8 ms·

I dislike price rises, and related I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidiz

I dislike price rises, and related I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. That being said, as someone who helped family move off of cable in the last year, this is only inching closer to cable's headline pricing which is largely a fiction. All the big four providers of cable/satellite have the following pricing: - Advertised discount price (12-24 month contract) - Normal price - Taxes & Fees Sometimes you can keep threatening to cancel, take out a new 12-24 month contract, and keep the "discounted" price. But in my experience each discount is less and less generous relative to what they're advertising. Then there are taxes & fees. The taxes are, well, taxes and also apply to streaming TV. But a lot of the "fees" have nothing at all to do with government. They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. These include, but not limited to: - Equipment fee (main box cannot be avoided, additional boxes can be) - Broadcast TV Fee + Regional Sports Fee (unavoidable) - HD TV Fee (often if your equipment SUPPORTS HD then you are required to pay it) - Administrative/Convenience Fees (rarely this can be reduced by jumping through hoops e.g. pay by paper check) These can easily add $20 to your bill. If your contract doesn't allow monthly increases, that can sometimes not apply to fees (either increases to existing or new ones).

owlninja 4y ago
All my regional sports got moved to Bally's and my subscription price to Hulu did not change :(
- karlshea 4y ago
  Now I pay $80 a year for MLS Season Pass, which is about a month of Hulu Live TV. And I won’t have to see shitty compressed ESPN+ or Bally streams for a decade.
  - pdwetz 4y ago
    Does that have blackouts for "local" teams? I'm 1-2 hours (traffic depending) from the Mets and MLB subscription in the past was useless for live games due to blackout restrictions.
    - skipwalker 4y ago
      No local blackouts for the new AppleTV MLS deal.
jghn 4y ago
Exactly. I had a 24 month special deal expiring recently and switched to YouTube TV. I kept the same internet plan, and between that, YouTube, and Netflix (it was free withy Old deal) I’m still paying about $50 (soon to be 40ish) lees per month than I had on the special deal price
pelagicAustral 4y ago
> I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. In this line, I've been paying Fanatiz for a while and I absolutely vouch for their service. It was a godsend to me, since I live in a remote area and have no access to a good cable package. I can simply select the leagues I want to watch and pay only for those. It is an absolute delight to deal with their business model. I don't want to pay 100 bucks for every single league on every single country, I literally just want to watch 4 matches a month, why should I pay more than 20 bucks?
grecy 4y ago
> They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. I worked for a Telco (that also did Cable TV). The marketing team would literally sit around a conference table and discuss how they were going to raise quarterly revenue by $amount so they would get their bonuses. Someone would suggest a connection fee. Or a disconnection fee. Or a change service fee, increase existing fee, call out fee, paper bill fee, credit card change fee, new equipment fee,..... They really would sit around and invent this stuff purely to increase revenue, because that was the goal.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Why do you think it’s unique to cable that a for profit company wants to increase its profit?
  - grecy 4y ago
    Oh, I don't think it's unique to cable, but I do think they're particularly brazen about it and make no attempt to hide the fact they just invent new fees and charges every year for no reason other than to boost profit.
funstuff007 4y ago
Really? I've always felt it was the ESPN viewer subsidizing the rest of the cable universe. ESPN is basically the only premium service you can't go over the top on. However, Iger says he's considering it.
- dahdum 4y ago
  ESPN is the most expensive channel by far and has been forced bundling for decades. They sued Verizon for offering basic packages without ESPN a while back, and have been rightfully terrified of consumer choice. Almost every cable subscriber was forced to pay the ESPN tax. Paying $100+/yr for a channel I’ve never watched or cared about is a big reason why I cut the cord. They certainly aren’t “subsidizing” anything.
  - funstuff007 4y ago
    I hear you what you are saying, but the counter argument remains: The only way you can get ESPN is purchase ESPN (plus the rest of basic cable). For the most part, you can buy basic cable over the top (sans ESPN). So given the state of play, it seems the inelastic demand for ESPN and its one purchase venue is the subsidizer.
    - dahdum 4y ago
      Until relatively recently you could not easily buy cable without ESPN, because ESPN would refuse all contracts that didn’t include it in the basic package, along with all the other channels people do want they could attach to it. It’s only inelastic to the fraction of “subscribers” that watch it, the rest would drop it instantly if they could save the $10/month.
jpmoral 4y ago
Not sure if it's law but in Australia providers (phone, Internet, streaming, etc.) display what the actual up-front and ongoing costs are, inclusive of fees, taxes, and one-time costs (e.g. modems).
nitwit005 4y ago
> Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. They're also making the sports fans subsidize the non-sports content. While it's generally illegal to charge people for nothing, businesses always try to sell things that are as close as possible to nothing: Channels you don't want, mobile phone time you won't use, etc.
mixdup 4y ago
The broadcast TV fee in Atlanta on Comcast alone is $20 now

