This is actually true! Channels want shit load of money and since they don't directly charge consumers they get away with it and everyone goes to blame the streaming provider. While they have some power its just the cost of programming that really makes it look like all the blame is on service providers.

yeah, when Dish drops CBS because they think they deserve $15 for every person to be able to watch your local CBS station people don't get pissed at CBS, they get pissed at Dish because they are being assholes and removed the local station. Everyone would think differently if their bill was broken down to show that they are paying something like $20 for Disney w/ ESPN, $15 for Fox Sports, $15 for Fox stations in general, $10 for Comcast Sports Net, $10 for Viacom, $8 for Tunner, $20 for locals, plus $7 fees instead of seeing a $105 tv package (all values are made up to show a point but probably aren't that far off from reality). you don't watch Fox Sports? Tough if your carrier wants to carry the other fox stations they will pay the $15 for fox sports for everyone. Just like if you want any Disney content you will pay the $10 or whatever it is for everyone to have ESPN. You don't want to carry ESPN? Then sure for $45 for all the other stations you can only offer ESPN to certain groups. You also have to have so many people in your top tier or you have to pay a penalty come your next contract for not having enough people paying for the $15 Tunner package included in your $175 lineup vs the $7 one in your $105 lineup. That is assuming they even let you carry the stations as they might just say that going forward you can only get the $15 station package to offer your customers which is now $22 for the next term or sorry you don't offer enough of our stations so we are pulling all of our content. I have seen companies lose the ability to offer certain stations because of stuff like that.

A few weeks back I was at a cable tv provider event and they had a few hours dedicated to talking about the ever growing cost of retransmission.

Wonder how many AT&T executives gave testimony under oath during the merger hearings that the merger would lead to lower prices? If any did, they likely did so after coaching from legal staff. Now that prices have done just the opposite and soon enough after the DOJ lost the case that sudden economic changes can't really be cited as a reason, maybe charging said AT&T executives with perjury for lying under oath about pricing direction after the merger and with conspiracy for planning the lying under oath would be an option. And the attorneys for helping with said crimes.

It depends on why they raised prices. This is where I have always had a little bit of an issue here. For the companies that don't have a dog in the fight, they have no choice but to pay whatever they are bent over the table and told to pay as they get a 11 inch long 3 inch wide dildo shoved up their ass. But Comcast, AT&T.. they own some of the content already. So they are paying themselves. Given that most people have always bitches about the cost to retransmit stations they could lower the cost to something more realistic and keep themselves and their competition in a better position to not lose as many to cord cutting. But they instead keep the same mindset. Which also means that AT&T and Comcast are making more profit than the rest as the money that they pay from one division to the other is still in the hands of the larger company. Now in their case the $10 raise for AT&T could be due to what they are now having to pay other none AT&T owned companies for content. Or It could very well be that they are trying to just increase their profits.
 
yeah, when Dish drops CBS because they think they deserve $15 for every person to be able to watch your local CBS station people don't get pissed at CBS, they get pissed at Dish because they are being assholes and removed the local station. Everyone would think differently if their bill was broken down to show that they are paying something like $20 for Disney w/ ESPN, $15 for Fox Sports, $15 for Fox stations in general, $10 for Comcast Sports Net, $10 for Viacom, $8 for Tunner, $20 for locals, plus $7 fees instead of seeing a $105 tv package (all values are made up to show a point but probably aren't that far off from reality). you don't watch Fox Sports? Tough if your carrier wants to carry the other fox stations they will pay the $15 for fox sports for everyone. Just like if you want any Disney content you will pay the $10 or whatever it is for everyone to have ESPN. You don't want to carry ESPN? Then sure for $45 for all the other stations you can only offer ESPN to certain groups. You also have to have so many people in your top tier or you have to pay a penalty come your next contract for not having enough people paying for the $15 Tunner package included in your $175 lineup vs the $7 one in your $105 lineup. That is assuming they even let you carry the stations as they might just say that going forward you can only get the $15 station package to offer your customers which is now $22 for the next term or sorry you don't offer enough of our stations so we are pulling all of our content. I have seen companies lose the ability to offer certain stations because of stuff like that.

A few weeks back I was at a cable tv provider event and they had a few hours dedicated to talking about the ever growing cost of retransmission.



