"At Comcast we value you as a customer."The letter to customers begins and ends with this phrase. In between, the cable monopoly tries to justify raising rates yet again.
Why is it that Comcast reminds me of Eddie Haskell from "Leave It to Beaver"? Eddie is polite and careful with his words to the Cleaver parents, but when they turn their backs ... boom! Eddie's punching Beaver in the gut.
Don't be fooled. If Comcast valued its customers, the company wouldn't raise prices twice in one year. How many restaurants do that? Heck, at least politicians only raise taxes once a year (after saying how much they value "the common man").
Starting Nov. 5, the cable juggernaut will increase rates an average of $3.50 a month. This follows a rate hike of 4.1 percent in January, costing an additional $2.25 a month. Customers who have standard cable paid $48.55 in December 2006; now they'll have to pay $54.30. The product hasn't improved that much in one year, and exactly what new services or channels are standard customers getting?
Comcast has raised its rates every year for 12 years. Good thing the company values us.
This is like the school bully who says he's your friend and then takes your lunch money every day.
But the cable dictator has played right into my planned topic for this week. What better time to propose an a la carte system for cable?
I'm going to be paying $99.95 per month for Digital Preferred Plus. For that price, let me pick the channels.
If you're tired of paying for dozens of cable TV channels you don't watch, relief might be on the way. The Federal Communications Commission plans to consider banning broadcasters from making cable companies carry lesser channels in order to broadcast marquee stations such as ABC. This process is known as "tying."
High-profile broadcasters like ABC often have spinoff channels, such as ABC Family, which aren't always as appealing to viewers. A cable company might not want the spinoff, but carrying it might be the cheapest way to get the flagship channel.
Each extra channel adds a fee to customers' bills, and consumers are stuck paying higher rates for a bunch of channels they might not want.
Comcast has opposed a la carte pricing because, the company says, it would reduce advertising revenue and increase subscriber fees for customers. Instead, customers are footing the bill as Comcast passes along escalating programming costs in the form of annual rate increases.
Again, at these prices, let me pick the groceries. Comcast-owned stations, such as the Golf Channel and Versus, would be off my list. (Funny how these niche stations are on standard cable and not on a sports-tier package.)
ESPN, a station devoted to sports, is the most expensive channel to broadcast. Even if ESPN and its spinoffs ESPN2, ESPN U (not offered here) ESPN News and ESPN Classic cost me $30 a month, I'd be happy. I'd get my money's worth. Give me HBO (now $20.95 a month), the Food Network (for my wife), the NFL Network, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and Comcast SportsNet (for Phillies, 76ers and Flyers coverage). If not for the local sports teams on SportsNet, I'd switch to satellite right now. But Comcast owns the Sixers and Flyers and found a way to block the majority of their games on anything but SportsNet.
Comcast is the nation's largest cable provider, controlling the flow of TV programming to one in five U.S. households.
Good thing the company values us as customers.
Eric Stark is a Sunday News staff writer and can be reached at estark@lnpnews.com.
