that made me shoot my cable connection. I wasn't using it and why pay 80 bucks a month for something I didn't use? The only thing I was playing on it was foxnews, then I realized "I was paying $80 a month for foxnews."

      Hell, get a Ruko and call it good. 4,000+ plus channel apps, granted 90% of them are garbage but there should be something on there for everyone. One day I decided to find the weirdest thing

  • Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:35PM (#57921730)

    Great, this is excellent for short-term revenue, which is all that matters.

    Next, more commercials should be added.
    Selling more commercials will increase revenue
    Revenue will be increased with more commercials
    Increasing commercials will increase revenue.

    the ratio is too small.

    5 mins of content, should require 2 min of commercials.
    And the same commercial should be repeated at least twice.

    the rental fees should also be increased.

    also , pay per view fees should be increased.

    people should be required to rent the cable box, the cable card, and the remote control, and the batteries for the remote. only authorized batteries should be able to be used.

    heck, the tv should be rented as well, and should have a camera installed to ensure only authorized people watch, to prevent sharing.

    • At least we don't have a goon squad running around checking for oeoples television licenses (yet) /s

    • I'm old enough to remember when long term profits mattered, and it was taken for granted that you treated your customer base with respect. I know it sounds like fantasy to some younger readers, but that's how it was.

    • Don't forget that other money maker: Reduce the advertised price of cable TV but more than make up for that with large increases in nonsensical fees that get added to the bill to cover normal business expenses. Expect to see "Office Toilet Paper Fee", ""CEO Wants A Yacht Fee", and "Electricity To Power Our Stores Fee." Also, they should call more of them "taxes" even though they aren't really taxes so that people get mad at the government and not at the cable company.

  • For the price and quality of cable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:37PM (#57921738)

    You can buy a nice antenna.

    If you want more content, you can get the slingtv app for way less than probably basic cable in your area.

    You can toss in Netfltx and Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

    The break even point is about 2 months of cable for all of the above.

    I shudder to think what the last person on cable tv will be getting charged to mae up for all the cord-cutters.

    • Re:For the price and quality of cable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Spamalope ( 91802 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @10:12PM (#57921904)
      This is a signal they figure they can block/degrade media streaming and get away with it, and that media properties are pulling out of the big streaming companies and that'll screw up the cord cutting value proposition.

      • Not really. This is simply a signal that their remaining customers are people who won't consider switching to streaming, either because they're old or because they want live local sports. There's no point trying to compete with streaming on cost because that's a losing proposition by far, so may as well milk the cable customers before they die off.

      • TLDR; You can pay a little extra and get streaming quality internet and the good content is out of cable's reach.

        There is a lot of good content free over the air. We have a Tivo and record most of what we watch to skip over commercials we're not interested in. There is no way to degrade that.

        We do use AT&T but we pay $20/month extra for streaming video capability.

        I went on vacation and watched cable for a while and the content is laughably bad. Netflix is making their own content and it is vastly

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Not everyone can get OTA TV like me in the rural/boonie area with giant hills/small mountains. Ohters and I can't even get strong cell signals. :(

    • >"The break even point is about 2 months of cable for all of the above."

      The problem is that most streaming video (outside of Netflix) either doesn't get the content I want, or has forced commercials. I won't do commercials- EVER. With cable, I get the content I want and with TiVo, nothing [like commercials] is forced. And I have the bonus of TONS of local content that is ready to play and skip around without any delays or streaming problems or dependency on a working Internet connection. AND I don't

      • Nobody is saying the streaming is the perfect solution. They're saying that streaming plus piracy is the perfect solution.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Piracy is currently by far and away the best solution...

          Streaming providers are fragmented, impose arbitrary discrimination based on your source ip or what device you're using, use drm etc... People actually pay to subscribe to services which provide pirated media because these services offer so many advantages, so it's not that people are unwilling to pay or just looking for the cheapest option.

          • >"Piracy is currently by far and away the best solution..."