owlninja 4y ago

All my regional sports got moved to Bally's and my subscription price to Hulu did not change :(

karlshea 4y ago
Now I pay $80 a year for MLS Season Pass, which is about a month of Hulu Live TV. And I won’t have to see shitty compressed ESPN+ or Bally streams for a decade.
- pdwetz 4y ago
  Does that have blackouts for "local" teams? I'm 1-2 hours (traffic depending) from the Mets and MLB subscription in the past was useless for live games due to blackout restrictions.
  - skipwalker 4y ago
    No local blackouts for the new AppleTV MLS deal.

jghn 4y ago

Exactly. I had a 24 month special deal expiring recently and switched to YouTube TV. I kept the same internet plan, and between that, YouTube, and Netflix (it was free withy Old deal) I’m still paying about $50 (soon to be 40ish) lees per month than I had on the special deal price

pelagicAustral 4y ago

> I dislike paying for expensive sports licensing I don't watch. In this line, I've been paying Fanatiz for a while and I absolutely vouch for their service. It was a godsend to me, since I live in a remote area and have no access to a good cable package. I can simply select the leagues I want to watch and pay only for those. It is an absolute delight to deal with their business model. I don't want to pay 100 bucks for every single league on every single country, I literally just want to watch 4 matches a month, why should I pay more than 20 bucks?

grecy 4y ago

> They're just unavoidable parts of the service's price that the cable/satellite vendors split off to misrepresent the costs. I worked for a Telco (that also did Cable TV). The marketing team would literally sit around a conference table and discuss how they were going to raise quarterly revenue by $amount so they would get their bonuses. Someone would suggest a connection fee. Or a disconnection fee. Or a change service fee, increase existing fee, call out fee, paper bill fee, credit card change fee, new equipment fee,..... They really would sit around and invent this stuff purely to increase revenue, because that was the goal.

scarface74 4y ago
Why do you think it’s unique to cable that a for profit company wants to increase its profit?
- grecy 4y ago
  Oh, I don't think it's unique to cable, but I do think they're particularly brazen about it and make no attempt to hide the fact they just invent new fees and charges every year for no reason other than to boost profit.

funstuff007 4y ago

Really? I've always felt it was the ESPN viewer subsidizing the rest of the cable universe. ESPN is basically the only premium service you can't go over the top on. However, Iger says he's considering it.

dahdum 4y ago
ESPN is the most expensive channel by far and has been forced bundling for decades. They sued Verizon for offering basic packages without ESPN a while back, and have been rightfully terrified of consumer choice. Almost every cable subscriber was forced to pay the ESPN tax. Paying $100+/yr for a channel I’ve never watched or cared about is a big reason why I cut the cord. They certainly aren’t “subsidizing” anything.
- funstuff007 4y ago
  I hear you what you are saying, but the counter argument remains: The only way you can get ESPN is purchase ESPN (plus the rest of basic cable). For the most part, you can buy basic cable over the top (sans ESPN). So given the state of play, it seems the inelastic demand for ESPN and its one purchase venue is the subsidizer.
  - dahdum 4y ago
    Until relatively recently you could not easily buy cable without ESPN, because ESPN would refuse all contracts that didn’t include it in the basic package, along with all the other channels people do want they could attach to it. It’s only inelastic to the fraction of “subscribers” that watch it, the rest would drop it instantly if they could save the $10/month.

jpmoral 4y ago

Not sure if it's law but in Australia providers (phone, Internet, streaming, etc.) display what the actual up-front and ongoing costs are, inclusive of fees, taxes, and one-time costs (e.g. modems).

nitwit005 4y ago

> Sports fans should pay for sports instead of everyone subsidizing it. They're also making the sports fans subsidize the non-sports content. While it's generally illegal to charge people for nothing, businesses always try to sell things that are as close as possible to nothing: Channels you don't want, mobile phone time you won't use, etc.

mixdup 4y ago

The broadcast TV fee in Atlanta on Comcast alone is $20 now