Why do Pay TV prices go up every year?
Pay TV pricing starts with the TV content providers (broadcasters like CBS, FOX, Disney (including ABC, ESPN), NBCUniversal, etc.). And Pay TV providers (ex. Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV, Dish, Hulu Live, YouTube TV, etc.) pay to distribute that content in the form of re-transmission fees (aka broadcast & regional sports fees).
Content providers’ expenses rise as professional athletes’ salaries keep going up, actor fees and production costs of shows and movies keep going up. And other operational expenses keep going up too. Bottom line: these expenses are passed directly to the consumer through these fees. The Xfinity 2023 monthly price for the Broadcast TV Fee increased to $28.90 in the Denver Metro area. That is just 1 fee of many. Its now estimated that 40% of your Cable TV bill is fees.
Why your Pay TV price will keep rising
In short, Cable TV prices are never going back down, they will continue to exponentially increase like they have been for decades. Ongoing Cable TV price increases can be simplified into a math problem.
- TV content prices continue to rise, this is nothing new.
- 7 million people per year are Cutting The Cord and cancelling Cable or Satellite. This is new in the last 3-5 years and it’s getting worse year over year.
- Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV and Dish have a lot less subscribers in 2023 to pay for all of these ongoing TV content price increases – they have no choice but to increase prices for remaining customers. Sadly they do this with misinformation, bait and switch pricing and using sneaky fees that add up to 40% of your Cable TV bill.
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Which Pay TV channels are most expensive?
Local Networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS), Sports & Cable News, in this order continue to be the most expensive channels. Repeatedly, disputes on the cost of these broadcast (aka re-transmission) fees result in permanent or temporary channel blackouts – NBCUniversal, parent company of Comcast, had a dispute over Channel 9 KUSA and Channel 20 KTVD with Dish. And, NBCUniversal blacked-out 14 channels in a dispute with YouTube TV in 2021. Notably, Altitude Sports is still blacked out on Comcast and Dish.
The FCC and Broadcast TV
IMPORTANT: The FCC sponsored program and the Communications Act, protects consumers so that all major local network channels remain free via an over-the-air device. In the Metro Denver area, between 60 – 90 local network channels are 100% free forever with a properly installed and configured whole home HD Antenna! StreamWise Solutions understands this, which is why we offer solutions that focus on maximum freedom, flexibility and savings.