            It just has that problem of being illegal. So it is only "best" for the consumer, not the producer, not for the economy. And the more people who get their content that way, the less content will be created. So content will be more expensive, created less, and of lower quality.

            Let's face it- while many people who pirate do so to be free of restrictions, many do it because they just don't want to pay for content. The interesting part, though, i

  • Shouldn't they be... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:38PM (#57921742)
    Shouldn't they be raising Internet rates instead, since Internet service is needed by cord-cutters too? The other fees are avoided by cancelling cable.
    • Goddamnit man... lol

    • Bounce between providers if you have multiple ones.

      If you don't have this, I'm not sure.

      Data caps are the real issue. That's how they will get us. Charter claims to not have such in my area, I shall see.

      • Comcast has set their data cap at (typically) 1TB. That's enough that few people will hit it today.

        This gets people to accept the idea of a data cap, in the knowledge that eventually large numbers of people will hit it. Once they hit it, what's the choice? Go back to cablefor your TV watching, or pay more for Internet service. Win-win for Comcast.

        • 1TB is nothing with HD and higher streaming requirements.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by jwhyche ( 6192 )

            1TB is plenty, if you don't watch more than 3 hours a day on one screen. With a family, forget it. 1 TB doesn't even begin to cover it. We use up to 3 TB a month at my place. A plan with no datacap is a must.

        • Once you hit your 1 TB data cap, what's the choice? Oh, I don't know, perhaps watch stuff in 1080p instead of 4K or 8K? Hmm should I pay $100 a month for cable or should I watch stuff at a slightly lower bitrate that I probably can't even see the difference of... tough choice.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

        Then the real solution is to stop watching so much television. The reason cable companies are taking advantage of customers is that they are treating customers like a captive audience that has to subscribe. So the customers should be turning around and proving that they're not so addicted that they no longer have free will.

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 )

          Then the real solution is to stop watching so much television.

          ^^^^^THIS. Television truly is the opiate of the masses.

          I don't understand people that spend every evening and every spare minute watching TV.

          I mean, don't you people have friends, hobbies, lives, outside interests, anything? Do you go on vacation and watch TV in your hotel rooms?

          And now, more and more, I see those mini-TVs hanging off the back of the headrests in cars, playing some animated shit or whatever to keep the kids quiet. Seriously, how fucking dependent are you people on television?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        Fortunately, most providers have a unlimited data rate that comes at a reasonable price. Comcast is now $25, it used to be $50. Having multiple providers seems to have helped too. My apartment was just wired for AT&T, last time I was on the phone with comcast I dropped that little bit of info. Amazing how just saying those words changed the tone of the conversation.

        Don't get me wrong, both AT&T are evil. I just stick with comcast because they are the devil I know.

    • Shouldn't they be raising Internet rates instead, since Internet service is needed by cord-cutters too?

      If they're smart, then they know that's a problematic gamble. There are several companies planing to put satellites in low earth orbit to provide Internet access. By raising Internet rates now, the major ISP's would be setting into motion the wholesale slaughter of their businesses when these satellites become operational.

    • Shouldn't they be raising Internet rates instead,

      They're not raising their prices, they're passing along the increasing costs they pay for sports and broadcast content. It's the broadcasters who are demanding more for their product, and sports channels paying ridiculous amounts for exclusive coverage deals. From TFA:

      It's common for pay-TV providers to raise prices in the new year. They are passing on the rising costs they pay to carry networks like CBS and ABC, as well as regional sports channels, which are shelling out more and more for broadcast rights.

  • Choose: TV and data or neither (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:46PM (#57921772)

    My U-Verse TV series gives me the benefit of unlimited Internet data usage. If I cancel the cable, I will have a data cap. Weasley shits.

  • YouTube TV FTW (Score:5, Informative)

    by turp182 ( 1020263 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:47PM (#57921780) Journal

    We have switched to YouTube TV. Not all of the channels, but enough. Local channels, bunch of news. Unlimited cloud based program storage (9 months). Sports channels (not a big concern but I watch some football, US and the rest of the world's definition, no Fox Sports for hockey though, dab-nab-it!).

