What's the cost of cable TV for you? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

A tip: I told TW that $45 was too much for cable modem and could they please give me something cheaper. So they gave me a special two year deal for $35. Two years later, they raised the price, I called back, and it's $35 for two more years. Here's hoping we can continue this dance this Fall

 

[JohnRice]

Comcast is a severe rip-off in my area, or maybe they are everywhere. Basic cable is $50/month plus what amounts to about another $10/month in fees.

That is why I have been using an antenna for the last 6+ years.

 

[Malcolm R]

Cable television is a total rip-off. Most of the country is so rural that antennas are not practical for many, and there is little or no competition so the cable companies can charge whatever they want and either you pay or go without.

I also think it's ridiculous that we still cannot pick and choose channels and have to pay so much for a package that includes a bunch of channels I don't want and never watch.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

All the walls in my buildings are covered in lead paint and every unit only has one cable jack. I got around this by buying a 100 foot coaxial cable and drilling a hole above my bedroom doorway to run the cable through. But between the lead paint on the walls and the three splitters necessary to serve my roommate's television in the living room and the cable modem, the picture on the VHF 55-216 MHz channel is terrible.

So, sadly, I've resorted to using an old GE antenna/cable switch because I get FAR better picture off the copper wire antenna scotch-taped to the wall. I lent my roommate my old rabbit ears set-top for his TV as a backup so the only reason we even subscribe to basic cable is because the $10 discount we get for subscribing to two services is more than the $8.95 cost of basic cable.

 

[Ockeghem]

Yes, that Family Pack is good for the kids, but I can only watch so much of those shows for so long, even with my children. I had to have my sports channels back, as well as a few movie channels.

 

[Brian^K]

Again, there is no requirement that there be such a choice. Pricing for the utility service, basic cable, is strictly regulated -- practically dictated by the franchising authority -- and often reflects offering of the service at a loss. Pricing for the discretionary service (anything beyond basic cable) is based on market forces.

 

[Brian^K]

Basic cable rates are, for all practical purposes, set by your franchising authority. You should take that up with your town/city government. I cannot believe that your government cannot get you a better price, especially when mine gets us a price of $8.50/month.

 

[Brian^K]

It is a myth that a la carte pricing will actually save the average viewer money. A la carte pricing for channels will be around $3-$4 per channel per month. That would be on top of the price for basic cable, and on top of a new baseline cost for digital service (i.e., no channels).

 

[Stephen Orr]

We pay about $110 a month for digital cable, including 23 HD channels, a dual tuner HD DVR, and the ability to have extended cable (70+ channels) on all the non HD sets, computers and dvrs throughout the house, plus internet, which I just clocked at 18mbps+ using speedtest.net.

 

[Chris]

Just as an FYI, if you subscribe to cable, minus any of the digital packages, and your TV interprets QAM, which is un-encrypted TV (and per the FCC rules, all carriers are supposed to offer this by the end of the year, but most do for some part now) you can get quite a few channels over QAM.

Here in KC, on QAM are:

HD Mains:
ABC
CBS
NBC
CW
DISNEY
ESPN
Some other station I never watch (for a while, it was Universal, now it's something else)
NBC-Weather
PublicTV (*3)

None of them require a cable box for us to receive. Just hook up to a QAM TV. Which works. Since our house burned down (and we're still in the middle of rebuilding) I need to save some money where I'm at. I've found that QAM signal + a high speed cable modem provide me almost everything I'm after.

 

[s_sarah]

i got skycable and all the channels were there for very low monthly bills

 

[Mary_P]

I'm currently on Comcast, but I'm constantly thinking of going back to DirecTV, mostly because of the price. I have digital cable with two boxes, no HD, some (but not all) premium channels, no internet. I pay close to $110 a month, thanks to a recent price increase.

Then they just announced that they'll be dropping the west coast feeds of all the premium channels at the end of the month, which effectively cuts almost in half the premium programming that's available to me at any given time. Unless they're planning on signficantly adding to the OnDemand offerings, that's a big reduction in service following hot on the heels of yet another price hike.

I think it may be time to pull the plug, but I do enjoy OnDemand; that's the one thing that's making it a difficult decision.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Do you live in the Philippines?

 

[JonZ]

Im really getting annoyed with my cable company. Its the same company as my G/F (she lives near my job 40 minutes away) but she has many HD channels I dont: MonstersHD, KungFuHD, FoodTVHD,RaveHD and many others.

 

[Francois Caron]

I've given up on my satellite service a year ago. I was fed up paying so much money when all I was doing was changing the channels incessantly to avoid the ton of commercials. All I have now is a set of rabbit ears and an ATSC receiver that can pick up CBC, SRC and TQS in Montreal, all in HD.

When I moved into my new apartment, I thought of getting cable... for about half a second.

Surprisingly, I find myself watching a lot of material on YouTube, especially the Japanese game show clips! I'll watch them all night!

 

[Walter C]

I pay around $30/month with DirecTV. It's a bit of a disappointment that some channels aren't available unless I pay more, like FX and TNT.

 

[DaveF]

I looked at DirecTV, and I was surprised and disappointed that it's just as expensive -- arguably moreso -- than digital cable. So I'm staying with "lifeline" analog cable for the forseeable future.