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Comcast's regional sports network fees are also going up, as are set-top rental charges
The number of U.S. consumers subscribing to pay TV and watching broadcast TV continues to decline, but that isn't keeping the No. 1 American cable operator from once again jacking up its broadcast TV surcharge
Comcast last week began giving its remaining 16.6 million video customers a heads-up that the fee they pay to receive local broadcast channels via their Xfinity TV subscription is going up as much as $7 a month.
As blogger Phil Swann noted, users in Taunton, Massachusetts will see their broadcast TV surcharge spike from $18.65 - $26 a month, effective Dec. 20. (Yup, 26 bucks a month for content you can get for free over the airwaves.)
Comcast, of course, is blaming the increase on ever-climbing broadcast retr@nsmission fees it has to pay to local stations. The cable operator said that, on average, its customers will experience broadcast fee increases in the 3.8% range
"TV networks and other video programmers continue to raise their prices, with broadcast television and sports being the biggest drivers of increases in customers’ bills," Comcast said in a statement.
Surcharges for regional sports networks are also going up for Comcast pay TV customers (by less than a dollar a month in most cases). And lease fees for set-tops are also increasing by about $1.50 a month.
Notably, these fees aren't included in the advertised price for pay TV service
So a customer agreeing to pay $60 a month for Comcast's 125+ channel "Popular TV" tier will end up shelling out well over $100 a month, once surcharges, CPE fees and taxes are factored in the bill.
Comcast already announced earlier that its broadband service tiers will increase in prices anywhere from $2 - $7 a month.
Comcast lost 562,000 pay TV customers in the third quarter, with its year-over-year cord-cutting pacing at 10.6%