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'The Average Cable TV Bill Is Set To Exceed $140 By 2020'
Topic Started: Apr 28 2017, 03:37 PM (606 Views)
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The Average Cable TV Bill Is Set To Exceed $140 By 2020

http://www.cutcabletoday.com/average-cable-bill-140-2020/

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If cable TV prices continue to increase at the rate they have over the last 5 years, the average cable bill will be $140.83 by 2020.

In 2011, the average cable TV bill was $73.35 a month. In 2016, the monthly cost reached a whopping $103.10. That’s an average annual increase of just over 8 percent during the 5-year period, and there’s no reason to believe things will slow down any time soon. Not surprisingly, cable packages are expected to get more expensive this year again, as providers tack on hidden fees to customers’ bills to further drive costs up.
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jazzyjeff

I suspect cord cutting will continue at an even heavier rate. Look at what just happened at ESPN. There are plenty of cheaper options to watch TV, although I myself am still choosing to dish out the high cable fees. In my part of the world were Comcast is trying to buy Verizon, I fear no competition what so ever when it comes to cable TV.
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Tsalagi
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I'm sorry, but bitching about cable fees is rather humorous considering this. If someone had asked me...is paying $159.00 a month too high for your Triple Play (comcast's phone, Internet and tv package)..I would replay that I paid $1150 for my Home Mortgage, $600 for my home equity loan, $400 for my wife's Kia Sorento, approximately $200 for my electric, so no, I wouldn't mind paying that much for three separate services because it'd be the cheapest bill I had.
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Deleted User
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Yeah, Spectrum (former Time Warner) here. $171/mo for all 3 - cable w/2 movie channels and all the sports channels, phone, internet with 300mbps internet.

The key is to go into their store once a year or more and get all the deals they have going.
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Drudge X
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You are a sucker if you pay more than $50 a month for cable, unless you live in a rural area where Comcast or Time Warner is your only provider.
Kate Steinle was separated from her family permanently but leftists didn't seem to mind.
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jazzyjeff

I pay Comcast about 190 a month (triple play), which I often say is higher then my first mortgage. Of course that was over 30 yrs ago. Every year when the promotion expires a bill comes in with a substantial increase. At that point I call and raise a little hell and then they give me another promo. It is a bunch of BS to go through every year.
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Drudge X
Apr 30 2017, 05:16 PM
You are a sucker if you pay more than $50 a month for cable, unless you live in a rural area where Comcast or Time Warner is your only provider.
I live in an urban area and Spectrum (Time Warner) is my only choice.

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Drudge X
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You got more than adult member living in the same household, switch subscription annually when the contract is up, usually a year. Cable companies are always offering deals for "new" subscribers. As long as you do not have a subscription within six months, you are a new subscriber. There's no way I am paying $80-$100 a month for cable. My other bone to pick with cable companies is the commercials. Why are subscribers forced to watch commercials? That defeats the purpose of paying for premium television. If I pay for cable, all commercials should be blanked out unless I want to watch the commercials.

Back in my younger years, CNN, Discovery, ESPN, TNT, AMC, A&E, et al channels are must have. I no longer have the time to glue to a television 3 or 4 hours a day. ESPN just announced a massive layoffs weeks ago. Many people are tuning out live television and rather watch on their own time, not the time scheduled by the networks.
Edited by Drudge X, May 1 2017, 01:14 AM.
Kate Steinle was separated from her family permanently but leftists didn't seem to mind.
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Demagogue
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I have Comcast. The cable portion of my bill is around $85. My total bill is around $150 but that includes internet with 100Mbps download speeds.

The $85 for cable includes their 260 channel package with starz included and the rental ($10/month) of a "Cloud DVR" which allows me to record 6 shows at once and watch another live. This content is all available on any computer in my house including all live channels and recordings. I do pay Comcast for one additional TV box to watch the content on that is $10 of the $85. I may give them that box back since I now know there is a $30 roku box I can put on that TV to get the same content. The downside to that is that the Roku counts against my 1TB data cap and the comcast box does not. The $10/month for the DVR is really the best deal going. I could get a TiVO that did the same thing and Direct TV offers a similar DVR but Comcast is the only one that includes free replacement of the DVR if anything happens to it as part of the $10/mo fee. With a TiVO you will have to buy another and with Direct TV they make you pay an addition insurance fee if you want to be covered.

My home phone service is Vonage. I pay around $14/month after all taxes and fees and I can call anywhere in North America and Mexico with no extra charge.

I have looked at doing the cord cutting thing and I could get away with it if I did not have a family. Considering the channels that I am keeping in order to make the family happy Comcast was the least expensive option.

The trick with comcast though is that you have to fire them every two years and the restart your account. Otherwise they will raise the rates on you. The same is true of Direct TV if you live in an area where Comcast is not an option.
Edited by Demagogue, May 4 2017, 01:18 PM.
People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do them harm.
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Demagogue
May 4 2017, 01:13 PM
The trick with comcast though is that you have to fire them every two years and the restart your account. Otherwise they will raise the rates on you. The same is true of Direct TV if you live in an area where Comcast is not an option.
Same with Spectrum (Time Warner). Once a year I go to the local store and get my plan redone with the new promos. Last month I went from $237/mo (my previous promos had expired) to $171/mo in a half hour there. Again, like you, that $171 encompasses 200mbps internet, cable with HBO and Epix, and phone.

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Drudge X
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How much do you guys watch to justify paying that price? Cut the cord and get Amazon Prime. Free shipping for the entire year and prime tv for $99.
Kate Steinle was separated from her family permanently but leftists didn't seem to mind.
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Demagogue
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Drudge X
May 4 2017, 05:28 PM
How much do you guys watch to justify paying that price? Cut the cord and get Amazon Prime. Free shipping for the entire year and prime tv for $99.
Prime TV is not very good IMHO. At one point I had Hulu, Netflix and Prime TV and in the end I decided that Prime was the weakest contender followed by Hulu.

