A look at the cost of cable TV, how it has changed through the years, options some people would like to see, the growing movement to leave cable TV behind and the technology brought about by the FCC that shows how people could be getting most of what they get on cable TV for free.
Dealing with The High Cost of Cable TV
Television is a regular part of most of our lives. Some would even say it’s too much a part of our lives. You may say you can do without TV, but do you have at least one night where there is something on that you want to watch? Many people do, and they even schedule their plans to ensure they are home to watch that show. For a few dollars extra, some just record it on DVR.
Sadly, it seems like every year we get a new increase in our cable bills. Oh, it’s not much, they say. It’s only another dollar for this and fifty cents for that. You may not even pay much attention until you are looking at your bill one day and wonder why it went up so much. In my neck of the woods, our bill has gone up over $35 in the last five years. Of course, we get internet too, which doesn’t come cheap either, but it’s very fast.
There comes a time when some people will even ask if it’s worth the bill. Over the last five or ten years, the “cut the cable” movement has grown due to other options. You can use the antenna, which I will get to in a moment. You can make use of various free and pay (at a cheaper rate) services online to get most of what you were paying for before at a cheaper rate. The realty is that we do have options, though the cable company counts on the fact that most of us would rather just pay the high bill than bother making the effort needed to do something else.
Once Upon A Time On TV
Over the past 30 or so years, the options for TV have grown at an amazing rate. I can remember back in the 70’s when we had cable, but it was basically the 12 channels we got on the dial, plus whatever the antenna picked up on the UHF dial. The “Big 3 Networks” (ABC, NBC, CBS) provided much of the new entertainment. The funny thing is, I seem to recall having more to watch back then. Even in the 80’s, the early days of cable, we had more to watch it seems. Remember the days when MTV actually played music videos?
Cable in the early days was that box that got you the movie channels. No commercials and unedited. There was Channel 100, Marquee and, somewhere along the way, The Playboy Channel. You paid for that box with the idea that you got entertainment with no commercials, other than the ads for coming attractions. Of course, movies did get played over and over again, and it sometime felt like there was nothing new for that extra $5 or $10 dollars. That seems like chump change now.
More And More Channels
In the 80’s, cable grew and grew. Turner Network gave us WTBS and all the Braves and Hawks games we could handle, plus the first 24 hour news network (CNN). The phrase “I want my MTV” was everywhere, and the USA Network was launched, featuring a fledgling wrestling company known as WWF. Country music fans asked for an alternative to MTV and got it with The Nashville Network. Those were among the first, but other channels gradually followed.
Another trend began as these new cable channels that we paid for ran plenty of commercials. It seemed like too many commercials back then, but these days we have even more commercials per hour. The thing is, Cable TV was supposed to be about no commercials and customers paying for it through the cable bill. If that really ever was the case, it went out the window fast. At least back then it seemed like they made a better effort to put good programs on every week, and they had fewer channels in which to do it.
As often happens in the business world, the bigger companies bought out the smaller ones until we got what we have these days. What am I talking about? There are five really big corporations that own a majority of the channels on cable TV. If you were to eliminate just those five, you wouldn’t have many channels left. That is an interesting, if not disturbing, fact to consider.
They Have A Bill For That
Another thing that has happened as a result of technology and how the Cable TV industry has changed is the things you get billed for. Some things, such as your remote control and cable box, have been on the bill all along. We were fortunate in that the boxes we had to get a few years ago came free, but I could have bought the modem I have now at least a couple times over with the fees we’ve had to pay. You would think once you have paid so much money they would eliminate that from the bill at least until you need a new one, but that’s not the case.
The cable companies have done a masterful job with their tiers. Basic is cheap, but there’s a good reason. You don’t get much. Expanded Basic (Some companies call it something else) is double the cost in some places, but it has more choices. However, there are a few tantalizing carrots they dangle over your head for a few dollars more, and I’m not talking about the movie packages. Things like the NFL Network and a few more games, racing on Speed TV and music channels that actually still play music videos would be nice.
For us to get just those three things, we would have to pay another $30. We’d get a bunch of channels we have no interest in watching if we did pay, but we decided it wasn’t worth it. I’m still trying to figure out how the NFL could make a channel with so many new games and make us pay for it. Oh wait, it’s about the money. Never mind.
If you have a TV with HD as most people do, you still have to pay extra for the HD signals. Isn’t that wonderful? You can plug your cable directly into the TV or split it between your box and TV to get local channels in HD as is mandated by the FCC. Your cable company won’t tell you that, but it’s good to know for watching network TV in HD. The reality is the tuners on the newer TV’s are capable of picking up all that cable has to offer without the box. The cable company has the ability to scramble what you don’t pay for, but still they make you get a box and pay more for HD. This is because they love you as a customer, of course.
The DVR capability is nice, but again, it’s another fee. Plus, you have franchise fees and a service fee. I found that last one out the hard way when my internet went out. The problem was the box in front of the house had switched off, but they still wanted to bill me $100 for the visit that wasn’t even caused by something on my property. They did credit us on the bill before adding that monthly service fee, now $3 per month. I know, it’s only $3, but when you add it all up, it’s not cheap.