It depends on why they raised prices. This is where I have always had a little bit of an issue here. For the companies that don't have a dog in the fight, they have no choice but to pay whatever they are bent over the table and told to pay as they get a 11 inch long 3 inch wide dildo shoved up their ass. But Comcast, AT&T.. they own some of the content already. So they are paying themselves. Given that most people have always bitches about the cost to retransmit stations they could lower the cost to something more realistic and keep themselves and their competition in a better position to not lose as many to cord cutting. But they instead keep the same mindset. Which also means that AT&T and Comcast are making more profit than the rest as the money that they pay from one division to the other is still in the hands of the larger company. Now in their case the $10 raise for AT&T could be due to what they are now having to pay other none AT&T owned companies for content. Or It could very well be that they are trying to just increase their profits.


It does look like AT&T dropped channels that they do not own or probably have to pay shit load of money for on the new pacakges. In the business world it sort of make sense in a way to make profits but for consumers it sucks.
 
My wife and I dropped DirectTV when AT&T purchased it.

If there's something on that looks interesting that requires a subscription it's a wait for DVD/Blu-Ray. I can be very patient when I want to be.
 
I was so close to getting this for my parents a month ago and I'm glad they stuck with cable. I'm sure it's more expensive than streaming, but not having to manage multiple subscriptions and the potential line up/price changes makes my life much easier.
 
Supposedly the rules adopted when Wheeler was FCC chair didn't have firm legal standing.

It's debatable, sure, but hard to argue the FCC doesn't have nominal oversight over the Internet when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 specifically gave it the power to advance the deployment of "advanced telecommunications capability", which is taken to mean the Internet. And given the presence of telecommunication firms in the deployment and management of the Internet, it's hard to argue it doesn't meet the definition of a telecommunication service.

Case in point: No ruling was ever made that argued that Wheeler's defining the Internet as a Telecommunication service was incorrect; in fact, the courts ruled the opposite.

Also, saying "Congress can pass a law" is correct, but keep in mind how impossible that is to do these days. Nowadays, most rulemaking is done by Executive appointments to the heads of various commissions for that very reason. [It's shocking how little power Congress actually has these days; it's only major power it hasn't unconditionally given up yet is the budget, and damn Trump is sure trying on that front.]
 
My wife and I dropped DirectTV when AT&T purchased it.

If there's something on that looks interesting that requires a subscription it's a wait for DVD/Blu-Ray. I can be very patient when I want to be.

Or you can just subscribe for a month or two, watch the show, cancel when done, and pay less than a BD for a single season. The whole business angle with subscriptions is that customers tend to form habits or forget to cancel (which was a thing even before Netflix started streaming).
 
Of course it is raising prices. Has the price of a cable or satellite plan EVER gone down. My cable price goes up about every 3 months like clockwork.
 
AT&T also has a ton of so-called "flaws" in their automated system, as well as their billing system.

For instance if you paid off your phone and you want to unlock it, consider yourself lucky if the automated process works. It can take up to two weeks to unlock and iPhone for example, with multiple denials for bullshit reasons.

Their billing system is cumulative, meaning that nothing can come off. If "it" makes a mistake, you won't be even get credited anymore, AT&T customer service will just flat-out lie to you telling you that the next bill will fix the issue and you'll have to pay less money. In what world is this even legal?

If you God forbid have a promotion with them and it expires within a month, they will bill you at the full price a month ahead.

I'm in the process of getting rid of their wireless service, next on the chopping block is U-Verse.

Raising the price by $10 is nothing compared to the croocked ways they operate their "automated" billing system.

Don't get me started on the malware and spyware that the AT&T branded Samsung Galaxy phones ship with. The cherry on top is that you will also pay for the data usage that is generated due to AT&T collecting data on you!

If you're currently an AT&T customer that's deeply unhappy with their service and you can't get through to them, file a BBB and an FTC complaint to begin with. The BBB had a character limit for complaints, but in an FTC complaint you can include technical data about how AT&T is cheating you out of money while spying on you at the same time.

AT&T is the worse bottom feeding telecom corp. in America, they are the worse. And they are in debt up to their eyeballs, so if you're currently an AT&T customer like I am, you can rest assured that they will suck as much money as they can out of you.
 
Then they need an injunction to break them apart for not following guidelines or throw the entire board of directors including CEO andf CFO in Jail for a month for lying to the DOJ, when the hell is the Judicial branch going to gain a set of Balls again and start holding corps accountable.
 