    $40 per month. We have cable internet through Charter (supposedly unlimited, hasn't been an issue)..

    Combined with Netlfix (Bandersnatch!!!! we have 2 endings left and will cheat to find them) and Amazon Prime (already paid for), everything from the Roku, it works.

    Going to get HBO Go for a short time to watch Game of Thrones.

    • That's what we did - YouTube TV has been great. A nice bonus is that each family member (up to 6 IIRC) gets their own separate archive/DVR.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mtmra70 ( 964928 )

      I receive Fox Sports (Detroit) on YTTV. Are you not in a regional area? It's great for hockey too, 60fps!

      • Actually I just realized last night that I get Fox Sports Midwest so I can watch the Blues games. I was fine losing that, but it's nice to find that it's there.

  • That dumb or is there an angle? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chewbacon ( 797801 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:50PM (#57921794)

    Exec: Customers are leaving... why?
    Marketing: They don't see the value in our service!
    Exec: Let's raise the prices!
    Marketing: What???
    Exec: It ain't cheap if it's valuable! Double the price, double the valuable!

    • You see this with the electricity industry when people put solar panels on their roofs, at least in some areas. The power company makes it so that the home owner is better off adding batteries and cutting the power cable. In response to the lost revenue the power company increases rates which makes more people think it's a good idea to install panels and batteries. It just ends up being a death spiral.

      It's also happening with public transit in some places including my city. They keep raising the fares and i

    • Other channels have done similar idiotic things. Viewership is down so they just add more commercial time into programs. I've seen half hour shows that now take 36 minutes. They were already running 21 minutes of show to 9 minutes of commercials. Now add six minutes onto that.

  • For those customers looking for options (Score:3)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:53PM (#57921816)
    I recently discovered this site [suppose.tv] and it makes wading through all the choices so much easier.

  • Doesn't sound like a good plan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by silverkniveshotmail. ( 713965 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:54PM (#57921826) Journal
    Has any industry ever pulled out of a dip in demand by raising costs?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Sure, just have to use the profits to screw the competition. In this case, get rid of net neutrality and make streaming such a bad experience that people won't have a choice. Depends on being a monopoly or working closely with the other company.

  • Falling demand? HA! We'll raise prices to fix that. With that mindset I suppose the last ICE-powered car will cost around 800 billion dollars. (From a new Tesla owner)

  • monthly_cost = target_revenue / num_of_subscribers (Score:5, Funny)

    by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @10:18PM (#57921932)

    Now I get why my Comcast bill (back in the days when I still used cable) kept increasing every months - it's all those cord cutters reducing the num_of_subscribers in the formula!

    I wonder how long before they hit Division By Zero exception?

  • Directly intentional cash grab by the industry (Score:3)

    by Da w00t ( 1789 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @10:26PM (#57921962) Homepage

    How many of those cable providers have a stake in Hulu, CBS All Access, etc already? This will further drive more consumers into the online streaming only services, which will get you fewer channels, and fewer choice in how to consume content. At least Star Trek: Discovery got released on DVD/Bluray now.

    Here's the thing: In the United States, cable companies are regulated federally. The cable box they rent out to you is *federally mandated* to use the same crypto card (cable card) that other devices like TiVos and some TVs have built in.

    Basically right now you can pay $160/month for phone+cable TV+internet and get an asston of TV channels, maybe 5% of which you watch religiously, and maybe an additional 20% that you watch infrequently. You benefit from this _some_ because the cable companies are merely distributors of premium content (e.g. HBO, Showtime, etc) and "extended digital basic" content (e.g. Discovery, History, Cartoon Network, ABC Family); and up until Netflix was streaming more content than shipping discs around everyone was clamoring for Cable TV a-la-carte.

