| Note the key word here: "local" "The fact is that local TV station carriage fees account for less than 1 percent of the cost of a monthly cable bill." This is what the National Association of Broadcasters stooge states. It's probably accurate. But pay attention!
They're talking about ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, The CW and PBS affiliates ONLY! You know, the channels broadcast over the air for free. Of course they don't account for a significant percentage of the cable bill - it's hard to argue that you need high carriage fees when you're handing your shit away for free over the airwaves already!
They're not including the fees national networks charge in that statement. ESPN alone expects to be paid $5 every month for every subscriber. That single channel accounts for 10% of a $50 a month cable bill.
Here's a chart of what carriage fees looked like in 2009 - certainly a lot higher than "1%". In the 3 years since this was created they've only risen higher. ESPN expects closer to 5 now instead of 4, NFL Network wants 81 cents instead of 75, News Corporation channels saw a 40% rate hike since this chart was made, and on and on and on...
It's true that the cable companies charge a lot of money and make some nice profit margins off of television, but there's plenty of blame to go around here. |
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amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
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| True. Nice link too...
I kind of have to agree with the NAB here in any case, stooges though they may be - broadcast TV has VERY little to do with rate hikes. As the recent story about Cox's new package highlights - which does NOT have ESPN - it proves it is ESPN who accounts for at least $10 on an "expanded" cable/sat type bill. |
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| reply to 45612019
That's sad.
Consider that the 6 channels we actually use in my house totals about $5 a month in carriage fees.
Tack on a reasonable transport fee and a la carte looks pretty damn good right now. |
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| reply to 45612019
Now we need to have a nice chart like that for a la carte retail prices. I see I could get about 100 channels wholesale for about $20 back then, today it would be about $24. Double that amount to get retail pricing, and I might pay $48/month for 100 channels. Interesting. |
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