Then they need an injunction to break them apart for not following guidelines or throw the entire board of directors including CEO andf CFO in Jail for a month for lying to the DOJ, when the hell is the Judicial branch going to gain a set of Balls again and start holding corps accountable.

For a month, really?
 
I'm done... I wasn't happy about the last increase (from $35 to $40), and I've been constantly irritated that I have to use Chrome as a browser to use DTVN on a PC. They did up the streams from 2 to 3, which I appreciated. That is the only reason we stayed after the last price increase (which really doesn't seem so long ago).

I'll miss the news channels, but I there are a ton of sites that stream those (just bring an ad-blocker). As for sports, reddit streams takes care of all that.

DirectTV now is about the only one that offers Discovery channel. That is why I dropped Sling for Direct TV NOW...
Philo has Discovery as part of the $16 package. If you want Discovery Family and Discovery Life, those are included in the $20 package.
 
Yes that certainly won't cause more people to switch to another service. The reverse incentive drives me nuts, the longer you stay with a service provider the more they charge you.
lol, that's only if you're lucky to have more available.
Back in the day we only had Time Warner for internet as GTE/Verizon didn't have DSL or whatever their high speed was, forgot it's name, at the time when I lived in an apartment.
 
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lol, that's only if you're lucky to have more available.
Back in the day we only had Time Warner for internet as GTE/Verizon didn't DSL or whatever their high speed was, forgot it's name, at the time when I lived in an apartment.

Yea for me I am on spektrum 100mbit. My other choices are ATT dsl 20mbit or VIASAT 25mbit satellite. So when spektrum raises their prices, not much I can really do about it.

And prices stagger, a raise in tv prices next is internet. This then allows the competition to raise prices as well.
 
Yea for me I am on spektrum 100mbit. My other choices are ATT dsl 20mbit or VIASAT 25mbit satellite. So when spektrum raises their prices, not much I can really do about it.

And prices stagger, a raise in tv prices next is internet. This then allows the competition to raise prices as well.

I didn't think spectrum even had 100mb anymore, where I live 200mb is the min.
 
Remmeber everyone, less competition leads to higher prices.

Seriously, it's becoming clear Congress needs to pass a new anti-trust law that essentially makes being too large (say, greater then 20% reach in any market segment) itself monopolistic. So long as it's OK for just a handful of companies to "nominally" compete, we're going to get more and more of this.

I think case specific regulation is better. In the case of ISPs, clearly there isn't much competition.
 
I think case specific regulation is better. In the case of ISPs, clearly there isn't much competition.

Which is normal in most developed industries.

Take Airlines; one Airline adds a new fee to raise some cash, and every other airline, without exception, adopts the same fee within a week. The businesses understand there's no reason to engage in a price war; they instead have an implicit agreement to not engage in price wars, and not to step on eachothers defined territories.
 
Netflix and hulu with a tv antenna to pick up the local channels, have not had cable in probably 5 years... it really to bad I cant cut them out completely needing there internet connection...
 
I think case specific regulation is better. In the case of ISPs, clearly there isn't much competition.

Keep in mind that the government is the one that sets the prices for DSL which is regulated and tariffed. Then keep in mind that everyone bitches that DSL cost too much compared to cable (none regulated) for what you get.
 
wow.. so these two new packages went into effect today... They are absolutely horrible...
Who are the idiots coming up with this stuff... how are they going to be profitable? DTVNOw is going to have a mass exodus of subscribers
 
I just cancelled today. Of course, I was billed for the current month 3 days ago. At least I'll still have access until then, but I'd much rather have my $40 back. Philo is good so far. I think it's encouraging that they've been at $16 since they started in 2016. The family is happy they have Discovery, which is all that really matters to them.

I hope this hurts AT&T's bottom line. Hopefully enough people cancel to make it not worth their while. The whole fucking thing is stupid. I was really hoping that streaming would be more of an "a la carte" thing, but it's just the same old crap as it's always been... a million channels you don't need (and pay for), then having to get a higher package with another half million channels you're going to watch, just to get the one channel that you want and is not included in the lower tier.
 
The only thing that is changing is the pipe to get the channels
I just do not understand why Cable doesnt listen. We want to pick our own channels and will be willing to pay 5.00/month for each one selected. Its not that hard to incorporate.
 
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