    The reality is, we've got it now with CBS All Access, NetFlix, Hulu Originals, YouTube Originals, but ... the negotiation power of having 2.1M subscribers as a distribution company is lost, and consumers will (or already are) paying more for content a-la-carte.

  • Executive A: A lot of our customers are cancelling their subscriptions. What should we do?

    Executive B: Raise the price on the remaining customers!

    All: Great idea! Yeah!

    How does this compute in any way shape or form?

    • How does this compute in any way shape or form?

      Maybe their data tells them what percent of their customers are addicted to individual shows and channels?

      The more of the non-addicts that leave, the less reason they have to keep prices reasonable.

      And these days, most content makes it to DVD eventually. Addicts really don't care, they can't even imagine waiting. But for other people, there is more content available than time anyways, the delay is meaningless. As the sum total of available video storytelling increases with time, there is less general valu

    • You forgot:
      Executive B: According to my projections, my idea of raising the price by 10% will yield the company 10% more revenue. I'll take my performance bonus now.

  • Other people don't want our service, so we'll charge you more. That will definitely make you want to stay with us...

    Is this from Retard Marketing 101, or the new book How To Drive Away Customers?

  • I would think it would do just the opposite.

  • before they "counter cord-cutting" themselves right out of business?

  • The do this because they think they are monopolies. To some extent they are right. It shows there is very little competition in the cable/satellite market.

    It's just another example of the lack of a "free market" in the US. Our economic life is dominated by entrenched special interests.

  • Wow. We're only 1 week into 2019 and cable providers are already gunning for the "Stupidest Business Move of the Year" award. The most common-sense response to when you're losing paying customers in droves would be to either reduce prices or to increase value to current customers and have more enticing offers for first-time customers. But nope, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot instead and *raise* prices. Keep this up guys, and your shareholders will be the next ones looking for the exit door.

  • So people are cord cutting, for stated reasons of high cost, lack of choice, and terrible customer service, and vendors are responding by *raising* rates. Do they really think this is a solution? Or just a temporary reprieve while they start shutting down branch offices?

    Or maybe they think this cord cutting is just a fad, and viewers will come back with tails between legs later?

    Or maybe vendors have something up their odious sleeves -- the next step being, to stop providing internet-only options? If you

  • Between a rock and a hard place... (Score:3)

    by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:16PM (#57922160)

    The cable companies are well and truly screwed. Caught up in a wave of cord cutting they are at the very same time beholden to shareholders that can't see past the next quarterly earnings report. If they drop prices to try and attract new customers (or stop the bleeding of those leaving) their revenue will drop in the short term and the shareholders are pissed. Not to mention that senior executives hold a lot of stock and will also feel the pain.

    So the easiest thing to do in the short term is raise prices to increase revenue. The danger, of course, is that they will piss off even more customers and further accelerate the cord cutting. They are banking on the fact that some people are simply addicted to cable and won't leave no matter how much they charge. The number of people in this group is probably vastly overestimated by the cable companies. I suspect it's in the 10-20% range. A perhaps equal number of people are on the fence and a price increase will force their hand.

    What is really working against the cable companies is that not only are there viable alternatives - those alternates are cheaper and better than the slop they are serving up currently. Couple that with the traditional horrendous customer service that the cables companies have, um, earned and you have a recipe for disaster.

     

    • It's not cable addiction that keeps most customers with cable - it's routine and not wanting to put the effort into finding an alternative. I've known some people who whine and complain about cable prices continuously rising (literally, Comcast bills rise every month by $0.10-$1.99) but even though they watch ~3 channels total, they don't want the hassle of finding an alternative. Funny thing, I watched few of them motivate themselves to cord-cut when they were moving to new residences, or because their fin

  • Not to counter: because TV is price-inelastic. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Angelwrath ( 125723 ) on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:39PM (#57922244)

    Cable companies are increasing prices to maintain revenue growth, not to counter cord-cutting (the title is illogical), and they can do it because TV is mostly price inelastic. Consider the markets Cable companies are in:

    TV - Mature, saturated, declining
    Landline Internet - Mature, saturated (as far as they are concerned), declining slightly (and possibly declining significantly if 5G can provide 20-100 Mbps fixed Internet for good prices)
    Landline Phone - Mature, saturated, declining
    Mobile Phone - Mature, mostly saturated
    No real competition; in some cases single companies have monopolies over local territory like counties; elsewhere there's a choice of just 2 companies, so an oligopoly situation where 2 choices have 100% of the market.