I have a high end HD antenna so I can get the local channels but if I want a dvr then I have to have a TiVO or some similar product. I want a DVR.

So let's look at the TiVO. They are a couple hundred bucks but you also have to pay $16/month for the service. When I got my cable back originally I chose to do so because I was already paying $75 for my internet and for another $30 I got the the 140 channel package. I had that for a couple years and then changed to a package that had a little more but cost another $20. That had my total bill up to $120 but I was getting stuff like HBO that I would not have had from my TiVO OTA.

Today you can get Sing TV or YouTube TV and get live streaming of many local channels. I am not sure about having the DVR functionality. But let's say I wanted to build the package I have with comcast using something like Youtube TV. What would it cost me?

Well at least $50/month but the problem here is that the $50 does not give me anywhere near the channels that I currently have.

How about Sling TV.

Sling TV is much better because I can actually build a package that looks close to what I have from comcast. It would cost around $65/month. The problem is that their DVR feature does not work with every channel and as you see, I am within $20 of what I already pay for comcast. Bottom line, better off with the comcast service. That is especially the case because Prime TV, Sling TV, Youtube TV etc all would count against my data cap of 1TB. I currently average around 400GB used per month but that is with very, very little of my TV going over the net since my comcast boxes do not count against my data cap.

So you see, in the end the least expensive path for me is cable. If I were a single guy without a wife and children I probably would get a comcast business internet account (no data cap on those accounts) and then stream everything because I would not need half the channels I currently pay for. As things stand, trust me on this, $85/month is a cheap price to have a wife and children who are not complaining about all the channels they don't have anymore.
People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do them harm.
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Deleted User
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^ Hear, hear, D. I watch almost nothing live, I DVR damn near everything so I can watch it when I want to, NOT when it's on. And although my kids are grown for the most part, they STILL hang and watch their TV at my place a lot.
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jazzyjeff

Demagogue
May 4 2017, 01:13 PM
I have Comcast. The cable portion of my bill is around $85. My total bill is around $150 but that includes internet with 100Mbps download speeds.

The $85 for cable includes their 260 channel package with starz included and the rental ($10/month) of a "Cloud DVR" which allows me to record 6 shows at once and watch another live. This content is all available on any computer in my house including all live channels and recordings. I do pay Comcast for one additional TV box to watch the content on that is $10 of the $85. I may give them that box back since I now know there is a $30 roku box I can put on that TV to get the same content. The downside to that is that the Roku counts against my 1TB data cap and the comcast box does not. The $10/month for the DVR is really the best deal going. I could get a TiVO that did the same thing and Direct TV offers a similar DVR but Comcast is the only one that includes free replacement of the DVR if anything happens to it as part of the $10/mo fee. With a TiVO you will have to buy another and with Direct TV they make you pay an addition insurance fee if you want to be covered.

My home phone service is Vonage. I pay around $14/month after all taxes and fees and I can call anywhere in North America and Mexico with no extra charge.

I have looked at doing the cord cutting thing and I could get away with it if I did not have a family. Considering the channels that I am keeping in order to make the family happy Comcast was the least expensive option.

The trick with comcast though is that you have to fire them every two years and the restart your account. Otherwise they will raise the rates on you. The same is true of Direct TV if you live in an area where Comcast is not an option.
Your cable lineup sounds about what I have. My triple play bundle package from Comcast is 130. But when all equip, fees and taxes are added the bill comes to about 190. Have 3HD boxes (non DVR), 1 router, then they have wire maintenance, Phila just recently added a cable franchise fee in which Comcast passes onto their customers.

We once had Vonage. Good service. My wife was able to call home to Jakarta free. Now she is able to do it through her cell provider. Don't even use a landline at all, but Comcast tells me I would save nothing by dropping it.

My son tried Sling and said it was awful. Kept cutting in and out. I hear of others with some sort of "hot stick" where they can watch free cable as long as they have someone elses Comcast ID and password. I myself not into stealing cable.
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Tsalagi
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I don't do the promo shop bit haven't had one in decades figure just pay the normal price and be done with or don't get that level of service. Could never understand the promo whores who'd go from provider to provider to save an extra $50 a month.

Direct to Dish then Fios to Comcast and etc,...etc..

More trouble then it's worth, new wiring, boxes, modems..etc
Edited by Tsalagi, May 5 2017, 07:26 AM.
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Demagogue
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Tsalagi
May 5 2017, 07:22 AM
I don't do the promo shop bit haven't had one in decades figure just pay the normal price and be done with or don't get that level of service. Could never understand the promo whores who'd go from provider to provider to save an extra $50 a month.

Direct to Dish then Fios to Comcast and etc,...etc..

More trouble then it's worth, new wiring, boxes, modems..etc
You don't have to change companies. Just fire the one you have for about a week. Then sign back up. Technically it is supposed to be 60 days off before you can get promotional rates but they never let you go that long.

What I did this last time was cancel my service and then sign up for service under my wife's name. I got the new promotional rate and all new equipment and was never without service (well a couple hours while I changed out the boxes).

The promotional rate is the real rate. Do you got into a car dealership and pay the list price on the car or do you negotiate so that you pay what the car is actually worth? This is no different.

Incidentally, that $50/month essentially pays for my wife's cell phone service. You are talking about saving $1200 over the course of two years.
Edited by Demagogue, May 5 2017, 10:56 AM.
People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do them harm.
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