via MultiChannel News:
Cable TV service bills increased 7.5% in the second half of 2008, with the average U.S. cable bill at $71 -- an increase of $5 from the year prior, according to a study from research firm Centris.
The time period in the Centris report reflected an average month from July through December 2008. The report is based on an ongoing survey program of approximately 1,000 weekly interviews with consumers.
According to Centris, last year's increase in the average cable TV bill was in contrast to the year earlier when it found no significant change between 2006 and 2007.
that’s why i don’t have cable…. greedy and monopolistic companies are ruining America, ota and downloads for me
I quit cable years ago. $71 a month is way too much to pay for the same old movies, “Three’s Company” reruns and Fox News.
Our household bill is around $56 for the expanded basic package–roughly 75 channels. If I had to pay for it personally, I wouldn’t. Too expensive.
I’d gladly pay that monthly for another season of Chuck!!!
~
(because ya know, it’s all about the Chuck-meister)
I wonder if that includes tax or not. When I got rid of DirecTV I was paying around that including taxes. They keep offering it to me for $30 a month now, but that doesn’t include DVR, HD or tax.
I will say this about cable, though. Seems like they’re putting more of an effort in these days than they used to. I’m paying, for one year only of course, HD + HBO for $60. I guess satellite has scared them enough to actually offer us stuff, including more HD channels these days. (except the NFL Network, those Time-Warner Cable bastards!)
My DirecTV total bill (tax etc…) is about 10% less than this, and I’ve got DVR. Plus I’ve got first-run episodes of “Friday Night Lights”
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The biggest catch is to try to get a straight answer on how much you would pay for each part of cable service you want. Special offers that expire within months, add ons like phone and internet, tiers and movie channels, plus the various boxes, dvrs, remotes and whatever else they can add on, and their fees and taxes, just add up and it is a wonder that the average is only $71. In our area we were paying almost $90 for basic, expanded, and three movie channels and we were fine with it although it was no longer cost efficient. Just didn’t watch enough on the movie channels. Then all of a sudden our cable company chose to remove our HBO/Cinemax/Showtime package from analog cable. They wanted us to change to digital service. Joke was on them. Our bill dropped to $53 (although I think is about to go up again). They did us a favor.
My monthly Comcast bill is $82. I have digital hi-definition, but no premium channels.
What’s funny is that our local politicians believe that Internet service is such a necessity that they’re proposing County-wide Wi-Fi. None of them will say a word about exhorbitant cable rates, however. I’m guessing that they’re afraid of the cable companies, otherwise rates wouldn’t be as high as they are and there would be … competition.
Catherine, you raise some good points about the tiers, and getting a real price quote with all the package deals and those special limited-time offers. It would cost me upwards of $100 to receive the same level of service on cable that I currently have with DirecTV, largely because of those wacky “tiers” from my cable provider. I like Boomerang, History International, and Versus – and they’re all on different tiers. In cable’s defense: even without a package deal, in my area the cable broadband internet can’t be beat. So I signed up for that as soon as it was available.
Anthony, county-wide Wi-Fi? Will that be a government service? And if so, could you opt out of using it? I find the idea of government-sponsored Internet service a bit spooky in the “Big Brother is watching you” kind of way
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Pay $62/month for analog COMCAST – do get some digital and HD content courtesy of my TV digital tuner. Total TV/DSL and barebones phone service is $100.
Started looking abound but once you add in cable box fees, taxes and other miscellaneous fees the cost $130-$150 – even with all these special offers. Problem is they try and force you to buy things you dont want. I was going to get FIOS TV only – but they said I would also have to switch to FIOS internet (twice the cost of DSL).
The thing Im afraid of is the cable box fees are outside of the Packages – so they could double the fees to make up for the package discounts. There are 2 or 3 channels I dont get that I would watch on Digital that are not on Analog cable. Its not worth and extra $30/month.
Im not moving to all digital until I really have to. Its nice but I dont watch as much TV as I used to anyway.
I was going to get FIOS TV only – but they said I would also have to switch to FIOS internet (twice the cost of DSL).
Really? AT&T just added FIOS here and it costs exactly the same as DSL for the same speeds. If you want to double the speed, it costs $10 more a month, and triple is like $10 more than that. And I’m pretty sure Verizon’s FIOS works the same way.
Yikes! Mine is over $200 but that includes phone, internet and most of the premium channels.