    All those declining markets means one thing: cable companies have a hard time keeping revenue positive and keeping shareholders happy. Their solution? Increase prices on their services; in Canada in particular, they increase the price of TV and Internet every single year. They have wireless "sub brands" that charge $45 for a plan that the "premium brand" service charges $85/mo for. In short: the cable companies want to keep increasing revenue and 2% per quarter isn't good enough, so they are gouging people who won't abandon these services, and they have so little competition they can get away with it. If people want to solve this issue, I recommend making the jump to competitive services, such as online streaming, smaller Internet providers, and also writing to their elected representatives. Big Cable and Phone has a stranglehold on communication services and is doing everything to keep them priced at ridiculously high levels relative to many other markets (Europe being a perfect example). We get much less value from these companies than we should be. And without government intervention and active, vocal consumers the price of cable will continue to rise.

    • Cable companies are increasing prices to maintain revenue growth, not to counter cord-cutting (the title is illogical), and they can do it because TV is mostly price inelastic. Consider the markets Cable companies are in:

      TV - Mature, saturated, declining
      Landline Internet - Mature, saturated (as far as they are concerned), declining slightly (and possibly declining significantly if 5G can provide 20-100 Mbps fixed Internet for good prices)
      Landline Phone - Mature, saturated, declining
      Mobile Phone - Mature, mostly saturated

      The title is not illogical. The price increase is to increase revenue, which is to counter the decline in revenue, which is caused by decline in the markets, which is caused by the cord cutters. So, simplifying, the price increase is countering the effect cord-cutters have on the revenue.

  • The greed of the pay television industry will be its undoing. Mark my words .... they should be reducing prices to try to attract and retain customers, not raising prices. It will be funny when they all start bleeding money like a stuck pig.

  • just wait for internet to come forced with ESPN / Disney fees.

    Seeing how must of the big ISP's also have TV this can happen and who will want to be first TV system with no Disney, No ABC, No ESPN?

  • canada has Pick-and-pay TV system with basic max price and is most cases YOU CAN BUY THE BOX with outwith outlet or mirroring fees.

  • ..until morale improves!

  • Basic economics (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:52AM (#57922986) Homepage

    The very first class you take in Economics in school will explain, very simply, that increasing the price will reduce demand.

    If they are trying to fight against cord cutters, then surely the correct way is to increase demand on their own services. This can be done in a number of ways, one of which is REDUCING the price. The other is to pump some money into improving the product at the current price (i.e. give people what they want, not what you want to give them).

    They are basically just slitting their own throats here, and will cause more people to cord cut. Those people who can't or won't (probably the elderly) are left to suffer with crippling rates that they struggle to pay.

    I suppose, however, this sort of behaviour will just lead to the company ultimately failing and going bankrupt. And for some of these companies, that can only be a good thing...

  • Maybe it is time to cut down on the ridiculous salaries for actors and athletes?
    Unless of course, the remaining subscribers think that it is still a good deal.

  • Aren't the cable companies the same ones who also provide internet? You probably get them in a bundle, TV + Internet. (don't know, i'm not based in US, but it's how it works where i live)

    Anyway, perhaps they actually want everybody to 'cut the cable', and have all the people on Internet instead. I recon it would be better for them.
    And since you don't have net neutrality anymore, well, you can connect the dots, but let's just say this can end up being way more costly for you if you want to watch TV over inte

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