A La Carte
With the “cut the cord” revolution gaining steam, one answer is to allow customers to pick and choose the channels they want and just pay for them. This would lead to people probably just having the local channels and the dozen or so other channels that they watch the most, but we are told they can’t do this. Can’t or won’t?
What they say is it will drive up the cost of the channels, but I wonder. Remember, the Big 5 ultimately own most of these channels. We can’t even get an honest answer as to how much each channel gets from our cable bill. However, some estimates available on the web suggest channels like ESPN 1&2, TBS, TNT and USA Network grab the biggest chunks. This is interesting, but not surprising. ESPN’s estimated $7-$8 dollars for it’s two top channels might annoy non sport fans who never watch ether channel.
The movement to allow people to pick and choose what they want has gathered very little steam over the last five years, and I doubt it will happen anytime soon. This is why you have people cutting the cable cord and going with internet and antenna TV. It’s cheaper in the long run. If you are internet savvy, you can find places that charge little to no cost as well as a few good sites that do charge for content you actually want to watch at a time convenient to you. With all the connections TV’s have these days, it’s not very hard to run cords from your computer to your TV set.
Surely, you would think that cable companies know this is happening and would change the way they do things. The realty is that the migration from cable TV is not happening at a rate that concerns them yet. When it does, perhaps we will see some changes.
Not So Green After All
It’s worth noting that forcing people to plug one more thing into their power outlet is not very green now, is it? This is at a time when we are inundated with messages of green this and green that almost daily. Before we were forced back to the box, our cable went from the wall to the TV sets. Pretty simple. With the addition of the box, we had to plug one more thing in. This, they said, was because of what the FCC was doing with antenna TV. People on antennas at the time had to get a digital box to continue to watch TV that way. They were told it would make their TV better, and they were right. Still, it was another not very green thing to plug into the wall.
However, the cable company did not need to force the box on people who were content with expanded basic, even if there were a few extras on the box, such as tons of PBS and foreign language channels and free on demand for the channels you pay for. We still could have lived without it. Recently, even the Basic Cable subscribers were forced to the box. I haven’t even touched on the fact that our bill went up noticeably when we had to get the box as we lost channels we watched and gained nothing we wanted at that time.
Cable Not Needed For Many Viewers
I said it before that with the new TV’s, we don’t even need a cable box for cable channels. Our provider can scramble channels without the box and does so whenever we scan for new channels with our TV directly plugged into the cable. We begrudgingly got new TV sets, and I’ll admit we were impressed with what they could do. It was before we made those purchases that I made my most startling realization.
We didn’t need antenna boxes, but we accepted the two free ones that the government offered. We had done this before we purchased the new HD TV’s. Our home is in one of those locations where the network affiliates offered on cable are different than what we get on antenna, and, for one thing, that means different football games during the season.
I was impressed with the antenna box. It was easy to scan, and we did pick up more channels. The picture was crystal clear. With digital antenna TV, you either get the signal or you don’t, and there are ways to make the signal come in stronger too. Another thing I liked was the built in feature that lets you see what programs are on and what’s up next. Very nice.
What startled me was the fact that some channels had sub channels. You might get a network channel on 3.1, but MeTV is on 3.2 and maybe a Spanish Speaking channel is on 3.3. Very nice. That’s when it hit me. They could broadcast all of the cable channels this way and make cable TV about movies and Pay Per View Events, and it’s really very simple to do.
Going back to when network TV started, the signals were sent to the affiliates all across the country and beamed from there to the viewers in that area. I won’t get into the technical aspect, but I think the signals came from New York or Los Angeles headquarters. As we went from antenna to where most of us were on cable, it still worked that way.
You need to understand that we still have the old Big 3 (ABC, CBS, NBC), but we have FOX and CW with new content nightly as well. All five of those networks are part of the Big 5 cable companies. They either own or are owned by them. You have CBS Viacom (National Amusements), NBC Comcast, ABC Disney, Fox (News Corp.) and Time Warner. So, hypothetically, they could handle this very easily.
Let’s say your ABC affiliate is Channel 5. The local affiliate for ABC would be 5.1. The channel might have two or three sub channels, but given the importance of the cable channels, they might go with other ABC Disney channels next. So, 5.2 would be ESPN, 5.3 ESPN 2, 5.4 Disney, 5.5 ABC Family, etc.
Suddenly, you are getting all the channels on antenna in many areas. Some might still have signal issues that require cable until a work around can be found. For any of the other smaller cable networks, deals could be worked out with the other channels on the antenna dial.
So, I know the little secret. We can be getting all of these channels without the $100 or more monthly cable bill, and these channels can still pay their bills with commercials as they do now. They just won’t be getting double paid, and I really don’t think they should be anyway. That’s just my opinion, of course. Others may see it differently.
